Crimson Lobster Briefly Closes Dozens of Eating places

In case you ever wished to purchase a lobster tank and an industrial freezer, now’s the time.

Tools from greater than 50 Crimson Lobster eating places throughout america was up for public sale on Tuesday, a liquidator mentioned, because the embattled seafood chain’s web site listed dozens of areas as being quickly closed.

The public sale website consists of grainy footage of freezers, ovens, blenders and different gadgets. A photograph of a tank with dwell lobsters appeared within the itemizing for the Crimson Lobster in Redding, Calif., together with images of a bar with whiskey bottles and a fridge stocked with wine and beer.

The auctions have been scheduled to finish on Thursday, and gadgets should be picked up on Friday, in response to the liquidator, TAGeX Manufacturers. Whoever wins the bid for a specific restaurant will obtain every thing inside it (not together with perishable items and alcohol, the public sale website famous).

Crimson Lobster didn’t reply to inquiries Tuesday morning.

Crimson Lobster, based mostly in Orlando, Fla., opened its first location in 1968 and now has eating places throughout america, plus others in Asia and Latin America. Its décor was impressed by Bar Harbor, a coastal city in Maine.

Crimson Lobster continues to be an American establishment, however it has been dropping cash for some time. Final yr, its choice to drastically develop an all-you-can-eat shrimp promotion contributed to an $11 million quarterly working loss.

Bloomberg Information reported final month that Crimson Lobster was seeking to restructure its debt and contemplating whether or not to file for chapter. The corporate didn’t remark for that article.

For a lot of American households, Crimson Lobster has lengthy been an aspirational eating alternative, and for some an introduction to seafood. Within the late Nineteen Sixties and ’70s, its emblem marketed the restaurant as a cocktail lounge with an oyster bar.

Crimson Lobster has additionally filtered into American common tradition, together with within the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy “Completely happy Gilmore” and the 2016 Beyoncé track “Formation,” through which she sang about taking a romantic companion to the restaurant.

Normal Mills bought the chain in 1970. It was later owned by Darden Eating places, a Normal Mills subsidiary, and was bought by Golden Gate Capital, a personal fairness agency, in 2014.

Crimson Lobster’s largest shareholder since 2020 has been Thai Union Group, a seafood conglomerate based mostly in Thailand. That firm introduced in January that it had determined to exit its Crimson Lobster funding. It later mentioned that it had written down its $530 million stake.

Thai Union mentioned in its January announcement that Crimson Lobster had been damage by the coronavirus pandemic, greater rates of interest, rising labor and materials prices, and “sustained trade headwinds.” It mentioned in a quick electronic mail on Tuesday that it was nonetheless within the means of “exiting its minority funding” and had no additional remark.

One other main shareholder in Crimson Lobster is Seafood Alliance, a Belgium-based affiliation of worldwide seafood companies, in response to Thai Union. Seafood Alliance didn’t instantly reply to an inquiry.

Victor Mather contributed reporting.