Red Lobster — Restaurant in Joliet

Three stars are a little generous, but I have to give them that as the location usually has good service and fresh food making it worth the premium price you pay. I have reviewed 100's of restaurants and try to provide the most honest feedback possible, but I do want to stress again that this is not the norm for Red Lobster.

I went with my mother for her birthday yesterday. With the economy, etc., it is hard for myself and most others to afford 50+ dollar lunches for two. The waiter was nice but extremely in-knowledgeable to the point where we ended up spending more money on less food. We were told certain menu items that I have ordered in the past did not come with the sides, soup, etc. We ordered accordingly because of that. Food was OK, but something was not as good as we are used to. Seems like the quality went down as prices went up. We ordered two orders of Garlic Shrimp, two clam chowder soups, a few drinks, and 2 side orders of pasta. We settled for ghd garlic shrimp and had to spend $5 for each side order of pasta. We had wanted the Alfredo shrimp pasta but were told there were no sides. We were also told the soup was $3.99 for a cup and slightly more for the bowl. Even after settling, it turns out the soup was $6.99 a bowl. If we had known that, we would have ordered the calamari as an appetizer as we would have preferred that, but we were told the wring price and settled. Also, for a $5 side of pasta, we ordered two and only received one. The soup was a bit cold, but the rest was at least close to par with the usual RL quality. For $30, we could have eaten better for cheaper. For $65+ before too, you should rightfully expect more value and better service for your money. Overall, it kind of ruined a birthday lunch. As "fish-loving Italians", it was extremely disappointing as we could have gone to any local Italian restaurants and paid a similar price, received better food and better service. I know good help is hard to find now, but I don't think as a consumer it should be my job to question the staff about their products and have to almost beg to have our server to ask questions and provide us with the correct information about the menu items and pricing. There are better choices for your money, but I will still likely give them at least one more try before jumping to...

Took me awhile to decide to write this but each time I pass by the restaurant I’m reminded of our horrible experience on 12/10/22. We were seated quickly when we arrived, and in the center of the restaurant where we could observe everything and everyone around us. We waited quite a while for our waitress to come over. She greeted us , apologized for the wait and asked for our drink orders at which time we placed our food order as well. She explained that baked potatoes may take 15-20 mins and we were okay with that because by the time they prepared our other food items, the potatoes should be ready as well. We waited a bit longer than usual for our drinks but we’re understanding because our waitress seemed a bit frazzled and kept apologizing every time she came to the table. The issue came when we watched tables seated after us receive their food before us and the waitress would come by and apologize for delay after delay. At one point a table seated after us, received their food, finished eating, and left before we received our order. We were understanding but after the 6th or 7th “I’m sorry” We were getting aggravated. Between the three of us, we ordered Shrimp scampi, fried popcorn shrimp, broiled scallops, a steak, the baked potatoes that would take 15-20 mins and salads . Nothing difficult. It took one hour and when it came out it was less than warm! The best part of our meal was the biscuits. We paid and left without boxing any of it to go. The waitress apologized again with more excuses and then gave us the kiosk to make our payment. I requested a printed receipt which the kiosk did not print nor did I even get an email of the receipt after logging in the kiosk with my account info, and the waitress disappeared so we weren’t able to ask for one. It truly was a waste of the $123.23 we spent that evening and a huge disappointment in what used to be...

Don't get me wrong, I know that endless shrimp comes with long wait times but this was just ridiculous! We got there about 6:40 and was told it was going to be about an hour wait. We were finally seated at about 8:05. It took 28 minutes for a waitress to come and get our drink order. By that time we were ready to order. It took another 20 minutes to get our salads. Once we got our salads we ordered refills of shrimp expecting it to take a while. We didn't get our first course until 9:32, after we requested to speak to a manager. A few moments later our refills came but everything was over dried out and gross. The fiesta shrimp that is supposed to have a "cheese sauce" on it had crusty dry chunks of cheese on it. We were so fed up we didn't even want to eat the food and the manager came out to speak to us. She seemed a little annoyed that we were complaining, saying that wait times are higher for endless shrimp and seemed even more annoyed when I explained that I observed 4 tables that were seated after us that had eaten their endless shrimp and left already. She (with an eye roll) told us that she would take one meal and a beverage off of our bill even though we had barely touched a bite of food. I decided then to at least box the food on the table to go. I even over heard a few waiters saying "more cheaps trying to get free all you can eat" on our way out. At the very least, our waitress was pleasant through out everything but seemed very flustered. We finally left...