A Look at The Adaptive Reuse of the Original Red Lobster Building as the Seafood Chain Mulls a Bankruptcy Filing

Which may result in more Red Lobster restaurant closures and repurpose opportunities

A Red Lobster bankruptcy may happen soon.

It will likely be followed by many restaurant closures — and leave plenty of real estate available for adaptive reuse.

But some former Red Lobster restaurants have already been repurposed.

Including the original Red Lobster restaurant that opened in 1968 in a new building on along the shores of Lake Parker in Lakeland, Florida.

The casual dining seafood restaurant was a new concept — but was well received by customers as evidenced by full parking lots and frequent lines to enter.

Bill Darden - the founder of Red Lobster - opened four more restaurants over the following two years but sold the five unit chain to General Mills in 1970.

Darden remained with General Mills, oversaw the growth of Red Lobster into one of the largest casual dining chains in the country and introduced a second casual dining brand - Olive Garden - in 1982.

In 1990 the Company formed another brand, China Coast, that it hoped would grow into its third top tier casual dining chain alongside Red Lobster and Olive Garden.

The China Coast chain expanded to approximately 50 locations by 1995.

But negative reviews, inconsistent food quality and poor service ultimately led to the closure of all China Coast restaurants by 1996, shortly after General Mills spun out the restaurant division as new public company named Darden Restaurants Inc.

Darden Restaurants found it difficult to sell some of the China Coast real estate — so it repurposed and redeveloped several former China Coast restaurant sites into locations for its better performing brands.

Which ultimately led to the closure of the original Red Lobster in Lakeland.

And its relocation in 1996 to the former China Coast building on a pad site in front of the Lakeland Square Mall.

The original Red Lobster building was later occupied on and off for several years by other restaurant concepts.

In 2008 the building was renovated and re-opened as “Ale Gators” a combination sports bar-night club-seafood restaurant.

But Ale Gators closed for good a few years back.

And the former home to the original Red Lobster was sold in 2020 to a Company that planned to leverage the building’s unique location on the shores of Lake Parker:

The Lakeland Fishing Outfitters Tackle Shop.

Lakeland Fishing Outfitters spent more than two years to renovate the original Red Lobster building into perhaps the largest fishing tackle store in Central Florida.

The tackle shop — with over 5,000 square foot of selling space dedicated to all things fishing — opened for business in 2022.