Red Lobster — Restaurant in Austin

We are what they call repeat customers. To prove that, my family was at our neighborhood Red Lobster on South Lamar on Friday and 2 days later on Sunday evening. We are also generational customers. My parents would take me there on special occasion family events at this Red Lobster. And, now that I have a family & we live nearby, and my daughter loves crabs, we are there 1-3x per quarter. Red Lobster is our happy place.

Paul was our server on Friday. You could tell he was experienced, knowledgeable, and he loved the food. He made us feel welcomed, he took care of my family, and he made our night special. The food was great and the pace of the meal was on point. 5 star dinner experience.

Now Sunday was a different experience.

I will preface that we were seated at 8:25pm and that the restaurant’s posted closing hours is 9:00pm. Once we were seated our server immediately did not make us feel welcomed by saying what I took as a passive aggressive statement, “You slipped in 30 minutes before we close and I am ready to go home. Just kidding”. The comment would have faded into nothingness if we weren’t reminded that the staff was ready to go home with every order. We ordered tea and the server notified us that they already poured it out for the evening. We ordered our meal and requested broccoli and the server told us they were not preparing any more broccoli for the evening. We did want some greens as our 2nd side and that forced us to pay the “up charge” for the salad, no big deal usually. A few minutes later our server returned and told us that the kitchen already packed up the “salad bar”. Our reaction was a mixture of humorous disappointment due to the series of shortcomings of the early pre-closing events.

The main reason I am posting is from the lack of resilience in our server. When we asked if we could replace our salad with the Brussels sprouts at no up-charge, a fair question in light of the free side options being not available, our server took our request as an aggressive demand. The server told us that they did not like our tone and that they were getting a manager as they are just following the rules. For context, I have 3 kids and I know when and how to use tone as a communication tool, and in this instance there was no aggressive tone. I was disappointed, but not upset.

I do empathize with the server as I could tell the table behind us was not happy with their experience. I could overhear that, they too, were missing food & beverage items and conveyed the lack of attentiveness from the server.

We waited for the manager while the server ghosted us for the remaining of the evening while performing other closing duties. The manager never showed up. We got the message. We were not welcomed. I left cash on the table to pay for our beverages and we left.

What made the situation worse was that my daughter was upset as she did not get her crab legs and my family left without dinner at 9 in the evening.

I have enough brand loyalty as a customer with Red Lobster to not let one bad night tarnish future experiences. If the management is reading this, I would suggest scripting your staff with the appropriate statements when you seat a table 35 minutes before closing so as to set the appropriate expectations for the customer. We could have easily taken that information at the hostess stand and revisited another day at a better time for the restaurant.

I get it, I used to work in F&B for 6 years and I know that feeling of seating a table shortly before closing. But, I also know that feeling of my manager wanting to take care of the guests and thanking the kitchen for staying later.

When we come back, we will request...

PSA ANNOUNCEMENT; SHORTAGE OF RICE @Red Lobster, Beware the Unlimited Shrimp Promo! [Get the Shrimp Skewer's First Order cause They Won't Give You Rice After]

Red Lobster is one of my favorite places to go to, but this particular location's service was absolutely disappointing.

Having exercised the promo above "before" with my referral, it was an absolute blast. My friend and I were able to try all the dishes to their completion, and if either of us wanted a refill of that-said dish (particularly the Garlic Shrimp Skewer) we would get, JUST shrimp... FAIR

However, my next visit shortly after, with another referral, I was unaware, let alone NOT informed that I would have to order Garlic Shrimp Skewer FIRST, in order to get rice with it. My friend had ordered shrimp skewer's first, but that was THEIR order, THEIR meal to enjoy. When I ordered my FIRST experience with this dish (which I was very excited for-hadn't eaten all day and save the best for last, right?), they gave me the shrimp WITHOUT RICE. Now... I understand that for the promo, it's unlimited SHRIMP, but why would you give complete dishes to one person, and not the other if 1)THAT WAS NOT EXPLAINED IN THE MENU NOR BY THE SERVER & 2) IT'S NOT A REFILL

I was then told by the waiter that because I did not order the skewer's "first" I was not able to have rice with the shrimp because anything after the first order was a refill.... so tell me this... My first order was Shrimp Scampi & Shrimp Linguini Alfredo... If my second order was Shrimp Scampi, would it come without butter? Or if I ordered Shrimp Linguini Alfredo, would it come without Linguini or the ALFREDO?! If I ordered Coconut Shrimp for my second order, would it come without the COCONUT?!!!

I had a word with the waiter AND the manager, and both proposed illogical statements that didn't coincide with a simple question... Where's the rice? Which they THEN proceeded to tell me that I had to pay EXTRA for rice, when IT ALREADY COMES WITH THE DISH ITSELF!!!!

It was also gravely misadvertised by the waiter that the deal "comes with a side" (=free with side, apart of meal), however we were still charged for our side. It wasn't the payment that was the issue but it was what was advertised or encouraged that grinded my gears...

Red Lobster got great deals, but maybe you all should invest in more rice, because the shrimp skewer's are delicious but not without the rice.

The staff was unaccommodating, unsympathetic, passive, and made me feel very embarrassed and disgusted with my experience. It's not just about rice, it's about Restaurants Instilling...

Avoid this place like the plague. I was given food poisoning. Husband and I were gifted a gift card, and decided why not? Free food? Sure? What could go wrong. Well.. lots of things. It was a red flag that it was dead at 12:30pm on a Sunday, but we still went with it. It took almost 15 minutes to be greeted by the server (he had only one other table in his section and it was two people) took another 10 minutes to get our drinks (and even that was brought out wrong-I said I wanted a lime on the rocks with salt, and he quite literally brought me a glass with just ice, a lime, and salt.....) once I clarified what I wanted the margarita was just ice and margarita mix and we paid a whopping almost 8 bucks for that. My salad had tons of brown lettuce, and was purposely tried to be hidden by throwing globs of dressing on top (I’ve been in the food industry for years, I know what they were doing) so I could barely finish that. Food came out almost an hour later ice cold. I ordered the admirals feast, the husband ordered the coconut shrimp, and added a lobster tail. I immediately told my husband the lobster tail looks like rubber and sure enough it was. I had one bite of each thing on my plate and said I was done because it was all chewy. I had to spit everything back into a napkin (this is a 20 dollar plate mind you) It’s all clearly very frozen and thrown into a fryer. I get it. But the thing that bothered me the most was when we received our food our condiments all had a thick film overtop which shows it sat under a heat lamp for a LONG time. So maybe our food shouldn’t have arrived that hour late after all? The biggest kicker was the server took our card and was gone for 30 minutes. We watched him pace, on his phone, stand around, and finally had to request a manager to get our card back. Like I said I’ve been in the industry for a very long time so we still left a tip, and was nice about it, but then the manager was extremely awkward and hovered our table making excuses-blocking us in the booth, and trying to explain why everything was so bad. Oh, and yeah, next morning woke up with food poisoning. I had only that meal the entire day so I know it was Red Lobster. Eat at...