Darden Restaurants, Inc. is a multi-brand American restaurant operator headquartered in Orlando. In April 2017, the company owned two luxury restaurant chains: Eddie V Prime Seafood and The Capital Grille; and six casual dining restaurant chains: Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Yard House and Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen (the latter has been acquired on April 24, 2017). Until July 28, 2014, Darden also has Red Lobster. Darden has more than 1,500 restaurant locations and more than 150,000 employees, making it the largest full-service restaurant company in the world. By 2012, Darden is the only Fortune 500 company with its corporate headquarters in Greater Orlando.
Video Darden Restaurants
Histori
William (Bill) Darden opened his first restaurant, The Green Frog, in his hometown of Waycross, Georgia in 1938 at the age of 19. The restaurant, which grew rapidly, formed the basis of the organization which came to be known as the Darden Restaurant. He then founded Red Lobster Inns of America and opened the first Red Lobster restaurant in Lakeland, Florida in 1968. Darden chose Lakeland because he wanted to see how a seafood restaurant would fare in a non-coastal area, and Lakeland is the deepest city in Florida. The early Red Lobster franchise was greeted by visitors and critics. The store became a success and in 1970 has expanded to three locations in the state with two more under construction. While the location was favorable, the company did not have the resources to go further, so Darden sold the company to General Mills' food giant that year.
General Mills Ownership
General Mills increased the chain into a more relaxed, family-oriented format, opening new headquarters in Orlando and defending Darden as company manager. In 1975, when Darden was promoted to Vice President of General Mills, Joseph (Joe) R. Lee, the company's first restaurant manager, was promoted to President of Red Lobster. Under the ownership of General Mills, Red Lobster evolved into a chain of nearly 400 sites in 1985. The company underwent some restructuring and transformed itself from a cheap fast-food seller into a casual seafood restaurant chain chain in 1988.
One of the company's first ventures into diversifying its portfolio was the Steak House and Pottery-themed Steak House chain in the 1970s. The steak and franchise restaurant is a cafeteria style restaurant with a salad bar and hot-tub. By the late 1980s, the chain had largely been closed, although some independent locations still existed. These places are very similar to Ruby Tuesday now.
In 1982, Darden opened the first Olive Garden concept store in Orlando. The chain took off, and in 1989 General Mills had opened more than 145 stores, making the chain the fastest-growing unit in company restaurant ownership. While Olive Garden did not meet critical success, it was very popular, and sales per store soon grew to match the Red Lobster. The company ended up becoming an Italian-themed full-service restaurant chain in the United States.
In 1990, China Coast launched in an effort to create a national dinner restaurant (US) featuring American Chinese cuisine. While the chain was eventually expanded to about 50 restaurants, sales were lackluster and lost about US $ 20 million. At the end of 1995, the company was closed, and the remaining locations were changed to Red Lobsters or Olive Gardens or closed completely.
Darden
In 1995, General Mills decided to separate its restaurant chain to focus on consumer food products. The new company was named Restaurant Darden, after the Red Lobster founder. General Mills shareholders receive a Darden share for every common share owned by General Mills. The General Mills restaurant had $ 108 million in net income that year. By the end of 1995, Darden operated 1,250 restaurants in 49 states with 73 locations in Canada.
Darden Restaurants were separated from General Mills starting May 9, 1995, when it began trading on a basic-issue basis at $ 9.75 per share. The Company became a completely separate entity on May 31, 1995, when its shares went on sale on the NYSE. The stock opened at $ 10.75, 17% below expectations, but rose to $ 11.125 at the close of trading.
The Darden executive plans to have two additional chains in place in 1998. In March 1996, Darden launched the Bahama Breeze Caribbean Grille concept test featuring food and drink found on Caribbean Sea islands and Caribbean theme, created in 1996.
The market was saturated with restaurants in 1997 forcing Darden to close 48 bad-performing locations and lose $ 91 million due to restructuring. Red Lobster and Olive Garden were awarded overs in 1998. Darden also earned $ 102 million that year.
1999 saw Darden open additional locations after recovering from a loss from 1996-1997. The company then began testing a new concept entitled Smokey Bones BBQ Sports Bar that opened in late 1999 in Orlando. The restaurant is a sports bar concept featuring barbecue and groceries linked in Appalachian-mountain setting.
In 2003, Seasons 52 was in development with the idea of ​​"giving guests the opportunity to indulge while still eating well". The new 52 season opened in the Florida or Atlanta market during its initial phase.
Darden announced in January 2007 that the company was willing to expand by buying 100 existing location chains, even considering franchise owners. In May, Darden indicated that the Smokey Bones division would be sold and or closed including two Rocky River Grillhouse, a proposed replacement concept for Smokey Bones. In August, Darden acquired Atlanta-based restaurant rival Rare Hospitality for US $ 1.4 billion, earning two Rare chains, The Capital Grille and LongHorn Steakhouse. As part of the acquisition of Rare, Darden established Specialty Restaurant Group to include Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52. In December, Darden announced that it would sell the Smokey Bones chain to Barbeque Integrated, Inc., an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, Inc., for about $ 80 million. Sales completed in January 2008.
Change of expansion and ownership
In 2010, Seasons 52 started a new expansion phase that opened in 11 more countries over the next three years.
In January 2011, Darden announced their co-locating Olive Garden and Red Lobster brands in a smaller market to share a kitchen but continued a separate menu and dining area. As part of the February Darden analysts conference, an analyst indicated that the company might target other restaurant chains for acquisitions possibly either from BJ's, California Pizza Kitchen or Yard House. In October 2011, Darden acquired 2 chains, Eddie V Prime Seafood and Wildfish Seafood Grille, for a $ 59 million cash transaction placed in the Specialty Restaurant Group. Also in October, Darden signed a territorial development agreement with Americana Group of Kuwait to develop and operates at least 60 locations using the Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and LongHorn Steakhouse concepts.
In July 2012, Darden acquired the 39-mile Yard House beer-centric chain for $ 585 million from TSG Consumer Partners. Yard House will be next to other upscale restaurants at Darden's Specialty Restaurant Group. On December 23, 2013, Darden shares rose 3 percent after active investor Starboard Value, a hedge fund, took a stake in the company.
Red Lobster Sale
On December 19, 2013, Darden announced plans to sell or spin-off the Red Lobster brand, citing pressure from stock investors. This is a direct response to the company spending US $ 100 million on a new digital platform. By then, the project had been at least a year behind schedule and on budget. A large number of layoffs took place in the marketing department, and the commander of both companies also left.
On May 12, 2014, Darden announced that as part of the Red Lobster spin-off, it changed the location of Red Lobster and Olive Garden into a joint location to a stand-alone Olive Garden location. On May 16, 2014, Darden announced it would sell its Red Lobster seafood restaurant chain to Golden Gate Capital for US $ 2.1 billion. Darden announces the completion of the Red Lobster sale on July 28, 2014.
Acquisitions
The difference between Starboard and Darden management soon emerged over a hedge fund proposal to divide the company into two and separate a third to handle their real estate portfolio, a step Starboard said would greatly increase shareholder value. Things come to a head when management announces plans to spin off a poorly performing Red Lobster in early 2014. Starboard leads a large group of investors in asking management to postpone the move and see if a better option, such as its plan to revitalize the chain, is available. When management decided to sell the chain to private equity firm Golden Gate Capital in May, Starboard and other investors sharply criticized the $ 2.1 billion "fire sale" price as a serious undervaluing of the Red Lobster and its assets like the underlying real estate. He also claims management has rejected shareholder requests for a special meeting to discuss the deal.
Chief Executive Officer Clarence Otis, Jr. announced he would resign at the end of the year, on the same day the Red Lobster sale was completed. Management later said that it would work on the necessary turnaround plan for Olive Garden, also struggling. However, after CNBC reported on a leaked document, which should have been offered to prospective buyers and buyers at the beginning of the year, which illustrates the financial position of Red Lobster is far more optimistic than management in its contemporary public statements, one investor, a union pension fund, filed an accusation mistaken materials. Management claims documents have been prepared by Golden Gate in consultation with Red Lobster executives, who can be expected to have views on the future of the chain. Eugene Lee was named permanent CEO on February 23, 2015, after serving as interim CEO in October 2014.
Starboard collects its own board of directors to challenge all board members who sit in the upcoming company shareholder selection. To support his candidacy, they released a 294-slide presentation in early September about how the company had gone wrong and how its directors would restore it to health. Despite considerable media attention due to its detailed focus on the Olive Garden, particularly the "wasteful" practice of the chain, which presents too many unlimited free breadsticks all at once (to prevent food staleness: not one per customer plus one additional per table, extra bread served fresh on demand) and not sipping boiled water paste so to guarantee longer warranty on pots, it also attacked the management to spend extravagantly on the headquarters of chain companies while paying the general manager of individual restaurant less than its competitors. Management responded two days later that they had implemented many suggested changes, and said that free breadsticks represented only "Italian generosity". However, in October, shareholders replaced the entire board with a Starboard whiteboard, in what the so-called "epic failure" observers say for management, is rare.
On March 27, 2017, Darden announced his intention to acquire Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen for $ 780 million from shareholders such as L Catterton and Oak Investment Partners. On March 28, 2017, when Darden announced it had acquired Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen and "boosted its full-year earnings outlook," the company became the biggest winner of the day at the S & P 500, with stocks growing nearly 9 percent. This acquisition was completed on April 24, 2017.
Maps Darden Restaurants
Unit
- LongHorn Steakhouse
- Olive Garden
- Scratch Kitchen Cheddar
- Darden Special Restaurant Group
- Eddie V Prime Seafood
- The Capital Grille
- Bahama Breeze
- Seasons 52, fresh grills and wine bars featuring seasonal menus with dishes containing 475 calories or less.
- Yard House USA, Inc. - 62 locations
- Darden Corporation
- GMRI, Inc.
- RARE Hospitality International, Inc.
- RARE Hospitality Management, Inc.
- RARE Hospitality International, Inc.
See also
- List of restaurant chains
- List of food companies
- List of casual dining restaurant chains
- List of companies S & amp; P 500
- Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (D)
- List of Florida companies
- List of Orlando companies
- List of Michigan companies
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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