Red Lobster has added a limited-time flavor to its Ultimate Endless Shrimp menu.
The 700-restaurant-strong Red Lobster chain has added a tangy crispy salt and vinegar shrimp flavor to its Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal options, it said in a press release.
Red Lobster has also begun offering a black tiger shrimp cocktail that includes jumbo shrimp served with both cocktail sauce and a spicy Thai chili-lime cilantro sauce.
With Ultimate Endless Shrimp, dine-in customers can choose three shrimp preparations to start and order more when they are ready. The limited-time crispy salt and vinegar dish joins the restaurant chain’s other Endless Shrimp offerings, which include garlic shrimp scampi and Walt's Favorite shrimp. Red Lobster’s Shrimp Your Way menu allows customers to chose any two or three shrimp preparations for either dine-in or takeout meals.
In June 2023, Red Lobster, owned by Thailand-headquartered seafood giant Thai Union, announced it was making the Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal a permanent fixture of its menu, instead of offering it at limited times throughout the year.
Traffic at Red Lobster grew 4 percent in Q3 2023, but company officials still said the Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal was priced too low, resulting in Thai Union revising Red Lobster’s loss guidance for the fiscal year from THB 500 million (USD 14 million, EUR 13 million) to THB 700 million (USD 20 million, EUR 18 million).
Red Lobster has since upped the price for its Endless Shrimp deal to USD 25 (EUR 23).
In addition to financial struggles, Red Lobster is facing legal challenges. A federal judge recently denied Red Lobster’s motion to dismiss a class-action fraud lawsuit alleging the restaurant chain sold Maine lobster and farmed shrimp that did not meet the company’s sustainability claims in its marketing.
U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt denied the motion to throw out the suit, originally filed in June 2021 by Dezzi Rae Marshall in the U.S. state of California, ruling that evidence claiming Red Lobster’s seafood isn’t as sustainable as it claims was sufficient enough for the lawsuit to move forward.
Photo courtesy of Red Lobster
