If you’ve ever wanted to buy a lobster tank and industrial freezer, now is the time.
Equipment at more than 50 Red Lobster restaurants in the United States will be auctioned off on Tuesday, a liquidator said, as the troubled seafood chain’s website lists dozens of restaurants as temporarily closed.
this Auction site Includes grainy images of freezers, ovens, blenders, and other items. The listing for Red Lobster in Redding, Calif., showed a photo of a tank containing live lobsters, along with photos of a bar with whiskey bottles and a refrigerator filled with wine and beer.
Liquidator TAGeX Brands said the auction was due to end on Thursday and items had to be picked up on Friday. The auction website notes that whoever wins the bid for a particular restaurant will receive all items in the restaurant (excluding perishable goods and alcohol).
Red Lobster did not respond to inquiries Tuesday morning.
Red Lobster, headquartered in Orlando, Florida, Opened first branch in 1968 It now has restaurants across the United States, as well as others in Asia and Latin America. The decor is inspired by the coastal town of Bar Harbor, Maine.
Red Lobster is still an American institution, but it has been losing money for some time.Last year, it decided to significantly expand its unlimited shrimp promotion Resulting in a quarterly operating loss of $11 million.
Bloomberg News reported last month that Red Lobster was looking to restructure its debt and Considering whether to file for bankruptcy. The company did not comment for this article.
Red lobster has long been an ideal dining option for many American families and, for some, an introduction to seafood.In the late 1960s and 1970s, its logo Advertise a restaurant Serves as a cocktail lounge with an oyster bar.
Red Lobster has also permeated American pop culture, including in the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy “Red Lobster”Happy Gilmore” and the 2016 Beyoncé song “formation,” in which she sings about taking a romantic partner to a restaurant.
general mills bought The chain was founded in 1970. It was later owned by Darden Restaurants, a subsidiary of General Mills, and acquired by private equity firm Golden Gate Capital in 2014.
Since 2020, Red Lobster’s largest shareholder has been Thai Union Group.The company announced in January that it had decided to quit Its Red Lobster Investments. The company later said it had written down $530 million of its stake.
Thai Union said in a January announcement that Red Lobster had been hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, rising interest rates, rising labor and material costs and “ongoing industry headwinds.” The company said in a brief email on Tuesday that it was still in the process of “exiting its minority investment” and had no further comment.
Red Lobster’s other major shareholder is Seafood Alliance, an international association of seafood businesses based in Belgium. According to the United Daily News of Thailand. The Seafood Alliance did not immediately respond to inquiries.
Victor Mather contributed reporting.
