Red Lobster — Restaurant in Saint Peters

This was the first time I have ever been to this Red Lobster location and will NEVER go to ANY Red Lobster restaurant EVER again after we were treated. My mother graduated college yesterday and her favorite place to dine is Red Lobster for their strawberry daiquiris. We called during the graduation, 1pm, to arrange a table for a party of 17. Whoever it was that we spoke with made like we will have a table ready for the time that we have chosen, which was 3pm. We got there, NO ONE was in the waiting area and was told to give a few moments while they arrange our seating. Give and take about 20 minutes and we greed. As time drifted more and customers came in and were given buzzers and then started to be seated. I overlooked this bc their parties were smaller. Shortly, ANOTHER large group, race is black, of 17 came in and were seated immediately and their entire party was not present. So probably about 7 minutes later the waitress walked up to me and said, “ have your party already been seated?” I said, “No, we have not been called for our table.” She says, “Are all of your party here?” I responded, “ Yes we are all here, some of us are at the bar, most of us are sitting around this waiting area, and I seen two of us go to the rest room, but we are all here.” She then says, “Are you sure we did not seat your party bc I just sat a party of 17 and they’re not all here.” Instantly, I viewed it as she thought since we were black and the other group was black that we were all together. She then stated, “ There’s been a mistake, I thought that the other group was with you, I didn’t know.” I told her we were not together, and how much longer will we have to wait? She told me 1-2 hours. I requested to speak with the manager. The manager came out and completely changed the entire story tried to lie in my face and then showed no effort of correcting or fixing their mistake. Not only we sat there for 20-30 minutes for nothing, but now you want us to wait until you seat everyone that came in after us before we could possibly get seated. Not only did we feel like we wasted time, but we also felt like the manager did NOTHING to correct the mistake that was made amongst his staff. Instead he sent us off to go to another location as if he did not want anything to do with us. I had to tell him to call the next closest location to arrange for our seating multiple times only for him to come back and tell me that we will still have to wait 1-2 hours. This manager displayed very poor managing skills. I asked for the corporate number and he refused. So, needless to say, we ended up going next door to Longhorn Steakhouse and were treated EXTREMELY well! Over $500 was spent and the two waitress was tipped very generously. I’m sorry Red Lobster at veteran parkway, but that store manager lost our business for good and I’m pretty sure this is not the first and definitely won’t...

Greetings are still a thing. We walked in and the atmosphere was comparable to a funeral with the Wait Here podium unattended but the Pick Up Window person standing right next to it steadily ignoring any eye contact. Next thing a server walks right by, the bar tender makes eye contact and nothing. We had enough time to arrange the weekend plans before we were then hastily addressed and then told to follow and sat in a corner of a section that you can tell is overcrowded and poorly serviced with the lady tossing our menu's onto the table only to have them slid to the wall with her then grabbing the man at the table next to us talking about How she works so hard and hopes their night is going well and just let her know if there is something she can do - THEN tells us "Someone will be with you." On the way to our seat we heard the, "sorry about the drink refill I'll be right back" statement a lot. The staffing seemed adequate unless they also cooked when they left the room. After being sat we now have enough time to plan our new born's life through college when the waitress who was still fielding previous drink requests asked for our drink order and did we have enough time to decide on dinner, then said we would have to have patience as they have limited staff. If you have 5-6 staff up front and we are the only 2 new customers and you cannot greet someone for 10 mins and then get the table greeting for a drink another 15 mins later and then also pressure me for my dinner order -- well, it sort of set's the tone for - YOU don't care. It's still a sit down restaurant and we are looking to enjoy our time away without standing in front of a multi-use soda machine with everyone else. The refills vs will I get tipped adequately mentality is a bad way to look at it. We chose to leave that night as it didn't seem the staff was in sync. Bad Service and possibly bad food that I'm Paying high cost with expectations of some tips, No Thank You. With a good greeting you get a lot of leeway...

It was Valentine’s Day, and everything else was booked for reservations, so we ended up at Red Lobster in St. Peter’s — not my first choice, but it was the only option available. I hadn’t been to Red Lobster in decades and went with my mom and 4-year-old niece.

I’m vegan, so I kept it simple with the margarita flight—not a fan (too sweet for me), but no big deal. My niece got the mac & cheese with chicken tenders, fries, and orange slices. I didn’t realize they were all separate meals, so I figured she’d have lunch for the next day too.

Our server repeatedly commented on how expensive items were, which felt odd and uncomfortable. I asked about a drink and he said, “I have no clue what that is,” and didn’t seem interested in finding out—though it was clearly described on the menu. My mom’s baked potato came out hard. She’s soft-spoken, so I checked it and confirmed it was. When we mentioned it to the server, he didn’t ask — he just grabbed her fork and started poking the potato, saying, “It doesn’t seem hard to me.” Very unprofessional. We asked for a replacement, and by the time it came, we were ready to go.

My niece didn’t drink one of her smoothie-type drinks, and I asked if it could be removed. The server sighed, mentioned the price again, and reluctantly said he’d have to get a manager. The manager seemed irritated, likely because of how the server framed the situation, but they eventually took the drink off. I still paid and left a tip.

My niece had fun and thankfully didn’t notice the awkwardness, but overall the service was dismissive, and the experience left a bad impression. We won’t return to this location — or Red...