All-you-can-eat was too much

[KG]

http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/2003/09/26/State/All_you_can_eat_was_t.shtml

Red Lobster's chief is ousted after a crab promotion loses money. The parent company says that wasn't the reason.
By BENITA D. NEWTON, Times Staff Writer
Published September 26, 2003


The television commercials for the nation's biggest chain of seafood restaurants invited diners to "Red Lobster's Endless Crab: a celebration of all the hot, steaming snow crab legs you can eat."

What managers of the 645-restaurant chain never expected was customers so ravenous for crab that they ate up the profits.

Darden Restaurants of Orlando said Wednesday that it has replaced the president of Red Lobster, its biggest chain. The move came after management vastly underestimated how many Alaskan crab legs customers would consume during the promotion that ran from July 21 through Sept. 7.

"It wasn't the second helping, it was the third one that hurt," company chairman Joe R. Lee said in a conference call with analysts.

"Yeah, and maybe the fourth," added Dick Rivera, Darden's chief operating officer. Rivera has taken over as president of Red Lobster.

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[DoNotRefill]

1. I 'm not to blame...

EVERY time I eat at Red Lobster, I get sick, regardless of what or how much I eat. So I stopped eating there.

[KCDem]

2. haha, serves them right!

Less $ for them to give the Repugs!! I love it!

[SmileyBoy]

3. This reminds me of a Simpson's episode:

Homer wanted to eat at "The Fryin' Dutchman", an all-night all-you-can-eat seafood place run by the Sea Captain, and "partake of the buffet". He probably ate most (if not all) of the buffet, because that night at 4am, the restaurant needed to close, and the Sea Captain threw Homer out after desperately trying to finish off the last bits of the buffet. Homer sued for false advertising, and Lionel Hutz was his attorney.

During the trial, Marge spoke of what happened after he was kicked out. They drove around Springfield looking for another all-you-can-eat all-night seafood restaurant. When they couldn't find one, they went fishing. ("Are those the actions of a man who had ALL HE COULD EAT???")

The Sea Captain's attorney presented the amount of shrimp that Homer ate. dozens of men walked into the courtroom carrying large sacks of stuff over their shoulders, but they were really undelivered children's letters to Santa Claus.

The Sea Captain and Homer eventually settled on an agreement whereas Homer would get free unlimited food there if he would pose as a freak show guy named "Bottomless Pete - The Man With No Stomache". "Come for the freak, stay for the food," he said.

This story is a lot like that one, instead hundreds of thousands of people are doing it.

[gyopsy]

5. Hundreds of thousands...

I didn't realize Americans had become so obese. There must be millions of Homer Simpsons running around.

[gyopsy]

4. This reminds me of Homer Simpson

You remember the episode where Homer eats all of the seafood at the All-you-can-eat seafood place until they throw him out? And then he takes them to court and claims it wasn't really all you can eat and tries to sue them!

[Deja Q]

6. Well, let's look at this from an unusual perspective - my own, naturally!

Um, seafood is typically expensive. The only ones who don't realize this are the seafood prior to getting caught in the fishermens' nets.

This manager, in our greed oriented society, meant well toward the consumers (which alone is an unusual act in this day and age), but was a bit dim in terms of trying to make a profit.

Add in that 60% of Americans are obese due to the abundance of food and as such have gigantic stomachs, and you can kiss the profits goodbye - though they'll show up in a different state in about 3 days.

Expect prices for their food to skyrocket soon, with the customers paying for management's mistake (but won't think a thing of it, as Americans have been bred to be). After all, the management should never lose their paychecks, even when they are clearly wrong. They're better than us. :eyes: