Did they not do some, like, basic math before offering the promotion?

It's not about the shrimp, says JoAnn's in the other corner, furiously knitting a sock. It is, in all these cases, about private equity buying in, making a quick buck , and saddling the company with the debt of the merger. Keep up.

They did. They were expecting it to operate like a traditional loss leader with one person per table ordering it, and everyone else in the group ordering high margin dishes.

It's a click-bait title when it's about 0.5% of their $2.6B revenue. It could also have been beneficial for the company. You lose $1 on an endless shrimp for one diner who brought their family where each of them was a $2 profit.

Did the ocean call and say they were running out of shrimp?

“Look at these profits endless steakhouses are raking in! We gotta get some of that. Endless Tapas even more. So we need an even smaller dish to offer endlessly!”

Also, the primary business of the company that owns Red Lobster currently is seafood, they probably figured if they were self-supplying they could at least break even.

Have... Have you ever met a CEO? 😁