Red Lobster

Red Lobster is a chain of casual dining seafood restaurants founded in Florida in 1968 by Bill Darden. Red Lobster has over 680 locations in the United States and Canada as well as 25 locations in Japan.http://www.redlobster.jp/resindex.html Red Lobster is managed by Darden Restaurants along with the Olive Garden and Bahama Breeze family of restaurants.http://www.redlobster.com/passion/our_story/history.asp

Bill Darden founded Red Lobster in 1968 with the first location in Lakeland, Florida. The brand was acquired by General Mills in 1970, who expanded Red Lobster from five restaurants to a nationwide chain of hundreds of restaurants. Then, in 1995, General Mills spun off it's restaurant division and Darden Restaurants was formed. Joe Lee, Red Lobster's longtime chairman and leader, turned over the company to CEO Clarence Otis in 2005.http://www.redlobster.com/passion/our_story/history.asp Today, Darden employs approximately 180,000 people in its restaurants, including the Red Lobster chain.http://www.redlobster.com/passion/our_story/giving_back.asp

Red Lobster restaurants are open for both lunch and dinner seven days a week. Menu items may vary by location, but typically they include a wide variety of seafood. Specials at Red Lobster are seasonal. In February of 2010, Red Lobster was offering it's "Lobsterfest!" specials, including a lobster, shrimp and parmesan scampi dish.http://www.redlobster.com/menus/

Darden Restaurants, the parent company of Red Lobster, is seeking to make its business more "green" by promoting a new initiative to conserve energy and water in its restaurants. Along with this, Darden is upgrading and putting in Energy Star appliances at several establishments, including some Red Lobster restaurants. In addition, the company plans to redesign some restaurants to allow for more natural lighting, reducing the amount of electricity used on a daily basis.http://www.conserve.restaurant.org/news/news_20100330_darden.cfm http://www.nrn.com/article.aspx?menu_id=1368&id=383662

Darden began implementing this new initiative in early 2010 in some of the company's Olive Garden restaurants; plans were in place for at least two experimental Red Lobster restaurants by year's end, with more to follow in 2011.http://www.conserve.restaurant.org/news/news_20100330_darden.cfm

Darden, the owner of Red Lobster has formed a subsidiary called Darden Aquafarm located in Brunei, near Malaysia. Darden Aquafarm, is a project to make a commercial lobster grown on a farm to help feed the world seafood market http://www.bradenton.com/2010/07/06/2411442/darden-tries-lobster-farming.html#ixzz0t2mf0HgN

The move to commercially grow lobster could be a significant cost reducer for Red Lobster but has fishermen concerned over the impact to their jobs. Darden says it will be years before the farms have an impact on the industry.