Seek out local restaurants
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- June 24, 2024
- 391
It’s looking like the local Red Lobster, along with other Ohio locations, will be lost in the face of a 48 location closure intended to rescue the seafood restaurant from failing attendance and profits.
Many were quick to blame Red Lobster for seemingly foolhardy decisions like offering all you can eat shrimp for too little money. All you can eat deals are usually stacked in favor of the house, as few people can actually eat enough food to wipe out profits. Red Lobster looks to be the victim of lousy overall management decisions and a general drop in public interest in pricey restaurant chains.
It was Howard Johnson’s, under Chef Jacques Pepin, who pioneered the concept of a homogenous company of restaurants with quality control dictated by a central location. You don’t get much that’s fresh from such places and diners are better educated about such things now. The benefit to such models is hard to resist: the shrimp platter you get in Kentucky will always taste the same as the shrimp platter in Nevada, because they are in fact exactly the same.
I heard a comedian on NPR poking fun at Red Lobster one Saturday afternoon several years ago. He said Red Lobster must have created a generally seafood flavored product that could be molded into any desired shape. Put the stuff through a shrimp mold and you get shrimp. The lobster mold gives you extruded lobster tasting seafood, another pumps out a sandwich, and all of it tastes exactly alike. “And you always feel like you aren’t good enough,” he said, “like they think you’re dressed for Denny’s and should turn around. Where’s your Members Only jacket, pal?”
Red Lobster is part of a staggering list of such restaurant chains, which are closing up shop soon or already have. A bunch of Applebees are going away, along with Chili’s, TGI Fridays, Boston Market, Cracker Barrel, Outback Steakhouse and even poor Denny’s. I’d miss that Moon Over Myhammy if even they go.
You’re much better off seeking out good locally run restaurants. The kitchen staff have to know how to actually cook, rather than reheating things shipped in on a truck. The bad thing will be the situation forced on displaced workers who may find it hard to find another job outside the mistake proof kitchens in chain places. There will also be no joy in the suddenly empty restaurant buildings all over the country.
The one thing I’d miss about Red Lobster is those cheddar bay biscuits. You can keep the vengefully cooked shrimp but I’ll take a pile of those biscuits. Red Lobster knows how much you like them and many grocers sell kits from the company to make them, or you can just do your own as there are lots of copycat recipes out there.
I know we’re cheating by using a baking mix, but that adds authenticity.
CHEDDAR CHEESE BISCUITS
4 cups baking mix, like Bisquick
1 1/3 cups water
3 ounce shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon inion powder
1/4 teaspoon dried parsley
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Combine the melted butter, garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper and parsley in a bowl and set aside.
Mix the baking mix, water, and cheese together in a bowl until combined. Measure out by spoonfuls onto the baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes until golden. Brush with the butter mixture and serve.