If Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuit Goes Extinct, We All Lose

Red Lobster — which for much of my childhood in rural Pennsylvania I believed to be one of the fanciest restaurants on the planet — is in some serious financial difficulties with 50 restaurants being shut down and, according to The New York Post, the company is expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as soon as next week.

I know we like to joke about how they lost their ass on that all-you-can-eat shrimp deal, but I'll tell you what is no laughing matter: the fate of the Cheddar Bay Biscuit.

I can't remember the last time I went to a Red Lobster. I think it was sometime before college, so it's been about a decade at least. There was nothing quite like giving the lobster you want to see on your plate and drenched in butter about 45 minutes later a side-eyed glare to let it know what's up as you walk to your table. Where else can you do that? Not Texas Roadhouse, I know that.

But as I grew older, I learned that there are better places for seafood. Hell, you can steam up a nice lobster tail at home. But you can't replicate the euphoria that came with the first of many baskets of Cheddary Bays hitting your table.

As far as bread services go, the Cheddar Bay Biscuit is king. Olive Garden breadsticks are fine, but there's no mythology around them like there is with the Cheddar Bay Biscuit.

If that photo doesn't make you want to fill up on bread, I'm not sure what will. (Photo by Deb Lindsey For The Washington Post via Getty Images).

Where Is Cheddar Bay? Who Knows, But It Sounds Idyllic

Take the name: are we talking about "Cheddar… Bay Biscuits" or "Cheddar Bay… Biscuits." 

I'm not sure what a "Bay Biscuit" is, so I have to assume the latter, and what a magical place Cheddar Bay must be. I'm picturing a coastal New England town where the smell of cheese biscuits hangs over the town and everyone knows everyone.

That's where I'd like to vacation.

Whatever the reason for the name is, it's attached to one hell of a biscuit. They sell a box mix you can make at home, and it's fine, but there's magic in those Red Lobster ovens. Plus, they'll keep bringing you biscuits until they tell you not to (which in hindsight, may have been a poor business decision).

It doesn't look like the Cheddar Bay Biscuit is on the verge of extinction, but it is threatened, and possibly even endangered. 

Hopefully, we don't have to someday see a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of the last Cheddar Bay Biscuit in existence, alone in a basket; functionally extinct.

I'm not sure what's going to happen on this front. All I want for the next generation of people who don't know where else to eat near their hotel is to feel the joy of having a basket of Cheddar Bays plopped in front of them.