The Red Lobster — Restaurant in Merritt Island

And so it begins…

…the decline of a once great staple of dining excellence.

On Saturday, April 8 I stopped into Red Lobster, in hopes my experience would be better than the last two previous visits.

First experience - I ordered the Ultimate Feast for take out. I waited for about twenty minutes, then I was handed my meal. When I arrived home and opened my bag, I noticed the interior of the bag was greasy or I should say buttery. The condiments were not separated in the bag and the steam from the vented food container melted the butter thus ruining my meal and causing a huge mess.

Second experience - My daughter and I went to Red Lobster for a nice sit down meal. We walked into the restaurant and waited at the podium for about six minutes for a hostess. The hostess arrived and asked for my name, which I gave. I saw the hostess write my name on a blank seating list. I was informed there were no servers at the moment and it would be about a fifteen minute wait to be seated. I asked the hostess if the restaurant was short staffed and the reply I received was, “yes.” My daughter and I waited about ten minutes then we left. I thought to myself, why would the restaurant have no servers.

Third experience - On Saturday, April 8 I stopped by Red Lobster and ordered Walt’s Favorite Shrimp, a baked potato with loaded toppings, and rice. You can see what I ordered per the receipt. When I arrived home and opened the food container, there was no baked potato with loaded toppings and no rice. French fries!

I am disappointed with Red Lobster’s performance. These mistakes are something I would expect at a fast food establishment where the sense of urgency is dead and not at a place where excellence is supposed to be paramount.

I am not sure if Red Lobster is battling staffing issues, settling the lack of urgency, or battling just plain laziness. Whatever is going on in the inner workings, I hope a course correction will happen sooner than later.

Whatever is the outcome, it pains me to say, I will not be a...

Mother's Day is NOT the best day to come here! Also, don't be rude to the wait staff when they're doing the best they can. Tonight, my mother had her heart set on Red Lobster so that's where we went. We ordered online hoping to skip the crowd and avoid waiting so long, however, we ended up waiting 55 minutes for our food(I'm not being overdramatic either). While waiting in the jam-packed lobby, the host(Quinn, I believe? Lovely person) was absolutely amazing and did the best they could. My father, brother, and I watched and listened as all of these customers came in to complain and demand the manager, but the manager was swamped with work as well! She was running back and forth from seating people and checking on overdue orders. However, she did seem to be skirting issues and trying to avoid confrontation, which I understand because some of the people were very aggressive. Still, the management could have been better. The hostess was absolutely amazing though and definitely deserves some kind of recognition. If you're going out to eat on a major holiday, especially Mother's Day, EXPECT A WAIT!!! EVERYWHERE will be packed, and though Red Lobster could have handled it better, I believe they were doing their best. Now, when we got the food home, the quality was a gamble on all of the items; some were great and other dishes were haphazardly tossed together and tasted like they had sat for a while after being cooked. Some items even appeared like they had been eaten out of, and I'm not saying it was but it definitely seemed that way. One of my shrimp tacos had a hair in it! However, they did manage to give us everything that we ordered, which was nice. Overall, it wasn't a great experience so I definitely WOULDN'T recommend it on a BUSY day like this. BUT, any other time is always a great one. Each time that I've gone there has been majorly enjoyable and I think more people should visit when there's not large angry crowds...

We came for the unlimited shrimp, and were excited. There was a bit of a wait when we first arrived and that was fine but did find it busy as it didn’t seem they were near capacity. None the less, I believe it should have been a warning, we waited about 15-20 minutes and we’re seated. Our waitress was very friendly and did her best to take care of us. I will say it seemed she was new although I am unsure. However when it came to food, there was a very long wait. I wish I had set a timer or checked my clock, but it was extremely long. We got our 3rd basket of biscuits before soup was brought, and it didn’t quite seem full to me, but didn’t garner any complaints. Then it seemed like another extremely long period of time maybe another 25 minutes at least before our “meals” came. 3 of our orders had mashed potatoes with some variation of toppings and one with baked potato. All of the Mashed potato sides did not come, we had enough time to finish our entrees in their entirety before the sides arrived and by then two of us boxed them for home. I didn’t realize until after eating my side the dish they were served in was dirty and had something sticky on the side. We tried to order refills of shrimp when we received the entrees and were ensured that the sides were coming but those took longer than the potatoes. Overall, it seems it was perhaps an inexperience or poorly managed team. And while we’ll intentioned there we’re too many mistakes to forgive. I do wish a manager would have made their rounds, to at least check in, the gesture and attempt to fix anything would have gone a long way in the moment. It looks like we will have to look for a different red lobster next time.

TLDR Staff was friendly but really dropped the...