Seafood restaurant Red Lobster suddenly closed 99 restaurants this week, including three in the Houston area. The closures were sudden, and no warning was given to employees or customers. However, they were not unexpected. The chain has been considering filing for bankruptcy for months now. Members of the retail and restaurant world point to the idea that this sudden closure, which is being followed by a quick auction, might be a way to generate enough cash to begin the filing process. The chain has been facing years of poor returns after being separated from its parent company, Darden, over ten years ago. The three locations that have closed in our area include the Lake Jackson location, one in Pasadena, and one near Cypress Station, which was one of a handful of Texas locations of Darden’s short-lived Chinese restaurant experiment. The first Houston location to be auctioned will be Lake Jackson; the auction is already running for the entire restaurant contents and requires everything to be out of the building by May 17th.
Not surprising. All three of those locations are in low income areas. My family used to eat at the one in Pasadena when it opened in the late ’70s; it was new at the time and was considered a special treat. Interesting that the location at 290 and Hollister was spared the knife. It sits next door to a Pappadeaux, which has a much higher food quality. Maybe they’re surviving on the overflow, since the Pappadeaux had a waiting time of at least 15 minutes the last few times I’ve been there.