Revamps for Olive Garden, Red Lobster fall flat

[TexasTowelie]

NEW YORK —

Darden can't seem to convince more people to sit down for a meal at its Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants.

The company reported a sharply lower quarterly profit on Friday that missed Wall Street expectations, with sales down at its two biggest chains despite ongoing attempts to revamp their menus with lighter, cheaper options. Darden said it would slash costs to prepare for future challenges, in part by reducing its workforce.

It also said that its president and chief operating officer, Drew Madsen, was retiring and would be succeeded by Gene Lee, effective immediately. Lee headed Darden's specialty restaurants such as The Capital Grille and Bahama Breeze, which had fared relatively better than the company's flagship chains.

The shake-up comes as Darden Restaurants Inc. struggles to keep pace with a shifting industry, with more people heading to chains such as Chipotle that offer food perceived to be higher quality at relatively cheaper prices. As traffic has declined at Olive Garden and Red Lobster over the years, Darden has been trying to win back diners with lighter dishes and promotions intended to underscore the affordability of its food.

More at http://www.statesman.com/ap/ap/business/darden-restaurants-coo-madsen-to-retire/nZ3Xs/ .

[font color=green]Could DUers be having an effect on Darden's bottom line?[/font]

[Warpy]

1. Mid level chains are in big trouble because the mid level customer base

is being systematically destroyed.

I don't know why this is coming as a surprise to them. It's the policy of the Republicans they've contributed to in the past to kill the middle class and make everybody but the 0.1% poor.

[Frankie the Bird]

2. Their food are still crap. Crap is crap, no matter how much you define it, prettify it, it's still

crap.

Last time I went to Olive Garden, I could barely eat their garbage.

The food quality is Grade-F Dog Food.

[Logical]

5. LOL, DU food snobs/experts crack me up! nt

[xfundy]

6. Am I a food snob, because I want to eat naturally-raised food?

I used to have a garden, organic, as well as a recycling system for food scraps to grow the vegetables therein.

Does that make me a "snob?"

For most of the history of this nation, foods were grown organically, until about the 40s/50s, when the "miracle" of science started putting chemicals in the soil without studying what they did to consumers of those formerly organic foods. Is that snobbery?

I suspect you are either too young or too indoctrinated to know better.

[gopiscrap]

3. Good both these entities are assholes

[jsr]

4. Crappy and run by greedy assholes

[nebenaube]

7. hmmm

Pasta, well that's Carbs... we are not allowed to eat carbs anymore and we can get the same pasta at Walmart. Red Lobster? What are they going to sell? Petroleum Shrimp, radioactive Tuna and other assorted weak shelled crab?

[rl6214]

8. The food cost at Red Lobster is extremely high compared to oat restaraunts.

It's tough to make it work. You can only lower the prices so much and then it becomes impossible to make any profit. When I was a GM for Red Lobster the average profit margin was 10-15%. Some of the smaller restaurants were single digits. That means for every dollar spent the profit was 10-15 cents. My restaurants ran 20-25% with an occasional 30%. They spent A LOT of money on their remodel at Red Lobster. A pretty decor is not going to bring the people in. They need to manage the costs but the service of late has just SUCKED. if you are NOT taking care of the people, they are not going to come back.