The Decline of Red Lobster Is the Decline of the Middle Class

[brewens]

136. I still went to Skippers for several years after our Red Lobster opened. They had better fish and

shrimp. Not to mention the chowder. Skippers is now in serious decline if they are still open anywhere, they were for years our region. I can't say I have seen one still running anywhere since about five years ago.

I worked at the first ever Skippers franchise in the early 80's. Our boss/owner was a first rate restaraunt man. He was still running a pretty successful Skippers when all the others were going down in flames, despite pretty much zero support at the corporate level. He pulled out all the stops to keep going. He stopped using their official paper products and cups to save money, introducing unauthorized menue items, all kinds of things that would have gotten him shut down if corporate still gave a shit. He sold it and the new owners didn't last a year.

That was really a shame. When I started there we cut, battered and breaded everything right on site. It was all frozen being so far from the coast but it was all top quality stuff. Shrimp was always a little seasonal. Sometimes they weren't as big and fat but they were always pretty good. I had some at Red Lobster once that were so pathetic you couldn't even really taste the shrimp.

The all you can eat fish fries and chowder at a good Skippers was really alright back in the day.