Red Lobster

Red Lobster's Florida stores average +0.07 high-priority violations per routine inspection relative to their county baseline (95% interval -0.14 to +0.30), above the county baseline. Rank 11 of 16 casual-dining brands, counted from furthest below the baseline.

+0.07vs county baseline, 95% interval -0.14 to +0.30

1.23 vs 1.15raw high-priority violations per routine inspection vs the baseline its stores face

56stores in 28 counties, 222 routine inspections, FY2023-24 to FY2025-26

The food: where these dishes come from

Red Lobster is known for lobster and biscuits. The stories are about the dishes, not the brand, and live on PlateTales.

By fiscal year

Relative to the county baseline, first visits of routine inspections. Open circle and * = fiscal year in progress (data as of 2026-11-09). Hover a point for n.

Most-cited violation codes

Citations per 100 routine inspections, Red Lobster vs all Florida inspections, FY2023-24 to FY2025-26 (n = 222). Descriptions are DBPR's.
Code	DBPR description	Red Lobster	Florida	Ratio
22	Food contact surfaces of equipment and utensils clean	68.9	43.6	1.58x
36	Floors properly constructed, clean, drained, coved	65.8	39.9	1.65x
14	Food contact surfaces designed, constructed, maintained, installed, located	59.9	46.9	1.28x
03	Food Out of Temperature	46.4	35.0	1.33x
29	Plumbing installed and maintained	42.3	16.9	2.51x

Outcomes

17.1% vs 19.6%routine inspections that needed a callback visit, vs all Florida (raw)

1.35% vs 1.01%routine inspections ending in an emergency order recommendation, vs all Florida (raw)

53%of 49 stores with 2+ inspections score below their county baseline after shrinkage toward the brand mean

Emergency closures

2 closures of Red Lobster stores in DBPR's weekly extracts (2025-12-29 to 2026-11-06); latest 2 shown. Reasons are DBPR's own wording.
Closed	City	County	Reason (DBPR)
2026-08-21	Tampa	Hillsborough	Roach activity
2026-04-13	St. Petersburg	Pinellas	Roach activity

Other casual-dining brands

Ranked casual-dining brands, FY2023-24 to FY2025-26.
Rank	Brand	vs county	95% interval	Stores
1	Chuck E. Cheese	-0.69	-0.86 to -0.53	59
2	Olive Garden	-0.48	-0.57 to -0.39	80
3	Buffalo Wild Wings	-0.36	-0.49 to -0.24	62
4	Chili's	-0.34	-0.43 to -0.25	139
5	Hooters	-0.27	-0.42 to -0.12	48
6	LongHorn Steakhouse	-0.23	-0.35 to -0.11	81
7	Applebee's	-0.19	-0.31 to -0.07	88
8	Sonny's BBQ	-0.12	-0.28 to +0.04	65
9	Outback Steakhouse	-0.08	-0.23 to +0.06	101
10	Texas Roadhouse	-0.08	-0.26 to +0.11	47
11	Red Lobster	+0.07	-0.14 to +0.30	56
12	Ruby Tuesday	+0.12	-0.14 to +0.40	31
13	Bonefish Grill	+0.19	-0.04 to +0.45	49
14	Carrabba's Italian Grill	+0.30	+0.16 to +0.45	68
15	Beef 'O' Brady's	+0.48	+0.30 to +0.67	88
16	Miller's Ale House	+0.78	+0.55 to +1.03	68

Look up a single Red Lobster location

Store-level matching: a store counts for Red Lobster when its DBPR business name matches the reviewed aliases in InspectLens's brand list. Co-branded units (for example KFC with Taco Bell) are not counted for either brand.