Seafood restaurant chain Red Lobster has recently closed one hundred locations across the United States. These closures were announced on the company’s website, listing affected locations in states such as Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, California, and Florida.
TAGeX Brands CEO and Founder Neal Sherman revealed on LinkedIn that his company would be hosting a large restaurant liquidation auction, including items from 48 closed Red Lobster locations. Some of the closed restaurants included ones in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Watertown, New York, Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Bloomingdale and Danville, Illinois.
In Jacksonville, Florida, all three Red Lobster locations were also marked as closed on the chain’s website. Reports from employees at the Buffalo, New York location revealed that they were caught off guard by the sudden closures and were not informed by corporate.
Red Lobster, which first opened in Lakeland, Florida in 1968, has grown to over 700 locations worldwide. The closures come shortly after the company faced financial challenges, including losses due to a shrimp promotion in 2023.
Additionally, ThaiUnion, a Thailand-based company that invested in Red Lobster in 2020, announced in January 2024 that they would be exiting their minority investment in the company, incurring a significant loss.
