Red Lobster — Restaurant in Hickory

Disappointed. We are not by any means wealthy people. Red Lobster is a twice a year treat at best for us, once at tax time and once on our anniversary. This was how our 34 year anniversary went. We were excited and stoked for lobster, crab, and biscuits and we drive an hour, very happy, and hungry when we arrived. 1) No one to greet us at door. We were seated fairly soon, 2 min max. Host was very nice. 2) We were not greeted by our server for about 5 mins. This is still ok, I know things happen. Server was very pleasant at first. She took our drink and app order: 1 classic strawberry rita, 1 water no ice, 1 Pepsi, and a small scallop app. She then asked for my I.D. I'm 52 but ok with it. I say nothing and showed it to her. However, she feels the need to be what she perceived to be flattering, I perceived to be condescending. She tells me she's is supposed to I.D. anyone who doesn't look 21. This put me off a little and I joked back about having her glasses checked. Everyone laughs. She returns 5 mins later with ice water (I have sensitive teeth but did not send back or comment on it) no straws and a Pepsi and wants to take the entree order. We say no thanks and we want to wait for the app to arrive first. She says ok and tells me that my drink is being made now and she will be right back. 15 minutes later we get our app,no plates says she'll be right back with them. Returns with plates 5 mins later. Still no rita, still no straw. She then offered to take order again. I asked about my drink she says she will check on it. I hear a shaker and soon she returns with my rita. Very watered down, had been sitting and was just reshaken and repoured. I did not return or comment. I was just glad to get it. Time to get the rita from time ordered: 25 minutes. Appetizer: 20 minutes. She takes our order.She was unable to answer questions about the food and did not know the menu set up at all. Thinks the crispy potatoes are smashed and fried. We got over cooked homefries. It was like an old baked potato cut into cubes and deep fried to death. Did not know the vinegrette on the greens served with scallop app. We ended up after much confusion getting our order in. 2 lobster duo, 2 add ½lb crab legs. They were out of broccoli I got the salad. 10-15 mins later our server brings our ticket to the table for us to dbl check it.She says she is still struggling with pos system.Ok. We waited another 25 mins on our food. 15 mins into this wait is where my patience started to thin. Husband no Pepsi, me no salad, and I went to the bar myself so I could get my last drink within 20 mins. Finished my entire 2nd drink before our food arrived. Alright, here we go: 1) everything except for hubbys mac n chz and my loaded baked potato, of which neither of ours had bacon and I didn't mention it, was cold. 2) still no salad. 3)asked server to send the manager back. He offers to reprepare the food. We did not have another hour to spend there. I said, "no, we just don't have the time. Please just rewarm it." I knew the quality of food would suffer, but, tbh at this point we were starved and more than a little annoyed. 10 mins later we got the same rewarmed food. They sent a fresh baked potato that was colder than the first one. I said nothing. There is so much more that was not up to par that I haven't mentioned. I'm just tired of writing it. It comes to this, the server is very undertrained. The manager is uninformed and not utilized by the server. I feel the only thing he knew was what he seen. This meal was overall unacceptable. Had manager been watching food quality and every 15 mins done a table check this would have stuck out like a sore thumb. $147.00 +$21.00 (15% minimum tip only)= $168.00! Deserved discount for bad food everything else just made it worse. This wasn't ½ of it. I'm 35 yr career server/ bartender. She could have made $50+ easily off me if well trained. I don't have facebook. Should I call the store? Update: 11/18 Got an A.I. response system, no wonder this co is struggling.No communication from...

We went one time before my recent birthday 10/04 🎂 and it was an OKAY experience, but what I mean by that is that the food was a GREAT experience, the drinks? NOT so much ! I ordered a Kettle One and Tonic, the bartender left the front of the bar to go to the side and make my drink 🍸 something that should've been poured in front of me, he DID NOT know how to make a drink, and he also did not socialize with the people sitting at the bar, i assumed he was new; my drink tasted like pure tonic. While frustrated, I ordered a Jameson in a rocks glass with 1 ice cube, I don't think he poured a true shot but again he slipped to the side where no one can see what he's actually pouring. clearly, he didn't know what he was doing.

The bar clearly needs someone like ME in there to pour cocktails and make the customers feel like they're SPECIAL and socialize with them!

Let's talk about the dinner.....Candice was the chef in the kitchen....I ordered the whole lobster 🦞, they brought it to me and asked if the LIVE lobster looked good to me, and of course, it did! It looked absolutely great!

They then asked if I wanted it to be cleaned and cut, I said yes, and when they finally brought it out, it looked so good! It was steamed to perfection, so good! So props to our chef, Candice! She came a couple times while I was pulling the meat from the shell 🐚, I can't eat my lobster until I get ALL the meat out, but when I finally got it out, it was succulent and a lot of meat, this by far is the best thing on the menu, in my opinion!

So we came back for my birthday and I asked if Candice was in house and she was! Of course, I ordered the whole lobster again, and of course, it came to me succulent once again, and THANK YOU Candice for coming to our table to say hello to us!!! We will be back!

Prior to my first time going to THIS Red Lobster, I've not been to a Red Lobster in quite a few years because the Red Lobster In San Mateo, California, SUCKED! The seafood was completely overcooked, dried out, and they added something to their biscuits that made my husband's and my stomach swell up to the point that we couldn't eat our "All-you-can-eat" shrimp dinner, we thought maybe it was MSG or something but It truly was a bad experience, and we NEVER went back.

So we took our chances when we moved here to Hickory to visit Red Lobster once again, and we clearly were excited that what we experienced in California was not what our experience here was in Hickory!

Thank you, Red Lobster for a great eating experience and Iwill shout it out to the world, even though we're not by the ocean, my experience was as if I was transported to an ocean restaurant as we ate inland.

I clicked on the fish and chips, BUT they didn't have a "whole" lobster option, so I'm only marking what my husband had and the rest, you read. So get yourselves over to the Hickory Red Lobster and order order order thar whole lobster 🦞! You won't be...

Went for lunch on a Monday. The food was very tasty which is the reason this review gets 3 stars instead of 1. The service left something to be desired. Our waitress was not overly busy as there were only about 5 tables sat. Our waitress wore her mask around her chin and had a visibly dirty uniform with stains on her shirt and apron. It seemed odd that she would already be covered in stains at 11:30, so to me that means she was wearing a dirty uniform from yesterday. I waited tables when I was younger, so I know that happens, but it is unprofessional. We never received refills on our drinks. Another waitress noticed we were empty and offered water, however my friend ordered a tea and was thirsty so took the water refill to at least have a beverage because he would have never received the tea anyway. My friend ordered endless shrimp and the waitress never returned, so he couldn't order any additional shrimp. We told the waitress when ordering initially that we had a free appetizer from the Red Lobster rewards program. She advised we could enter it on the payment kiosk at our table when paying. After our waitress failed to return, we just decided to pay and leave. Well the payment kiosk had no option to enter the free appetizer code manually, only to scan a qr code, which we didn't have. We tried multiple ways to get it to work, but couldn't figure it out. I saw our waitress across the dining room and waved to her to come by. She had nothing in her hand and didn't appear busy. She made direct eye contact with me and turned the other direction and walked into the kitchen. Finally another waitress (one who was actually working) had to be asked for help and then surprise, our waitress shows up out of nowhere. She had to print the receipt for us to redeem the reward and we were basically told we just did it wrong. It was extremely aggravating. I think these chain restaurants need to do away with the payment kiosks on the table. It's frustrating for customers and takes longer than traditional payment. I'm in my early 30s, so I'm not out of touch with technology. I can't imagine an elderly person trying to figure these things out. I get that help is difficult to come by currently, but I probably won't be returning after the experience today. No fault of the food, the cooks seem to be doing a great job. The front of the house needs some...