Maybe offering endless crabs wasn’t a great idea after all. Several Red Lobster restaurants in the area, including Nanuet, abruptly closed Monday, as the company is reportedly filing for bankruptcy protection. Other restaurants in the area that have shut down are in Scarsdale and Poughkeepsie. An employee at the Nanuet location told News 12 the staff there wasn’t notified of the closing until they arrived at work on Monday. WRCR market analyst Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management in Chestnut Ridge says that’s no way to run a business, even if you’re going out of business…
Mahoney says fierce competition and the high price of seafood that could no longer be passed onto the consumer helped do them in. Red Lobster’s been around since 1968 and currently has around 600 restaurants in its global portfolio. CNN reported Red Lobster’s financial woes began way back in 2003, when their “Endless Crab” promotion lost more than $3 million in seven weeks.