Ed Morrissey

In case you're wondering what "strenuous leases" are, the original is "onerous" in Bloomberg's report. Not sure how that turned into "strenuous" at the NYP. And it seems strange that Red Lobster is mired in onerous leases while commercial real estate is tanking, although they may have signed most of those leases pre-pandemic. Chapter 11 would allow them to force new negotiations, and they may get a lot of relief in that process, given the conditions now.

But the real crisis is likely in labor costs, which unlike the leases are rapidly escalating, especially in California and in activist cities imposing high minimum wage levels. It wouldn't surprise me if Red Lobster used Chapter 11 to shed some of those locations and focus their capital on areas with rational and stable labor costs.