Red Lobster Has A Blog! And There Are Life Lessons In The Comments, If You Look Hard Enough
Red Lobster has a blog! The blog's two contributors are executive chefs at the seafood giant, and they've been posting around once or twice a week since mid-July on topics like recipes, restaurant conferences, healthy eating, and the like. Yesterday or so, they sent out a press release about the blog to RL's mailing list. Everyone who followed the link ended up on the same post, a spice blend recipe for grilled firm white fish that sounds perfectly reasonable and inoccuous. But that didn't stop 31 people from leaving entirely off-topic comments about individual restaurants and experiences, many of them as illiterate as our unusable MenuPages user reviews.
Take, for example, commenter "pat" from central Illinois, who pecked out a paean in all caps:
I TRUELY LOVE RED LOBSTER IT OUR ANNUAL GIRLS NIGHT OUT EXSPECIALLY DURING THE HOLIDAY WE DO OUR GIFT GIVING THERE FOR THE LAST 6YEARS UNTIL I MOVE AWAY I WAS GOING TO THE ONE IN CHAMPAIGN,IL AND THEY ALWAYS HAS GREAT SERVES AND PEOPLE LOVE THEM FOR THAT,AND THE FOOD IS SOOOOO GREAT AND THE SERVES IS GOOD, THE OLY THING YOU JUST HAVE TO WAIT BECAUSE IT BE FULL, BUT IT HASN'T STOP ME FROM WAITING, I DON'T CARE BECAUSE THE SERVE IS GOOD THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY TIME WONDERFUL THERE.But the sad thing is, we're jealous of Pat and her ability to enjoy the simple pleasures in life without cynicism or bitterness. Oh, to have such low standards! To live in blissful ignorance!
Actually, screw that - we do want to be the one that spoils the party. It's much more fun! And we'd like to believe it helps make the world a little less vapid, even at the expense of people, you know, tolerating us. So we admire "anonymous," who admonished everyone to snap out of it:
People, people, people...Yes! Thank you very much. We should all try to be more like anonymous this weekend. Have a good weekend.
I've never blogged before and perhaps I'm wrong, but isn't this blog for "spicing up your fish" and not compliments or complaints about RL? If you have a problem, you need to advise the store manager and then follow up with corporate, they do have an area to do this. Also, if you'd like to compliment a store or person imparticular, let the store manager and corporate know.
And so for me, on this blog, I'd like to say: Thank you Chef, for the spice recipe above, I plan to try it this weekend.
Spicing Up Your Fish [Red Lobster blog]
Red Lobster - River North [MenuPages]
Red Lobster - Archer Heights [MenuPages]
[Photo: Fried fish and broiled scallops combo at RL in Gilbert, AZ. Why is everything on this plate yellow or brown? (chowdownphoenix)]
