Red Lobster — Restaurant in Dothan

My husband and I take my mother out for dinner every week and we decided to give Red Lobster a try- none of us had been to Red Lobster in over 10 years, and the endless shrimp commercials caught our attention. The reason for 2 stars instead of 1 is because the hostess was wonderful and she smiled and greeted the guests as if she cared. We did wait 25 minutes - and that's what we were told we would wait. We were taken to a booth that looked out over the parking lot and highway. The menu is very confusing. No one really explained anything to us. Katylynn was our server and appeared at the booth asking what we would like to get us started. We told her we didn't know-she gave us some time. Without going into minute detail and sounding critical, the whole experience felt "bumpy". There was nothing that flowed smoothly. We didn't get bread until our food arrived. My mother drinks coffee and the first cup was cold, but Katylynn was adamant that it was hot when she brought it. When we were placing our order, there was not much information or help coming from Katylynn- we finally decided on the coconut shrimp for my mother, Walt fried shrimp for my husband and after asking a lot of questions, found out that shrimp scampi was offered as a lunch portion, so I ordered it. One side comes with each entrée, mother tried the mashed sweet potatoes (there's an additional charge for this of $1.99) even though it is a listed "side". I got the broccoli and my husband got a baked potato. When we looked at the endless shrimp selection, it did not convince us that $18.99 a person was reasonable for small, seasoned shrimp. Entrees weren't much better, the coconut shrimp is $17 and the Walt shrimp is $15. My lunch portion was $10. I wanted a glass of chardonnay with my meal and I asked what the house wine was and the server said Kendall Jackson at first and made sure I knew it was $10 for 6 ounces, then she asked me, is that ok? And I sad no. What else do you have? She then mentioned Sutter Home for $6 and I told her that would be fine. Salads arrive and are good and fresh- I'm not a salad person, but these were good and we were encouraged. Still no bread and had not seen our server since the salads were delivered. When we finished, she returned to bus the table and bring us bread (somewhat warm). When servers begin asking me to bus my own table for them, I become offended. Instead of excusing herself and reaching over to get the dishes, she was asking my mother to please pick those up and hand them to her. Mother had a stroke and her right hand doesn't work well and the server noticed this because when mother mentioned how heavy it was, she replied, "yes, these are real china pates". We got our food. Thank goodness the salad was good. Coconut shrimp looked pretty, was overcooked and had no flavor at all. The mashed sweet potatoes were good. The Walt shrimp was the worst fired shrimp I've had in a long time, again overcooked and just not good. I watched my husband struggle with his baked potato because it was tough and...overcooked. My scampi had a good flavor, that's all. It was a total of 7 1/2 very small shrimp floating in garlic butter and herbs. The broccoli was old, overcooked and looked like someone might have tried to eat it once and decided not to. When the server finally did return to check on us, I told her about the broccoli and she looks at it and says what's wrong with it? The evening really wasn't 'fixable' after this. We had asked for more bread to have with our dinner and it finally came right before we were ready to go. The manager delivered it - he never asked us if we enjoyed the meal, were happy, unhappy.....nothing. He simply dropped off the bread and left. I have no problem paying for quality, but when you have to pay for poor service, overcooked food and a manager that doesn't feel it's important to address.....then it's a problem. Red Lobster did not regain our patronage. The 2nd star was for the salad...

I dined at your restaurant in Dothan, Al on 10/20/2019 for a birthday dinner. Unfortunately, I had a bad experience and my entire family was highly upset. We arrived at around 7:30pm, there were 12 guest at first, I knew exactly what I wanted to order since you have the endless shrimp available right now. I was then told that I couldn't go ahead and place my order until everyone received their drinks, which was odd to me. I then waited 1 hour for a water with lemon and 2 alcoholic beverages, one for my husband. They had a new waiter serving over 12 people at the moment, which I didn't understand, with the help of a co-worker, I didn't catch his or her name. The guy waiter was more seasoned and I expected more from him considering that, and they both had our orders all mixed up and couldn't remember who ordered what. My grandparents are very old and got their food last. My grandfather ordered the shrimp linguine and wasn't told that they were out of that until everyone has received their food. No one could actually order what they really wanted due to them running out of broccoli and baked potatoes. After receiving our food we were concerned about being able to still have our endless shrimp and the guy waiter assured us that they will stay open until we finished our dine out. Soon after that a woman named STELLA came to our table suggesting we eat our food like Speedy Gonzalez because they were to close in 5 minutes. That comment didn't sit well with everyone. Once my grandfather realized he wasn't getting any food he no longer wanted to eat anymore, so when we spoke with the guy waiter about it he had an attitude. The manager was called to our table and instead of apologizing about the issue at hand she blamed it on the new waiter for not telling us they were out of linguine. After a while the birthday girl was irritated with our service and an employee of the name Stella chimed in on the conversation she was having with the manager. They were arguing back and fourth WITH A CUSTOMER! The birthday girl said she was unsatisfied with the service and was ready to go at that point and Stella rudely said "I'm not surprised". That was very unprofessional of your employees, your food is already high and that location is very outdated. We didn't take time out of our day to go to a restaurant and be treated with classless service and disrespect. We picked RED LOBSTERS for a reason.I am beyond disappointed! I will never come back to this...

We took the family to Red Lobster in Dothan to celebrate a Birthday AND our 17th Anniversary. Our first interaction was with a man walking to the front door with a bag of food, while we were taking a quick picture at the front door.. I said, 'oh thank you, you shouldn't have' as if he were bringing us the food.. just as a funny way to engage him. He looked at me and sternly said, 'Yeah, you wish', then proceeded to photo bomb our anniversary pic !! Nice.

The waitress was polite and we got a good table... we ordered the Garlic Butter Snow Crab and Cajun Snow Crab - both which were just ok, not great, but overcooked and with small legs, though it was crab and we were grateful :D The butter, if that's what it was, was 'off'... tasted weird, like old, or oil and not butter.

I went to wash my hands and saw there was no soap in the mens room.. so I let the waitress know. She told the Bartender, who said it was someone else's job (he turned out to be the same man that we met at the door, with the same manners for the staff that he had with us). Not sure where that went.. ended up waiting 15-20 mins, while checking the mens room a couple of times to find the soap still not refilled. I did see a couple male staff use the restroom and return to the kitchen, without using soap, obviously :( not good.

In the end, my wife went into the ladies restroom and got some soap in her hand, transferred it to mine and I was able to wash my hands.

During this time the manager, I presume, sat down behind us with a full plate of yummy looking seafood... though she didn't take her eyes of the plate for us to connect and ask if she would see if the soap was refilled. oh well, didn't feel like sticking around and making a bigger deal of it, I'd already asked 3 times..

Overall, very disappointed in the experience and the food. The service was marginal at best and the food was less so.. spending well over $120 for the meals to get small, overcooked crab legs with 'butter' that tasted like the butter oil they use at move theaters for 'buttered' popcorn, it was not pleasant.

Next time we know to order just the steamed crab... though I doubt we will return to this location.

(NOTE: Re posted under personal acct., was originally posted under...