What Killed Red Lobster? | Chain Reaction | 3
Business Wars
Wondery
4.6 • 13.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chain restaurants are making a comeback — from Chili’s to Red Lobster, the spots we once passed over are cool once more. But why? Is it due to TikTok? Inflation? Millennial nostalgia? Eater reporter Amy McCarthy joins David to explore the recent ‘chain-aissance’ and whether it can help revive Red Lobster. Later, Jordan Myrick, host of the grocery review site Sporked, tastes some storied Red Lobster offerings to find out if its foray into freezer aisles has paid off. Biscuits, anyone?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wonderly Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Business Wars, TikTok versus the USA, early and ad-free right now. |
| 0:07.6 | Join Windry Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:15.5 | Hey, I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars. |
| 0:41.7 | Thank you. Hey, I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars. Think about your favorite chain restaurant. |
| 0:43.4 | What keeps you going back? |
| 0:44.5 | Is it the meal deals? |
| 0:46.8 | Always knowing your signature order? |
| 0:48.7 | An endless shrimp promotion, perhaps? |
| 0:51.4 | And what about the nostalgia of it all? |
| 0:54.9 | Maybe setting foot into a red lobster or a chili's brings you back to another era, one where high schoolers with nowhere else to go could splurge on half-price apps after 9 p.m. |
| 1:01.4 | And birthdays could be celebrated with a free dessert with the wait staff shouting out the proprietary birthday cheer. |
| 1:07.9 | I don't know what I've been told. Someone here is getting old. |
| 1:12.1 | But during the 2008 recession, and again during the pandemic, |
| 1:15.4 | it seemed like chain restaurants and their gimmicky goodness |
| 1:18.3 | were in danger of disappearing altogether. |
| 1:20.7 | Plus, after 40 years in operation, |
| 1:23.1 | your average olive garden looked a lot less exciting than the newer independent places. |
| 1:28.7 | Well, now the tides have shifted. You walk into that same olive garden on a Saturday night, and more often than |
| 1:34.5 | not, you could be waiting almost an hour for a table. There's been a chain of sants, if you will, |
| 1:39.7 | and restaurants are figuring out how to capitalize on this newfound popularity. |
| 1:44.8 | Joining us today is Amy McCarthy, a reporter for Eater, who covers the intersection of casual |
| 1:49.2 | dining, pop culture, and online trends. She's helping us understand why chains are so popular |
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