Red Lobster — Restaurant in Eugene

As with all franchised establishments, it was uniformly decorated. Which isn’t a bad thing just a bit mundane. Personally I prefer to see the unique ambience of an establishment that reflects the staff. However, It was very clean we went during the lull of service between the lunch and dinner rushes. Our server was polite, but struggled to multitask between tables. I’m not sure if that is a typical representation of a fully trained server there or not. Everyone is entitled to a bad day, but sometimes it’s not their fault. The reason I say this, is we all know what red lobster is, we know what food they serve. The portions are always going to be consistent, as well as the menu in general. If that so happens to be where you like to eat there’s no surprises waiting for you on the culinary side. Which means I would expect service to accompany the menu with similar characteristics. Consistent and uniform. I believe they may be relying to heavily on the consistency of their menu, and falling short in service to support it. As long as you have patience, and company to keep you occupied. I’m positive you’d have a wonderful experience. My all you can eat shrimp was okay. The server was kind of rude about bringing the second round out, then forgot one. Not the hill i wanted to die on though. The “scampi” was definitely just shrimp thrown in a sizzler with a glob of let’s call it flavored butter. Being labeled scampi, I would just imagine them being cooked in a garlic heavy, butter rich, white wine reduction. Even if it is served with out pasta. The grilled shrimp, lacked flavor and were much too small to be cooked on such a hot grill. The fried shrimp were okay. My side of broccoli appeared to be seasoned before cooking. Since they were lightly steamed any flavor they could have had was steamed clean off it. I had one of their fancy lemonades which was good. Definitely not fresh squeezed, and the flavor syrup was all in the bottom half of the drink. She could have at least stirred it for me. All in all I believe this restaurant could be vastly improved with just a touch of love and attention to detail. I do apologize I do my best to point out the positives, and don’t like leaving reviews like this. I just had high expectations because it’s...

Well… If I could give zero stars I would. I don’t Usually leave reviews, however, in this circumstance, I’ll definitely make an exception. We waited for about 10 minutes to even be acknowledged after walking in the door. I saw what looked like the manager talking with a friend maybe (?) And so I coughed loudly to maybe alert her that we were there. She glanced over, continued her conversation, and then slowly sauntered over. Then she asked us if we had been helped yet, as if the answer wasn’t blatantly clear. She got us to a table. About five minutes later, a woman walked by our table and mentioned that she’d be back to help us in a minute. 10 minutes later, I stood up to make eye contact with someone and finally saw our server who said that she was sorry and she’s the only one there and was very busy. There were three other tables at that point. I mentioned we just would like at least some water to start. Without bringing water, she came to our table a few minutes later and asked if she could get us anything to drink. It went downhill from there. I think she told us she’d be back in a minute five or six times throughout our meal. The food was awful. Like so awful I came home and threw it all up awful. As we left the restaurant The same woman who seemed to be the manager was standing next to a car talking to her friend who is in the driver seat right by the front door. She gave us a weird look and continue talking to her friend as we loaded the kids into the car to leave. As we’re packing up the car, she let a cigarette right in front of the entrance, still standing by her friend in her car and watched us drive off as she smoked. The whole experience was kind of laughable. Why is the manager outside smoking, right in front of the entrance, while her staff is inside, struggling to maintain service?...

We had a hard time deciding where in Eugene we wanted to have dinner. Red Lobster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2024 due to financial difficulties, including high debt, location closures, and a decline in customer traffic and are trying to rebuild the structure and they closed many locations down. We decided to go here to enjoy seafood for the evening and show support.

Food was really good! We splurged this week on some good food! We haven’t had lobster in a long time! Cheddar Bay biscuits came out nice and hot and were just as good as I could remember from the last time we were here. Calamari was a nice portion with a marinara dipping sauce and jalapeño ranch sauce. Then we ordered Ultimate Feast that came with your choices of either snow crab, steak, lobster, etc and then your choice of different methods of cooked shrimp. We chose sautéed shrimp, coconut shrimp, snow crab, and steak. You get to choose two sides- mashed potatoes and we upgraded to grilled asparagus. Potatoes were good, asparagus wasn’t worth the $4 up charge- they were dry, overcooked and sad. We also got the Mariners Boil bag that was a bag full of 1 lobster tail, garlic butter shrimp, snow crab legs, 2 corn on the cob, and lots of baby red potatoes. Each feast pack is about $50. Both were really good. Our family of 5 ate everything we ordered except mashed potatoes and asparagus. Excellent food, just not a place a family can afford to go out to all the time. Our server was nice, nice clean environment, plenty of parking while we visited (there wasn’t many people in here on a Saturday night- maybe 2-3 other tables) and the kids enjoyed having the coloring sheets and looking at the lobsters in the tank. We had a great time and a delicious meal! We will...