Red Lobster — Restaurant in Fayetteville

Hello Google Family, I need help to make sense of this situation. Can you tell me why would a company that has filed for bankruptcy and closing multiple locations in the US would ban my senior parents from the Fayetteville, NC location because of biscuits! Does that make sense? Well, here is the story. My parents have been taking advantage of the weekly specials at Red Lobster since I told them about it last December/ the first of January. We are avid seafood lovers. We were very disappointed when Joe's Crab Shack closed. So that is one of Red Lobster's competition out of the way. There still is a lot of competition in Fayetteville, like Tasty Crab, Hook & Reel and Juicy Crab, just to name a few, but my family still chose Red Lobster. How can you beat the deal of 1lb snow crab legs with one side and biscuits? As a Platinum rewards member, this interaction has bothered me royally. My father ordered the crab leg special for him and mother. When my father picked up the order, the manager said that everything was in the bag. Well, while driving 20 minutes towards our home, something told my dad to pull over and check the bag. When he did before getting to our home, guess what... no biscuits. He called the manager to inform her that he was coming back to get the biscuits he purchased. She kept saying it was in the bag. My dad gets to the restaurant and shows them the bag. The manager then proceeds to infatically call my dad a liar by insinuating that he had the biscuits already. So she decided to offer him two. Now, mind you, the special includes two biscuits with each order. My dad insisted on getting the four biscuits he paid for. Fast forward to last night. Again, after numerous orders, since the promotion began being incorrect, my parents called in an order for the crab leg special. This time, they are told by an employee that they were instructed not to take any orders from him... Really Now! That's what we doing, Red Lobster. Can someone tell me what happened to old adage "the customer is always right"? First, you call my senior dad a liar over some biscuits that can be brought from the grocery store. Then, no one has the respect to call and get their side of the story. The manager was wrong and tried to CYA, and in the process, they banned my senior parents for ordering at Red Lobster. As you can imagine, this DOES not sit well with this Platinum member daughter. This Red Lobster has never gotten the order correct. One minute, they give my parents biscuits, dessert and remake their order because it is wrong. And now you want to tell them we don't want your money anymore. With all the competition in the city and the list of bankruptcy closures updating every week. The Fayetteville, NC Red Lobster, needs to be more grateful that anyone still wants to patronize their restaurant. I really feel my parents are owed a call, an apology, and an offer to continue patronizing the Fayetteville, NC Red Lobster if they desire. Which I don't know why they would. This has also given me pause as a rewards member. Red Lobster needs to consider how much money a Platinum member spends.... think about and get back to me! Oh, the picture below is what they give for potatoes. They forgot that in my parents' order and that is what they gave them last night. Really! My family has tried to keep patronizing Red Lobster as a whole. My 88 year old grandmother and the 20+ family members boycotted Red Lobster for over 2 years because of their lack of exceptional service when it comes to large parties. Again, my parents are forgiving and patient people, but this is the last straw!

Update!! I want to give a sincere and appreciative Thank You to Regional Manager Adrian Moore. We received a call, and it was a great conversation. This situation was given the attention and care needed to make my parents, especially my father whole. I leave it to God and parents if they decide to patronize the Fayetteville, NC Red Lobster in the future. Again, I truly appreciate Adrian and Red Lobster is very lucky to have someone like him...

Yesterday marked my first visit to Red Lobster with my friend and her two young children. Initially, upon our arrival at 6:05 pm, we were informed of a one-hour wait for a table. Despite this, we opted to remain and waited until 7:25 pm to be seated. We also saw that two other parties who arrived after us were seated before us, which felt unfair.

Upon being seated, our waitress came 20 minutes later to take our drink orders. Although we placed our entire order for drinks and food simultaneously to expedite the process, our waters took an additional 10 minutes to arrive. Moreover, our food, including the sangria, piña colada, took a full hour to be served. We ordered a crab dip but never arrived. Shockingly, our waitress admitted that the crab dip hadn't been entered into the system because she forgot.

I ordered $25 worth of shrimp, my friend opted for chicken Alfredo pasta, macaroni and cheese with fries for her kids. Regrettably, her pasta lacked flavor, and the chicken was undercooked. I suspect my shrimp might not have been adequately cooked either, although I consumed them, mistakenly assuming they were safe.

Currently, on Tuesday, the 26th, at 10 pm, my friend is in the ER due to food poisoning from the undercooked chicken she consumed, and I'm also suffering from food poisoning with diarrhea, headache and gastrointestinal distress. Unfortunately during our visit to red lobster, the response from both the waitress and the managers revolved around complaints rather than finding solutions and working efficiently together. Furthermore, we overheard the bartender and other waitstaff gossiping about their colleagues and attributing the day's failures to a lack of preparation. Instead of engaging in such conversations, they could have supported one another, assisting in packing to-go orders, ensuring everyone had drinks and check on their costumers more often, we barely saw our waitress.

Our dissatisfaction extends to both the service and the food quality. Drawing from my own management experience, I firmly believe this situation could have been prevented with better preparation, more resources, and additional staff. If there is a shortage of capable resources or staff, it seems only logical not to open for service.

From our arrival at 6:05 pm until our departure at 9:40 pm, we experienced an unprecedentedly long wait, poor service and terrible food. Given the poor service and the severe consequences my friend faced with her ER visit due to the food, I expect Red Lobster to reach out and rectify the situation for both of us. It's not just the inadequate service; it's also the direct impact on my friend's health. We communicated to the waitress about the raw chicken yet we still got full charged for the dish instead of make it right for my friend. We didn’t like how the waitress handled the situation yet We tipped 20 dollars to the waitress because we believed that maybe she is under a lot of stress due to the poor preparation of the establishment but we hope that she takes this an experience to improve her service...

• UPDATE: 07/16/2025 *

I made it back to Red Lobster for supper today and I'm very pleased to say my experience was the complete opposite of what I wrote about below! The food was great, I was seated immediately, and everything flowed much much better. I look forward to my next visit!

Well done! Way to turn things around, y'all! 👏🏽

I wasn't going to add this review, but my visit happened and time was wasted, so here it is.

I was seated in the area to the right of the bar when you enter the restaurant. I waited about 20 minutes before I was taken to my table, but that was fine. Waiting about 20 minutes while seated to never have been visited by anyone to get a drink or meal order is something else -- definitely on the 'not fine' side of things.

PLEASE NOTE -- What I'm about to say is in NO WAY an indictment of the service being provided by the ONE SERVER the restaurant had servicing that ENTIRE AREA during my visit!! Not at all! The problem was I should have been notified of their staffing shortage in the first place (before I was seated) which would have given me the option of waiting, or not.

I just gave up when this one server had made her sixth or seventh trip from the kitchen to the tables around me with not so much as a glance from her to anyone seated where I was. I totally understand why she didn't look our way -- she didn't have time. Bless her heart. She was doing an exceptional job!! If anyone could have handled the stress of carrying that kind of load, this young lady was THE ONE! She was very impressive!

Even so, they still sat me in her section -- one more person for her workload. Not cool.

So, I left. I confirmed my suspicion about this young lady carrying that entire area alone with the greeter upon my exit and just shook my head when I walked out. I didn't rate the food in this review because I didn't get the chance to order any; I didn't rate the atmosphere because the only thing I could think about was how wrong it was to have people sitting here knowing it could be 30 minutes or more before our orders would be taken. Everything else got a '1' and I think that's justified.

I hope my next visit will be better. Red Lobster -- if you're this low on staff, you have to realize this will affect the customer experience. No one likes to watch one person do the work of three or four while attempting to have a...