Red Lobster — Restaurant in Fort Collins

Edit: I contacted Red Lobster per the reply below & they blew me off entirely.

We've been coming to this Red Lobster since the early 90's. It's really gone downhill, unfortunately. This used to be a place where you could get decent seafood & receive great customer service for an overall pleasant experience that justified the price tag.

Our most recent visit was awful. A promotion brought us in & it had a deadline of 6:00pm. We arrived at about 5:45 which should have been plenty of time to get an order in even if the deadline was a hard cap.

As you're probably already guessing, this didn't happen. For starters we stood at the front door 5 minutes before a Red Lobster employee even appeared & said a single word to us. She then had to go clean a table. Another 5 minutes passed before she could clean a table that was literally 10ft away & seat us.

Now that we were seated & that horrible 10-minute wait to get to the table was behind us & things would get better, right? Just an isolated situation where an employee didn't seem to care enough about their job, right? Wrong. This complete lack of urgency & customer service echoed through the night w/every employee we had contact.

Once seated, it took the server another 10 minutes just to greet our table. I thought we were sure to get off on a better foot now. Nope.

After she finished her greeting I politely asked about the promotional deal since it was now just after 6:00. She replied that it was removed from the computer right at 6:00 & there was nothing she could do about it. I explained we had actually been at the restaurant for nearly a half hour already & arrived well before 6:00 w/nobody in front of us & no wait. She didn't care or offer any solution so I asked to speak w/ the manager.

It took the manager nearly 10 minutes to come to our table. When she arrived she told me that she couldn't do anything about it. She then offered to comp our lobster pizza which was a nice gesture since this was a $12 item but we had four adults that planned to order a $16 all-you-can-eat shrimp meal so this ultimately didn't come anywhere near making up for what we paid on our entrees instead.

On top of all of that the food wasn't that great. I got the lobster bisque which was an upgraded cost over the standard soup options & was not only cold but super salty. The rubbery lobster bits that were thrown in didn't do much to make me feel like it was a premium soup option.

I also got the coconut jumbo shrimp which was terrible. The shrimp was hammered so thin that each one, even w/ coconut breading, was less than 1/8" thick. They were dry, tough & flavorless. Others got the shrimp scampi which was decent w/ larger shrimp that was prepared properly & savory butter sauce. Definitely the highlight of the meal as shrimp scampi is kind of hard to screw up. The crab Alfredo was severely lacking on crab & kind of felt like the cheapest version of Alfredo one could make. Nothing special at all.

The salads were decent & nothing negative to report here other than it took us nearly a half hour from when we sat down to when we actually got them. The biscuits came out long after we had already finished the salads. The least they could have done was brought those out right away.

The server managed to avoid even making eye contact w/our table most of the night as we waited for her come back so we could request something. At one point she even asked how our pizza was (past tense) while looking at all of the empty plates on our table & not clearing a single one was she walked away. All night was a truly exciting balancing act of trying to find room for all of the plates & bowls along w/ the stupid little tablet they now place at all of the tables. If only that thing could take our order, get refills & pre-bus the table we would have had no use for our sever.

All told we were at the restaurant for about an hour and a half. This is WAY too long considering they weren't even busy enough to warrant a wait at the front door.

I think we'll cross Red Lobster Ft Collins of off our future...

I’m a person who will 100% tip based on service/experience . Most of the time even if it’s a terrible service/experience I will tip at least a sold $20. We came in Monday 7/28 around 7:40pm with 7 of us for a birthday dinner, Alana being our server, the experience from the beginning was terrible. The Dinning room only had about 2-3 other tables than our party to put in perspective. We ordered drinks, appetizers, and the meals at the same time (around 7:50pm) We didn’t even get our salads or soup until 8:40pm, which the server also said the food was ready and if we wanted it at the same time as she brought the salads etc. we said yes. We didn’t even get the appetizers (crab queso) we ordered at all, the beer we ordered they didn’t have, which is okay, but it took them over 40 min to tell us they were out of that specific beer. The soup came out cold and over all not a comfortable and welcoming experience. We never had a chance to tell Alana about the soup because we didn’t see her for about 20+ minutes after the food was dropped off. We understand things happen and we didn’t make a complaint to the manger, we were trying to make the best of our celebration and figured to just let it all go, but when we were in the parking lot by our cars after paying our checks, the server (Alana) comes out to the parking lot yelling at us to “not come eat if we can’t afford to tip” which was completely unacceptable, unprofessional, and uncalled for. This experience completely ruined our night and any desire to ever come back to eat here. We immediately came to the front doors asking to speak to a manager. We talked to the manager David after the server’s remarks, who helped calm down our anger and frustration with this and apologizing for not knowing the server even went outside or the remarks she made, but honestly I still can’t get over it. We split the bill 3 ways and tipped around $40 total, not the highest for our bill, but not bad either but the disrespect and unprofessionalism has left a very sour taste and ruined a birthday celebration that was supposed to be special. Shoutout to David being polite and professional, though. Also, a side note, we were told there was no coffee. I’m not sure how a restaurant runs out of coffee, and it made us feel like the server just didn’t want to make the coffee,...

12/13/24 I reserved a table on line for 10 people at 745pm arrived at 730pm. The occasion was special daughter just graduated from CSU. Upon arrival we were greeted by two young ladies that immediately said we don't know how you made a reservation but we're not going to be able to get you a table unless you split up of course we were not going to split up this is a very special time for our family. The Host grabbed Tiffany the manager who had a million and one excuses why they could not seat us then went on to say that they had reservations for over two weeks for the other tables and that we could wait for 45 minutes then said it'll actually be more than an hour. She did nothing to try and accommodate our party it was already late we were not going to be able to go anywhere else so we decided to wait. The parties of 10 showed up late when I asked her if we could be seated she said she gives them 15 minutes. When she greeted us she told us that she gives all parties 10 minutes after arriving and then suddenly that changed when they started arriving late. During that time my family went to the bar to get a drink to buy some time service was terrible she had a bad attitude veey rude made my daughter feel uncomfortable and it just seemed like everybody was miserable at red lobster. We called Longhorn explained our situation the manager got on the phone and said they would make a table for us for 10 they want our occasion to be remembered and to be special they don't do reservations but would hold that table based on our experience at Red Lobster. We left and will never return to Red Lobster in Fort Collins. The experience and treatment that we received at Red Lobster was the first time that we've ever felt like we were not welcome at any restaurant. The experience was disappointing and sad under the circumstances that we were celebrating. We're thankful too the Longhorn Restaurant that experience their was a 10 plus it's across the street highly recommend before trying to be seated if you have a large party. Tiffany was rude unprofessional and unwelcoming...