Red Lobster — Restaurant in Knoxville

I was there to celebrate my Sister's 70th Surprise Birthday Party. There was approximately 15 people in our party including children. The Waitress, who took our orders was great. She was overwhelmed being by herself, but never expressed any discontentment. She was very gracious, thorough, and expeditious, so kudos to her. However, the complaint is with the food. Most of the party spend anywhere from $50 - $85. We were very anxious to go to the Red Lobster due to the newly branded Seafood Boil Bags. My Sister, the Birthday Girl really enjoyed your menu in years past. Needless to say the food was less than mediocre. There was no taste to at least 2 of the Entrees ordered and every kids meal purchased including a few of the Adults Entrees, were served with "cold" French Fries. I personally order the Fish and Chips with Broccoli and a Baked Potato. When my Food arrived, and I saw the 2 very thin strips of what appeared to be "Fish" that accompanied a meal priced at almost $20, I was appalled ! To be quite honest, I could have taken my Sister, and in hindsight wished I had, to Long John's Silver or Captain D's and would have gotten a better meal choice. There was nothing about my Entrée that was appetizing or warm, with the exception of the Broccoli. I apologized repeatedly to my Sister for her (our) experience at Red Lobster vowing to never return. Ironically, we had this same experience with this same Sister at this same Restaurant in 2021. Once again with the food, but that experience involved the Waitresses. The Manager did come by and asked how things were going, but at that point what was the use of complaining about the food ? The food had already arrived and hearts were in disbelief, AGAIN. These complaints have been heard repeatedly over the years with no change in site. The reason I am expressing myself at this point, is because I believe when you continuously complain in silence, improvement never occurs and the cycle continues, just as it has. I expected more of Red Lobster especially with the hype of rebranding itself with the new CEO. I realize improvement takes time and change trickles down from the top. Unfortunately, some, like my Sister held out hope until the very end when that hope was depleted on last Evening. To those in Management that may read my review, if you want to stay in competition, you must do better with Food selection, appearance, portion, etc. I'd rate my overall experience a...

This visit was one is of the worst Red Lobster we have had in 30 years. It took awhile to take our order. We ordered "Crab Stuffed Shrimp Rangoon" for appetizer, &"Ultimate Endless Shrimp" & "Roasted Garlic Bairdi Crab Legs" for the main course. The Rangoon was excellent. After QUITE a while, our Main courses arrived. The Crab was warm(not hot), & the Grilled Shrimp skewer was somewhat burnt, also just sort of warm(not hot) & French Fries were sort if warm(not close to hot). Scampi was OK in that hot bowl. These menu items arrived close to 30 minutes after ordering. We can only assume that they had inexperienced help in the kitchen & they just prepared our meal and left it sitting somewhere for the other 15-20 minutes? Red Lobster NEVER serves warming tray French Fries at any of the 20-30 we have visited. The rather burnt Grilled Shrimp that also was sort of warm, "sort of", never happens in this chain. Reorders of the Grilled Shrimp were hot, breaded Shrimp was hot. The "Roasted Garlic Bairdi Crab Legs" also were just sort of warm, sort of. They were quite overcooked as evidenced by none of the Legs breaking easily, nor could the Crab meat be extracted in a lump form, only strand by strand.(this is a certain sign of overcooking Crab Legs) the"Roasted Garlic" turned out to be some butter with lots of large chunks of Garlic mixed in-this makes for an extremely Sloppy & unwieldy experience. We mentioned to our very pleasant and helpful waiter how the Bairdi Crab were overcooked & Sloppy mess, & he offered to reorder so we took him up on this-except we substituted regular Crsb Legs instead of the Bairdi Crab. The regular Snow Crab Legs came hot & properly prepared & were excellent. All told, we were there around an hour 45 minutes.(certainly not what weary travelers want). Notably, we pulled in before 8pm, Friday, 6/9/23 & exited about 1hr, 45+ minutes later. They were not real busy for a Friday night. My 2 stars is mainly due to cold food served after extensive wait & overcooked Crab and scorched...

I ordered the Thursday Daily Deal approximately 3-4 weeks ago which is 12 fried butterfly shrimp, two sides, a fountain drink or an iced tea. The fried butterfly shrimp was fried for the perfect length of time, the baked potato and the coleslaw were very good, and the iced tea was fresh. Since I had such a good visit a few weeks ago I went again yesterday. I ordered the same meal except I got a Dr. Pepper to drink this time. The biscuits they brought out before the meal didn't seem to have been baked long enough although they were edible and had a good taste. The baked potato and coleslaw were good. The Dr. Pepper tasted good. The shrimp was another story. They didn't seem to be quite as big as on my visit before, however, my issue was the shrimp had not been fried long enough. Our server, Chelsea, took my plate back and put in another order for the shrimp. The second order was slightly better than the original plate, yet the shrimp still hadn't been fried long enough. I gave up. This is one of my biggest problems with this Red Lobster location. They're not consistent. Who wants to eat shrimp with batter that hasn't been fully fried? I don't. I gave Chelsea a good tip because it wasn't her fault, but not all people think that way and may not tip her well because of poorly cooked food. She was attentive, friendly, respectful, and I appreciated all that she did. I don't see myself going back to this restaurant anytime soon.

Review below is from a year ago...

Yesterday afternoon I ordered the all you can eat shrimp for $15.99. The shrimp was tough, didn't taste fresh, and the breading had a strange taste to it. I haven't eaten at Red Lobster in a long time and was really looking forward to the meal. Such a disappointment. Our server, Chelsie, was very attentive, friendly, and tried to help me as much as possible. I doubt if I go back to that location. It was a waste of my...