Within past years, Red Lobster has been suffering from many business mistakes. Most notoriously their $20 unlimited shrimp offer which lost them a total of 20 million dollars over the course of 2023. This caused them to file for bankruptcy. A month prior to that Damola Adomalekun was induced as their newest and current CEO. He has had a great showing as CEO, having a massive appeal to younger people which the company is attempting to attract and laying out impressively intuitive plans for Red Lobster’s best course of action in the following years.

Despite Adomalekun’s efforts and appeal it’s still a challenge for him to manage the locations well enough to meet customer standards. There are a select few locations in specific that are bringing the whole company down which they do not want to give up on. It has cost them lots of capital which could’ve been put to use in order to realize more of an idealistic version of Adomalekun’s plans for the future of the franchise.

Adomalekun has made statements on this lack of capital, mentioning “shoestring operating” being the root cause of the unnecessary spending done by the company in 2025. This “shoestring operating” was likely referencing the cost cuts in quality of dining experience, and prolonged $20 shrimp deal which lost the company millions.

Another glaring reason for Red Lobster’s weak performance and failures is the fact that Golden Gate Capital, a San Francisco based private equity firm sold the majority of its real estate, leading to Red Lobster’s much unneeded spending to replace them with leases which rose sharply in price.

Adomalekun is trying to take the franchise back to its former glory whilst improving it in many ways through his methods, notably to refresh their menu and provide a more quality experience to customers.