Ah yes of course, like the all you can eat shrimp was simply too generous sounded like a fucking dumb explanation

Also their largest shareholder, a seafood distributor, maneuvered things so they became the sole supplier of breaded shrimp for the chain. Think of how much breaded shrimp Red Lobster buys.

One of the other fun tricks of private equity firms is to charge the company to be managed by them. Imagine if your boss charged you literal actual dollars to be managed by them.

It's kinda funny how often people think there are machinations behind the scenes, but as long as there's a good joke, they don't look further. A big chain doesn't go bankrupt because of a single $11 million loss due to a shrimp promotion. (Also, btw, they were forced to make that losing promotion permanent instead of time limited.)