Red Lobster and Cousins - Boardman and Everywhere

Yes, I know it’s a chain…and I usually get groans about Red Lobster. But the fact is I eat there probably twice a month, and it’s is actually pretty good. The décor is great. The service is usually more than capable. The food is good. My wife and I use it as a backup standby on the weekends if we can’t get in anywhere else. My Friday lunch group eats there regularly. And it has a great story with some interesting restaurant “cousins”.

Here is what you DON’T know about Red Lobster. It was founded in 1968 by a guy named Bill Darden in Lakeland, Florida. He wanted to test a seafood restaurant in an inland area, and Lakeland is the most inland city in Florida. It met with critical success, and over the next several years Mr. Darden had built three more restaurants with two more under construction when he hit the financial brick wall and sold the business to General Mills. Yes, the cereal people. Very sensibly General Mills kept Mr. Darden on to run the thing, and by 1985 there were over 400 restaurants nationwide.

Along the way, the Darden division of General Mills picked up York Steak House (‘Memba them?), one of several restaurants trying out the budget (translate tenderized) cafeteria steak concept…and the salad bar. Don’t forget the salad bar. Well…it didn’t do so hot, so Mr. Darden decided to try Italian, and in 1982 opened the first Olive Garden in Orlando. It was a bomb according to restaurant critics, but who listens to them! What the reviewers hated the public loved, and it is the most successful national chain Italian restaurant in the country…just look at the parking lot pretty much anytime.

Over the years Darden also acquired other restaurants, most notably the mid-level Longhorn Steakhouse, and Smokey Bones, which it has since sold off, and the uber, uber expensive and exclusive Capital Grill originally based in Washington DC but now operating 32 restaurants across the country. Closest to us is downtown Pittsburgh.

In 1995 General Mills spun off its Darden division into a separate publically traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. It is considered to be one of the most successful publically traded restaurant operations in the country.

So in case you haven’t been counting and have forgotten your Boardman geography, it’s hard to go out to eat in Boardman without going to a Darden facility. Red Lobster on one side of 224, and Longhorn Steakhouse and Olive Garden on the other side of 224, and up until a year or so ago, Smokey Bones. It has also purchased several other restaurant chains, keeping the nation well fed in cholesterol heaven!!!!

So, back to Red Lobster!! Generally speaking, Red Lobster is an expensive place to eat. I am always amazed how continuously busy it is at lunch and dinner given the price point. For the life of me I can’t figure how folks can afford to take a family of four out for dinner with dinner prices touching $20.00 then rapidly escalating higher; maybe Cleveland or Pittsburgh, but not here. Nonetheless Red Lobster packs them in with shrimp specials and lobster specials with availability being what’s special as opposed to prices, but folks gobble them up. 

I am not a fish fan, so I rarely get a “fish” dinner at Red Lobster. But here’s the secret, its grilled non fish items are outstanding. I love the grilled chicken. And they do more than an adequate job on steaks. As to their lobster, I have had mixed results with it being overcooked and too dry one too many times. So I stick to the basics.

Like any successful chain, they make money by portion control. I have found some of the entrée portion sizes, especially items like simple broiled fish, somewhat lacking. They offer numerous shrimp entrees prepared an infinite number of ways, but use smaller shrimp than I prefer. But they make up for it with these wonderful Red Lobster rolls filled with butter which makes them doubly good…More Butter – More Salt!!!

I like Red Lobster, but it is never a place I go to for dinner because I want to go there. I go there because I end up there, if you can understand the difference. But once there and I am over the sticker shock on some of the dinners, I usually leave pleased and well fed. And it is wonderful for lunch or I wouldn’t keep going there.

I give it 3 ½ meatballs. A few more shrimp on the skewer might bump it to 4.

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Red Lobster – Boardman
1410 Boardman Poland Rd
Youngstown, OH 44514
(330) 758-0979