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Red Lobster's new CEO, 35, opens up about the restaurant chain's all-you-can-eat shrimp fiasco, which helped cost the company millions after it became too popular with customers .
Originally a $20 once-a-week promotional deal, the company made the endless shrimp a permanent menu item, leading customers to eat more shrimp than the restaurant could afford, staying at their tables for hours. and lengthening waiting times at tables.
The Florida-based chain lost $11 million in the process, filed for bankruptcy and closed at least 129 locations. The closures affected establishments in Florida, Illinois, Virginia, Minnesota, New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina.
Now Damola Adamolekun, the new CEO of the company, clarifies the reasons that led to the crisis and the decision to abandon the promotion.
“There have certainly been big mistakes made in recent years,” Adamolekun said in an interview with CNN, adding that shrimp promotion was “a very expensive product to give away endlessly.”
“When you have endless shrimp and people come in, sit at the table and eat as many shrimp as they can for hours, you stress the kitchen, you stress the waiters, you stress the hosts.” continuous. “People can't get a table. It creates a lot of chaos and you saw a lot of that.”
Adamolekun, a Harvard Business School and Brown Business School graduate who was born in Nigeria and raised in Zimbabwe, Illinois and Maryland, said he plans to make several changes to the restaurant's operations.
“The menu has become too big. “We are going to reduce the menu, but in a very intelligent way,” he said, stating that the company has already finished closing its stores. “We intend to grow from here,” he said.
“There will be investments in the product that will take time. Investment in infrastructure takes time,” Adamolekun said. “Investment in technology takes time. There are 545 restaurants. Therefore, fixing every broken HVAC, every torn carpet, and every chair that needs replacing will take time, but the impact should be felt immediately.”
Prior to his current role, Adamolekun spent almost five years as CEO of PF Changs, where he is said to have generated $1 billion in revenue. Long before that, he waited tables.
He says he does not see his age as an impediment to doing the job.
“I've been in positions of authority for a long time,” he said. “My 35 may be different from someone else's 35, but these are just numbers. It's about your experience, about who you are as a person, about the quality of your character, about your integrity, about your intelligence, about your ability to communicate. There are many things that are different from person to person and age is just one of them.”
“You know, when I replaced PF Changs, I was 30 years old,” he joked. “Now I feel old. I feel experienced.”
Adamolekun, the son of a neurologist and pharmacist, previously worked as a Goldman Sachs banker and entered the operations side of the restaurant business through his role as managing partner of Paulson & Co, the hedge fund that bought PF Changs in 2019. .
In August he was named CEO of Red Lobster, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy the following month after being absorbed by a new consortium, RL Investor Holdings, and a court approving its bankruptcy plan.
Earlier this year he said Fortune: “My life is my work. My work is my life,” and adds: “I have never been a person who separates work and life. It mixes.”
In June, in the midst of Red Lobster's financial crisis, another potential savior emerged: former Public Enemy star Flavor Flav.
A fan of the restaurant, the rapper ordered the full menu for his family at one of the chain's restaurants.
The 65-year-old posed in front of a table filled with seafood, sides, appetizers and her iconic Cheddar Bay biscuits: traditional biscuits adorned with garlic, butter and cheese.
“Your guy said he would do everything he could to help Red Lobster and save Cheddar Bay cookies… he ordered the entire menu,” he wrote over the photo, which showed him standing in front of the table with a cookie in his hand.
The chain was founded in Lakeland, Florida in 1968.
