Is Red Lobster’s revamped ‘Endless Shrimp’ deal worth it? A food critic tried it.

To many people’s ears, an all-you-can-eat offering sounds not just like a bargain but also a challenge — a gauntlet thrown.

How many breadsticks can one eat? Diners often treat buffets like a game; there are online forums where people share strategies for maximizing the experience. (Filling up on bread is a rookie error.)

There’s a feeling of bounty in an all-you-can-eat meal, a luxury that comes from knowing there’s always more.

And so it’s easy to understand the appeal of Red Lobster’s “Endless Shrimp” special, a promotion in which diners are guaranteed as many shrimp as they can stuff in at one seating. The restaurant chain, whose fortunes have suffered lately, recently announced the return of the deal, which it had periodically offered over the past two decades.

Still, the resurfacing of “Endless Shrimp” was puzzling to some people who had watched Red Lobster’s 2024 bankruptcy, which was blamed in part on the popularity of the all-you-can-eat shrimp deal. At the time, the ill-fated shrimp run was mocked by late-night comedians and amateurs on social media. (“Would you describe this shrimp disaster as jumbo?” asked Michelle Wolf on “The Daily Show.”) A subsequent lawsuit made clear that the problems went far deeper than consumers’ boundless appetite for cheap shrimp, including the fact that the company was largely owned by its shrimp supplier.

Now the chain has new owners, and CEO Damola Adamolekun — who once said he would not revive the special because he knew “how to do math” — indicated that this time, things would be different. “We’re excited to bring it back, for a limited time, in a way that works for our business today and honors what made it special from the beginning,” he said in a news release.

When pressed for more detail on how the shrimp special was being handled differently, a representative said in an email that there were “guardrails” in place. Asked to clarify that, the representative described back-of-the-house changes that made things easier on staff. “That includes a focused menu lineup, balancing kitchen execution across stations, and updating kitchen display system layouts to support a smoother flow for both restaurant teams and guests,” she wrote in an email.

The deal is also being offered for a limited time, though the company wouldn’t divulge when it plans to pull the plug. That’s in contrast to when the company last offered it and made it a part of the regular menu.

The price point, too, is higher than last time, when it started at $20 and was eventually raised to $25. It’s now $25 or $30, depending on the location. Red Lobster also does not seem to be aggressively promoting the deal in its restaurants, unlike in previous years. On a recent visit, a small placard on the table was the only announcement heralding it.

Jonathan Maze, the editor-in-chief of industry publication Restaurant Business, says that’s a seemingly small thing that can wreck profitability — if the restaurant featured highly visible promotions, some customers who had arrived planning to pay full price for their meals might decide to go with the cheaper option.

So why bring it back at all?

Adamolekun suggested that it was something of a fan service. “This is about putting our guests first and bringing back something they truly love,” he said in the news release. “Endless Shrimp has been a part of Red Lobster’s legacy for 20 years and our guests have never stopped asking for it.”

Maze noted that the restaurant industry in general is “kind of stuck right now.” Factors including inflation, high gas prices and falling consumer confidence mean many restaurants are seeing declining traffic and sluggish sales. A splashy deal, he said, might be a way of luring diners. “Restaurant chains need something on their menu that can generate customer excitement and provide some level of value to the consumer,” he said. “Because that’s where the consumer is at today.”

Just how good a deal is the latest “Endless Shrimp” wave? To find out, I enlisted the help of Washington Post food critic Elazar Sontag. We visited a location in suburban Maryland during the first week of the promotion’s return.

Some premeal math told us how many shrimp we would each have to eat to make this a bargain: 23. A regular scampi entrée was $19 and contained 14 shrimp, giving each crustacean a price tag of about $1.36. The Endless special was $30, so 22 shrimp was our break-even number.

Resisting filling up on the famous Cheddar Bay biscuits that start every meal was our first test. And we similarly paid little mind to our sides. We were there with a single goal: shrimpmaxxing.

There are five styles of shrimp available under the deal: a classic breaded version called “Walt’s Favorite,” served with cocktail sauce; “Parrot Isle” jumbo shrimp rolled in coconut, fried and accompanied by a sweet piña colada sauce; classic scampi in herb-and-garlic butter; a shrimp-topped fettuccine Alfredo; and a new preparation called “Marry Me Shrimp” that comes bathed in a creamy tomato sauce. We quickly determined that the scampi and the coconut styles were our favorites of the bunch. (The Marry Me preparation, which is based on a viral recipe for chicken, was particularly unappealing, with a lumpy, flavorless sauce.)

Here’s how the deal works: Each diner starts with a selection of any three styles. After that, they can order an additional two styles at once for as long as they like. I tapped out after two rounds, while Elazar went for a third (and finished some of mine to boot). In the end, I managed to eat only 19 shrimp. I could have pushed through and had more, but I wanted to enjoy my meal and not feel like I was a contestant in a Coney Island eating contest. Elazar downed an impressive 43.

And it wasn’t just about the numbers. Once we identified the styles we preferred, we genuinely enjoyed our shrimp-athon. Large, fruity cocktails — a piña colada for him and a margarita for me — gave the meal a festive feeling. It was Elazar’s first visit to the chain, which opened its first location in 1968, and he quickly professed himself a fan.

Surrounded by fellow diners who seemed in a celebratory mood (especially the matriarch at the three-generation table sporting a shirt with “BIRTHDAY GIRL” in sequined lettering), it sure felt like a party.

“This,” Elazar enthused, “might be the happiest place on Earth.”