Company address: Red Lobster 5900 Lake Ellenor Drive Orlando, FL 32809 Subsidiary of: Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE : DRI) of Orlando, Florida, which, through its subsidiaries, also operates Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52 restaurants. Industry position: Red Lobster is the world’s largest casual dining seafood restaurant company with 682 restaurants in the United States and Canada and more than 63,000 employees. Red Lobster is the largest overnight shipper of fresh fish in the restaurant industry. Sales Red Lobster enjoyed total sales of $2.58 billion in fiscal 2006. The average sales per restaurant were $3.8 million for this fiscal year.

Guests:
Red Lobster served more than 2.8 million guests a week or 145 million a year in fiscal 2006.

Focus:
Red Lobster serves delicious, freshly prepared seafood in a relaxing, seaside atmosphere.

Menu:
Red Lobster offers a wide selection of delicious, freshly prepared seafood, including fresh fish, live Maine lobster, jumbo shrimp and steamed crab legs. Each day, every Red Lobster features up to eight species of fresh fish flown in from around the world. The fish selection changes daily based on availability and local customer preferences. In addition to favorites such as salmon, trout and tilapia, the menu may offer species such as grouper, snapper, arctic char and mahi mahi and may include regional species such as wall-eyed pike in the Midwest and Pacific red rockfish on the West Coast.

History:

* Restaurant entrepreneur Bill Darden founded Red Lobster in 1968 in Lakeland, Fla.
* General Mills acquired Red Lobster in 1970 as a five-unit restaurant company and rapidly expanded the company nationwide.
* Red Lobster opened its first restaurant in Canada (Windsor, Ontario) in 1983.
* General Mills spun-off its restaurant division, including Red Lobster, in 1995, forming Darden Restaurants, Inc. as an independent Fortune 500 corporation.