Red Lobster’s chief executive said he wants to make the 58-year-old seafood chain the most AI-forward restaurant company in the industry, adding a new layer to a turnaround that has already taken the brand through bankruptcy, remodels and a menu reset. Damola Adamolekun said each department should find its own use for AI rather than waiting for one top-down system.
He is making that pitch at a company that still operates more than 500 restaurants and is trying to rebuild itself after a brutal collapse. Adamolekun, who became the youngest CEO in Red Lobster’s history, said AI is changing the game in a tremendous way and that the chain has to lean into it now, not later.
The timing matters because Red Lobster is still being pieced back together after Fortress Investment Group bought it out of bankruptcy in 2024 and handed Adamolekun the keys. The chain’s troubles go back to 2014, when Golden Gate Capital bought it from Darden Restaurants for $2.1 billion and financed much of the deal with a $1.5 billion sale-leaseback of the real estate under roughly 500 locations. In bankruptcy filings, Red Lobster also alleged that Thai Union pushed it toward buying more of its own product, while the $20 Ultimate Endless Shrimp deal made permanent in 2023 later cost the company about $11 million in a single quarter.
Adamolekun has spent the past two years trying to change the company from the inside before betting on a bigger technology shift. He remodeled dining rooms, leaned back into the brand’s comfort-food roots and even answered unhappy customers on TikTok. In February, he told The the chain needs to get smaller and close weaker stores to protect profitable ones. That makes the AI push more striking, because he is asking Red Lobster to shrink in some places even as he pushes it to modernize everywhere else.
He also knows the brand cannot afford another expensive misfire. Adamolekun brought back Endless Shrimp in April with prices starting around $25 and said in 2024 that he would not repeat the original blunder because he knows how to do math. The next question is not whether Red Lobster will use AI, but where the company starts first — in stores, kitchens, marketing, labor planning or somewhere else Adamolekun has not yet spelled out.
