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Bankruptcy and biscuits: Red Lobster’s CEO says they’re swimming forward

Operator ZoneRestaurant Failures & Lessons/NBC News/5:41

When you're burning through $11 million a month on endless shrimp promotions while your labor costs spike and same-store sales tank, you're not swimming forward—you're drowning in real time. Red Lobster's bankruptcy is every operator's nightmare played out at scale: the menu item that looks profitable on paper but kills you in execution, the corporate mandates that ignore kitchen reality, the death spiral of discounting your way to irrelevance. You've seen this movie at smaller scales—the owner who thinks you can comp your way out of trouble while food costs hit 40%. The lesson isn't about seafood; it's about knowing your actual numbers before they know you.

— The Chef's Take

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