Red Lobster Really Wants to Be a Fancy Restaurant

Red Lobster really wants you to think that it's a fancy restaurant and not just a place where you can cram cheddar biscuits into your face. According to the Associated Press, the struggling seafood chain has realized that offering promotions like "30 shrimp for $11.99" may not be appealing to its target audience; many of these well-known deals are getting axed in favor of more upscale specials. But lovers of "Endless Shrimp" and "Crabfest" — which sounds more like a Fraternity party gone wrong than a nice dinner out — need not worry, those classy deals will remain.

Taking a page from the 1980s, Red Lobster is encouraging its cooks to stack food higher. Fish dishes were once served on boring old rectangular plates, with the components "spread out on separate corners." Now, the food is served on a round plate on which "slabs of fish are piled over rice." Red Lobster CEO Kim Lopdrup believes that this placing of fish on rice makes "seafood the star" and is more inline with "fine-dining restaurant[s]." This truly innovative plating style will soon expand to other parts of the menu, so brace for towers of shrimp stacked on fries stacked on cheddar biscuits. While the plating will change, the food itself — perhaps the one thing that should change — will not.

· Red Lobster Goes Vertical on Plate to Push Quality [AP]
· All Red Lobster Coverage on Eater [-E-]