Joe Biden’s deliberate inflation policies have crushed Americans to the point where most people no longer have disposable cash to eat at a restaurant. When Donald Trump was in the White House, a family of four could eat for less than $20 at a McDonald’s. Today, that same family would have to spend more than $60 for the same “value” meals. As a result, people avoid eating out completely. The restaurant industry is being hammered by Biden’s inflation. Red Lobster is the latest victim. The company closed down almost 50 restaurants this year.
Red Lobster has shut down 48 locations across the US this year, to be exact. More closures are expected since the seafood giant is now considering bankruptcy. It owns 700 restaurants in America. Auction house TaGeX has announced that it’s holding a fire sale to auction off everything from the 48 shuttered Red Lobster restaurants—including the furniture, fixtures, and equipment.
A seafood company from Thailand called ThaiUnion purchased a stake in Red Lobster back in 2020 when Donald Trump was in office. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But after three years of Joe Biden crushing the economy, ThaiUnion is now exiting its investment at a loss of $530 million. Great job, Joe Biden!
Red Lobster is far from the only restaurant that’s suffering because of Joe Biden.
A company called Placer.ai tracks location analytics on various things across the country. One of the things it measures from year to year is the number of cars in the parking lots of sit-down restaurants (every bit of data from our cell phones is now commoditized). The number of visits to sit-down restaurants in 2023 declined by 5% from 2022. More and more people just can’t afford to eat out. Over the two months from last December until January, 40 restaurants in Manhattan permanently closed.
The Applebee’s chain shut down 46 restaurants in 2023 and plans to close at least 35 more this year. Boston Market used to have more than 1,000 restaurants across the US. Last month, a court denied the company Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which means its creditors will be able to seize property to recoup their losses—and then there will be no more Boston Markets anywhere.
Full-service restaurants only have a 3 to 5% profit margin to begin with. The price of food has increased by 30% in the past three years because of Joe Biden. Restaurant workers (and everyone else) also need higher wages just to survive in Biden’s economy. When you combine the increased food costs with the increased wages, people can’t afford to dine out and restaurants can’t afford to stay open.
When the Biden regime announces its cooked inflation numbers again this week, they’ll claim that inflation is only running at 3.3%. They ignore the fact that inflation has been stacking this whole time. Americans are suffering under the worst economy that they’ve seen since Jimmy Carter was in office.
All you have to do is drive around to see the evidence of Joe Biden’s restaurant destruction policies. Fast food places that used to have long lines now have maybe two cars in the drive-thru during the “busy” lunch rush. Parking lots have plenty of empty spaces at sit-down restaurants. It’s a miserable experience to eat in these places, too. Restaurants have been forced to cut workers to stay in business, so the remaining staffers are overworked and grumpy all the time.
The whole thing is sad. One day we’ll all tell our grandkids about what a great country America used to be until a guy named Joe Biden came along.
