Your daily adult tube feed all in one place!
Red Lobster to close two dozen more restaurants amid bankruptcy - is your local on the list?
Red Lobster will close almost two dozen more restaurants across 15 states as part of the chain's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.
The beloved restaurant staple filed for bankruptcy in May, shuttering more than 100 restaurants across the country.
The company will shut 23 more locations by August 31, according to CNN, which will leave Red Lobster with 500 remaining restaurants. This is down from the 650 it was operating last year.
The troubled seafood chain is currently being sold to Fortress Credit Corp, as part of the bankruptcy process.
The investment fund is experienced in restaurant management - also owning Krystal, Logan's Roadhouse and J. Alexander's - and has given Red Lobster a $100 million loan to allow it to keep operating.
Red Lobster is shuttering more restaurants as it proceeds with bankruptcy
The latest closures are spread out across 15 states - including three in Virginia, two in New York, three in Illinois and three in Florida.
Red Lobster has about $300 million in debt, some of which is wrapped up in the 3.75 million pounds of shrimp it purchased from its current owner Thai Union Group, according to a document filed with the bankruptcy court by Thai Union's lawyers.
The casual dining favorite officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 19.
Prior to the bankruptcy filing, restaurant liquidator TAGeX Brands auctioned off the equipment of 48 closed Red Lobster locations.
Its problems have been blamed on rising lease and labor costs in recent years and its infamous $20 all-you-can-eat shrimp deal that backfired.
The offer, launched last June as a permanent fixture on the menu, is almost identical to a deal in 2003 - and the problems it caused are almost identical too.
Back then, it was 'endless crab'. It was great for hungry seafood lovers but a disaster for the restaurant.
By the time the plug was pulled after just seven weeks, Red Lobster had lost $3.3 million.
The latest closures will leave the seafood chain with around 500 restaurants
Red Lobster has been given a $100 million loan to keep it afloat
Endless shrimp started at $20 but was too popular and cost millions of dollars
'It wasn't the second helping on all-you-can-eat, but the third' that hurt profits, a Red Lobster executive said to analysts at the time in 2003.
This time, the deal was also wildly popular - with some customers staying for hours to see how much the could eat. One customer managed 108 shrimp in four hours.
'I set a new record at my local Red Lobster, this is my greatest achievement in life,' the customer explained in her video.
More people began to take advantage of the offer than the company expected.
But rather than pull the deal, bosses kept it running for six months - and the losses dwarfed the amount lost for endless crabs 20 years earlier.
Seafood lovers devouring plates of shrimps was the key reason that Red Lobster's majority owner Thai Union lost $11 million in just three months soon after the deal began.
Ludovic Garnier, the chief financial officer, said: 'We knew the price was cheap, but the idea was to bring more traffic in the restaurants.'
'So we wanted to boost our traffic, and it didn't work.'
'For those who have been in the US recently, $20 was very cheap. And the rationale for this promotion was to say we knew the price was cheap, but the idea was to bring more traffic in the restaurants,' said CFO Ludovic Garnier in November.
'But something which was different from our expectation is the proportion of the people selecting these promotions was much higher compared to expectation,' he added.