Red Lobster — Restaurant in Forest Park

UPDATE (6/6/2020): Despite the owner responding to my message below and my completing their form that same day, I still have not heard from Red Lobster. I had to dispute the Red Lobster charge with my credit card provider to even get a refund.

5/10/2020 (Mother’s Day): We placed and paid for our Red Lobster (RL) order online and received an email stating that our food would be ready for pickup at 6:28 PM. My daughter arrived at the RL (Cincinnati Mills location) at 6:30 PM and, as instructed by the RL email, called the number to alert RL that she had arrived for pickup. There was no answer after five minutes of waiting. Shortly thereafter, she observed a manager standing outside and a crowd of unhappy customers stomping away from the RL. Eventually, she was able to speak to the manager and was informed that our food would not be ready until 7:30 PM. She came home and then returned to RL to 7:30 PM. The same manager said told her that it would be another 20 minutes before our food is ready. At 8:15 pm, she approached the manager and requested proof that the store even had the order. The manager complied. My daughter then asked the manager at what time the orders being completed had been scheduled for pickup. The manager stated that they were bringing out orders that had been placed at around 6:05 PM. The manager then stated that, due to the delay, RL was calling people when their food was ready for pickup. At 9:05 PM, my daughter ensured that the manager had her contact number for IF the food ever surfaced. Unfortunately, however, we realized that we would have to default to fast food for dinner. To date, my daughter never received a call from RL, our food, nor a credit.

The next day (5/11/2020), I contacted the RL to speak to the manager that spoke to my daughter and remembered my daughter from her copious attempts to get the food we paid for. The manager said that our food did eventually come out. I did not entertain her statement because we never received a call, despite the manager having the contact number on the order slip and promising to call my daughter personally. When I stated this, she said she was sorry BUT could not control that the online process.

This is unacceptable and ridiculous. Why do you have an online process that does not shutdown when orders exceed capacity? Why don’t you have a manager with the experience and common sense to establish order on-site and contact customers before they leave home to mitigate long waits or at least monitor the kitchen instead of passing the blame for screw-ups? Because of RL, my only child spent Mother’s Day evening in your parking lot...

My husband & I have been coming for years. It’s always been perfect service. But last night was not the case. We received a text that our table was ready at 6:48p, we were at the front counter in less than 60 seconds to be seated. Waited 10 min for our order to be taken. It was endless shrimp so my husband was ready to devour a ton of shrimp. Only we didn’t receive our food until 7:49pm. My husband wanted to leave cash for my salad & our soda and just leave but I said let’s wait 10 more minutes. Our food came out. Mine was hot but his wasn’t and you could tell it had been sitting under a heat lamp for a while, as a film had developed on the shrimp scampi. Unless shrimp means pay attention to your customer who will want additional shrimp. The server never came back around for another 30 minutes. By then we were so fed up that we were ready to leave. We were polite but the server treated us like it was our fault that her service was terrible. I have been asked to see the manager and he came over and instead of apologizing or offering some thing, he quoted how long he thought we were at the table before our food came. He even quoted 47 minutes. Sir you’re telling me that 47 minutes is an appropriate time to wait for dinner? we told him we didn’t want anything we just wanted him to know how terrible it was. We left cash because we didn’t want to wait another hour to get our card back. I still left a gracious tip because I know people have to pay their bills. It’s sad because we choose to come here instead of Pappadeaux! Everyone else in our section experienced the same service. And the server also spilled a huge glass of water all over another guest. Instead of staying quiet and excepting the service for what it is, my husband detailed what was wrong with the night so that the manager can get it together and get his restaurant under control. I think we stayed quiet and showed people compassion and grace during Covid so much that we started excepting bad service. And now the service industry is horrible. People should be speaking up when service expectations aren’t what they should be and restaurants and service workers need to step it up. People are spending their hard earned money there when they could be going to somewhere else. What happened to treating your customers well? We will stop patronizing chains because...

The WORST experience I’ve ever had dining here. First, when I arrive (8:35 pm) I sit at the bar to dine in. The lady behind the bar doesn’t greet me, until I look I look at her and she says “I’ll be with you in a minute” after about 5 minutes goes by she grabs a menu and bread plates sits them down and walks away. Shortly thereafter a young man arrives (not sure why the girl didn’t take my drink order since she was working behind the bar but okay) and asks would you like to order anything? I order a Grand Patron Margarita and fried clam strips as an appetizer. Those arrive and he asks if I’m ready to order my main course. I ordered the Lobster Pappardelle pasta with a side of shrimp scampi. When it arrives, I knew something was off because I the pasta had all noodles on top, no lobster in sight. The bartender asks how it looks and I said, where is the lobster, it literally has 2 pieces of lobster.” He takes it to the back and the manager comes out and tells me that they are big pieces of meat. My response, Ummm excuse me ma’am, if I’m paying $40 for a meal I expect more than 2 pieces of lobster. So she begins to explain that she would have to charge me for more than 2 pieces of lobster!! What?! I don’t want it. I’ve gotten this meal every time I’m in here since it’s been added to the menu and I’ve never been skimped on lobster. Fast forward to me getting my check. I asked for my check, the guy brings it out and I’m literally sitting here 23 minutes waiting for him to cash me out. I had to ask the girl behind the bar to close out my check. The kicker to the whole experience was the girl behind the bar didn’t take my order yet one of her male friends comes in and she immediately walks over to him and says “Hey haven’t seen you in a while, recites his drink order and asks if he wanted anything else.” I was flabbergasted. Nonetheless, this will be my last visit to this...