14 Discontinued Red Lobster Dishes We Forgot About

When you're going out for seafood, your best bet is to visit a local joint that's right on the coast. But sometimes, that's not an option, and when that's the case, then Red Lobster may just do the trick. This seafood chain is known for its wealth of fish options, not to mention its famous Cheddar Bay Biscuits. Although you may find your favorite offerings every time you visit, that doesn't mean that every item will stay on the menu forever, though. In fact, there are plenty of discontinued Red Lobster dishes we still think about to this day.

Some of these are dishes you might have tried yourself back in the day, and others are ones you might have wished you had tried but never got around to. On the other hand, some of these dishes may not sound that great at all, which could explain why they were removed from the menu in the first place. Regardless, this list might just be a nice walk down Red Lobster memory lane, to a time when the portions were bigger, the drinks wackier, and the shrimp endless.

A lot of us think of beef, chicken, or pork when we imagine a plate of nachos. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that at Red Lobster, nachos were once piled high with shrimp. It all started, like every plate of nachos does, with a bed of tortilla chips. Then came the shrimp, along with jalapeños, cheese, sour cream, and salsa. Ultimately, it was a fairly classic nachos dish, but the fact that you could order it at Red Lobster was, seemingly, a novelty.

It's not quite clear when the shrimp nachos were discontinued, with some claiming that they made their exit circa 2015. Regardless, when you go to Red Lobster now, these shrimp nachos are conspicuously absent from the menu, relegated to the annals of seafood chain restaurant history. Luckily, though, this is a pretty simple dish to recreate at home if you ever find yourself particularly craving it.

Go to your favorite Chinese-American spot, and you'll be able to grab an order of crab rangoon; that deep-fried, crunchy, creamy bundle of deliciousness that even non-seafood lovers are sure to love. But Red Lobster isn't a Chinese restaurant, and it apparently wanted to add its own twist to the dish. Hence, the crab-stuffed shrimp rangoon was born. This hybrid appetizer featured shrimp that was filled with a combination of cream cheese and crab instead of utilizing the traditional wonton wrapper. The result was a crispy, crunchy app that had that signature bouncy texture you can only get from shrimp. It was served with a sweet chili dip that created a harmonious — if rather sugary — finished product.

However, this appetizer was part of a limited-time deal at the chain, so it's no longer on the menu. You can always head to your favorite Chinese joint to snag some traditional crab rangoon, but let's be honest: It's just not the same as this dish.

It's always nice to start your meal with a small bowl of soup that whets your palate and gets you in the mood for even more food. Or perhaps you just like to snack on something small when you go out to a restaurant with your friends or family. Either way, Red Lobster's spicy tortilla soup was once the perfect candidate for pre-entree slurping. Strangely, though, the soup contained no seafood at all and was instead made with chicken, along with shredded cheese and, of course, the requisite tortilla strips.

But by 2014, the chain had decided to axe the spicy tortilla soup from its menu to focus on more seafood-centric dishes. It makes sense — after all, a seemingly Mexican- or Southwestern-inspired soup dish with chicken seems like a strange option at a seafood restaurant. However, it was a deliciously spicy option for those who actually didn't like seafood that much and just found themselves at a Red Lobster for whatever reason.

Once upon a time, you could take advantage of Red Lobster's Endless Shrimp deal. Yes, it's just what it sounds like: a chance to stuff your face with as much shrimp as you could possibly eat in one sitting. The promotion was incredibly popular — after all, where else can you literally get unlimited seafood (and a normally expensive type of seafood at that)? But in the end, it didn't really work out well for the company financially. That seems to make sense, considering that since shrimp is so light, it's actually quite easy to eat a lot of it at one time. The chain was losing money from the promotion, so it cut Endless Shrimp from its menu at the end of 2024.

However, the company tried to make it work for quite some time. When it originally hit the menu, it was available every day of the week. Then, after a while, it became available only on Mondays. But this caused long wait times for guests and created a chaotic work environment for Red Lobster employees. Although the idea of unlimited shrimp is an undeniably appealing one, we're not shocked that Red Lobster's Endless Shrimp didn't last forever.

There are some things that have been removed from Red Lobster's menu for the better, and the Mountain Dewgarita just happens to be one of them. This was, in fact, a hybrid margarita-Mountain Dew drink, apparently for the people who want a drink that's a step up from pouring a bit of cheap vodka in their half-drunk Mountain Dew. It turns out, though, that the drink didn't even contain that much Mountain Dew at all, despite its sickly green hue. It featured just 2 ounces of Dew, along with sour apple liquor and tequila. Some complained that the drink lacked much flavor at all, despite being born of one of the most sugary, concentrated sodas on the market.

This drink first made an appearance on Red Lobster's menu in September of 2020, during the pandemic, but it didn't stay on the menu for very long, probably because it simply didn't taste very good. This kind of drink seems gimmicky anyway, like something someone would order just to feel cheeky and post on social media without really caring about how it would taste. If you're really bummed that you never go to try the Dewgarita for yourself, you could probably mix up a similar concoction at home pretty easily. And considering that reviews for the drink were overwhelmingly lackluster, it may even be better than the real thing.

We're not always fans of seemingly random, incongruous toppings on pizza, but Red Lobster's lobster pizza may just be an exception. It seems like exactly the kind of dish that the chain seafood spot would have on its menu: It combines an essential comfort food with lobster, the chain's namesake ingredient. The recipe was fairly simple, with a standard pizza crust loaded with cheese, tomato, basil, and of course, the lobster itself. All that melted cheese just made the lobster richer and more luscious, and the veggies helped to lighten things up. But, alas, you can no longer find the lobster pizza on Red Lobster's menu.

The pizza was reportedly dropped from the menu in October of 2023 — and some aren't happy about it. Some Redditors have questioned where it went, wondering when they can next get their hands on the cheesy, seafood-topped pizza. Hopefully, one day, we'll see it make a reappearance on the menu. Until then, we'll just have to reminisce about that rare chain restaurant success.

Just because you're eating at Red Lobster doesn't mean that you have to stick with the lobster and lobster alone. If you're more of a shrimp person, you're in luck: The chain offers a wide array of different shrimp dishes. But one dish that you're not going to find on the menu is the crispy shrimp lettuce wraps. It made its debut on the Red Lobster menu all the way back in 2014, and it featured crispy shrimp in a sweet and spicy glaze along with some iceberg lettuce leaves. The idea was to wrap the shrimp in the lettuce, creating a fresh sort of wrap that would appeal to diners looking for something on the fresher, lighter end of the spectrum.

But it didn't last on the menu forever, and these days, the shrimp offerings have changed up a bit. You can still get crispy dragon shrimp, but it's not quite the same thing. It's missing the jalapeño slices, and it doesn't come with any lettuce either. This less-fresh option looks okay, but the wraps still sound way better to us.

Most of the time, you're not going to get a serving of veggies when you order fried calamari, but at Red Lobster, you used to be able to order just that. It was the calamari with broccoli and peppers, which featured both the veggies and calamari coated in a light and crispy breading. It also came with a chipotle dipping sauce that made this dish a bit more unique than the type of fried calamari you might get at, say, an Italian restaurant. Admittedly, it was an unconventional dish that kind of seems cheap — after all, broccoli and peppers are cheaper to serve than calamari. But, the dish was nonetheless beloved. One Reddit user noted that they missed the old recipe with the broccoli, claiming that the calamari that was on the menu at the time "sucks."

Of course, that doesn't mean that you can't get calamari at the chain at all. Now, you can snag some crispy dragon calamari, which comes covered in a sweet and somewhat spicy, sticky sauce. Unfortunately, though, the broccoli and peppers are conspicuously absent.

Red Lobster is the kind of seafood restaurant that needs to offer plenty of non-seafood items. After all, it's the kind of chain where you might want to take your whole family, picky eaters and all. Having some landlubber food items featured on the menu just makes sense. That's how Red Lobster's maple-glazed chicken was born. It made its debut in 2008 as a part of the new (at the time) wood-fire grill menu. The maple-glazed chicken, though, was actually the only non-seafood dish on this newly unveiled menu.

Like so many of Red Lobster's other dishes, the chicken was served covered in a sweet, sticky glaze, making this dish richer and more intense than a lot of chicken dishes at chain restaurant. Sure, you can still get crispy chicken tenders, but it's not quite as exciting as this warming meal sounds like it once was.

Most of the discontinued Red Lobster menu items on this list come from the last two decades, but the chain restaurant has been open since 1968 — that means it has a much longer history than much of the internet remembers. So, what about those dishes that were available back in the day? A resurfaced Red Lobster menu from the 1970s shows that the restaurant offered a ton of dishes it doesn't have now, most of which sound a lot simpler and less fussy than some of the more gimmicky menu items you'll find there these days.

One of these dishes is the catfish, which is described as, literally "a fried filet of catfish." Sounds simple enough, especially since plain fried catfish can be so delicious when it's done right. But you don't have to be a fan of catfish specifically to appreciate the price of the meal: just $2.29. Honestly, we'd eat just about any type of restaurant seafood that we could get for that cheap these days.

Every chain restaurant needs a particularly indulgent dessert on its menu, and for Red Lobster, that menu item was once a warm chocolate chip lava cookie. Does this dessert seem kind of overwhelming? Sure. But it's one that we would gladly leave the restaurant overstuffed to enjoy. The cookie was filled with warm, molten chocolate, making this dish a sort of strange hybrid of the iconic 2000s molten lava cake. But one day, the dessert just disappeared, leaving fans grieving over the dessert that had once dominated the sweet portion of the restaurant's menu.

Per one disappointed Redditor, "Such a dumb move to get rid of that dessert. It was one of my favorites ever. I literally crave it!" Another commenter agreed with the original poster. "I'm still upset about that." These days, you'll have to settle for the similarly decadent brownie overboard or chocolate wave. Still, though, they're just not the same. But maybe Red Lobster will finally hear us out and bring the popular dessert back someday.

Once upon a time, Red Lobster was really prioritizing offering non-seafood dishes to satisfy those more seafood-shy customers that had somehow wandered into the restaurant. The wood-grilled pork chop was one of those dishes. And although that sounds pretty good — grilled pork chops are usually relatively enjoyable if they aren't badly overcooked — it also doesn't sound like anything that really belongs on a seafood restaurant menu. Sure, we can see offering a burger and some chicken fingers, but who's going to order a pork chop at Red Lobster?

By 2014, perhaps the restaurant was thinking the same thing, since that's when they axed a variety of non-seafood items from the menu, including the wood-grilled pork chop. In their place, the chain doubled down on its more lobster-centric offerings, which only makes sense. Still, though, 2014 was a bad day for those few Red Lobster pork chop fans out there.

Red Lobster has featured a lot of slightly head-scratching dishes on its menu over the years, and the ultimate fondue is an excellent example. Fondue probably isn't what you would expect to see on the menu of a seafood restaurant, but the way they did it actually made sense. This fondue was made with cheese, of course, but also a seafood bisque. Therefore, you got a little bit of that seafood-forward flavor while still staying true to the format that is fondue. It was served in a bread bowl — like it wasn't already decadent enough — which actually may have been the best part of it all, since that cheese and broth-soaked bread at the bottom of the bowl was probably pretty tasty.

You can find a ton of copycat versions of this recipe if you'd love to relive the deliciousness. Still, though, it may not taste exactly like the original. Some Redditors have pined for the dish to come back, with one saying, "Remember back in the good old days when Red Lob had their ultimate fondue? It was served in a bread bowl of cheesy deliciousness." They speculated that it was probably pretty unhealthy, but then followed it up with, "But I'd love to relive the seafood salty goodness!" We're guessing that they're not the only ones.

It seems like basically every chain restaurant has some sort of Alfredo pasta on the menu, and of course, Red Lobster isn't an exception. Most restaurants either serve their Alfredo pasta with chicken or shrimp — these days, Red Lobster does the latter, which is completely expected of the chain. But once upon a time, Red Lobster offered a more creative, interesting linguine Alfredo pasta dish that featured crab instead of the requisite shrimp. Other than the presence of crab, though, it wasn't so out of the ordinary, with its especially saucy texture and typical use of linguine.

When it was removed from the menu, there were many fans who were upset by its absence. "WTH?? No more crab Alfredo," one Redditor wrote. "WT frick is up with that, guys? So disappointed!!" they said, expressing clear frustration. Another commenter shared a similar sentiment: "Unless the crab Alfredo comes back, we are no longer going to Red Lobster. This is a seafood house. Why isn't crab Alfredo on the menu!?!? So stupid!"