Red Lobster's Problem Is That the Food Is Bad

I've noticed that most media coverage of Red Lobster's woes as Darden Restaurants seeks to divest itself of the ailing chain avoids the elephant in the room: Red Lobster serves bad food.
There's maybe an anti-snob thing going on where fancy-pants coastal journalists and activist investors don't want to be seen as looking down on an American casual dining classic. But there's casual dining and then there's Red Lobster, which is actually quite a bit more expensive than a Chili's or an Applebee's. If you're going to charge more money, then it'd be nice to be able to say you have a better product. But an Admiral's Feast is going to cost you more than chicken fajitas, and a lobster dish will cost you more than baby back ribs. And yet rather than being better, the Red Lobster offerings are worse.
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