Red Lobster really underestimated how much Endless Shrimp people would eat

Red Lobster’s biggest promotion might be gobbling up its profits and causing some concerns in the finance department, but it may still be a win for marketing.

The restaurant chain made headlines this week when it announced its Endless Shrimp deal was part of the reason it reported an $11 million operating loss in the most recent quarter.

The Crustacean carnival has been around for 18 years and, like the return of McDonald’s McRib, is something fans of the chain eagerly anticipate. This year, Red Lobster decided to lean into that, offering the deal “all day, every day” instead of just on Mondays.

People responded—vigorously.

“Something which was different from our expectations is the proportion of the people selecting this promotion was much higher compared to expectation,” Ludovic Garnier, chief financial officer of Thai Union Group (which owns a stake in Red Lobster), told investors on a call in November.

Gorging on shrimp, in fact, became something of a viral trend on YouTube and TikTok, something that’s not typical for a chain facing falling sales and which closed several locations earlier this year.

One diner, a competitive eater, showed himself eating 31 orders of shrimp and says he could have gone “a couple more hours . . . but I just don’t have any more time today.” He finished the meal (his birthday meal) with chocolate cake and ice cream, but confessed he would have preferred another 15 or 20 orders of shrimp.

Another patron, a writer for Delish, ate shrimp for eight hours—ultimately devouring 73 shrimp.

“I haven’t been to Red Lobster in a couple years, but after trying this, I think I’m going to come back,” said user LukeFoods on both TikTok and YouTube, who sampled all the various shrimp dishes on the menu. The TikTok version of the video was viewed 6.2 million times.

Steve Cha, host of Rockstar Eater on YouTube, said he hadn’t been to Red Lobster in 20 years, but proceeded to produce a nearly 30-minute video of himself and competitive eater/social media star Raina Huang gorging on 25 shrimp orders (and more than 110 shrimp).

And another TikToker spent four hours downing shellfish, with the video showing 108 consumed (and her claiming she ended up eating 120 total), ending the video saying, “Best day of my entire life.”

That’s just a taste of the mukbangs that propagated online throughout the course of the promotion. And when you’ve got that many influencers talking about how good the food is—and how this was their first visit in years, it’s a dream come true for publicists.

Normally, when something costs a company $11 million, there’s talk of jettisoning it. Perhaps because this year’s Endless Shrimp got so much attention—even the fact that it lost money has garnered more press and consumer interest—Red Lobster says it has no plans to do away with the promotion. It is making one change, though: bumping up the price by 5 bucks the next time the deal comes around to $25 per person.

“It’s one of the iconic promotions for Red Lobster, so we want to keep it on the menu,” Garnier said. “But, of course, we need to be much more careful regarding what is the entry point and what is the price point.”