Hey, Jason Toon here. Mid-level American chain dining has mostly passed me by. Aside from the occasional family outing to Olive Garden, teenage late night at Denny’s, or taking refuge in an airport TGI Friday’s, I jumped right from fast food to hipster fare. But for this Shoddy Goods, the newsletter from Meh about consumer culture, I lament the imminent demise of one of those chains - not for the food, but for the buildings. Earlier this month, Darden Restaurants - owners of Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, etc. - announced that it would close its remaining Bahama Breeze locations. Half of the 28 restaurants will permanently shutter on April 5, while the rest will be converted to other Darden properties over the next year or so. If you’ve never experienced Frozen Bahamaritas or Firecracker Shrimp, the sun is setting fast.
I’ve never had the pleasure myself. There weren’t that many Bahama Breeze locations even at the chain’s height, and “mass casual dining with a tropical resort vibe” isn’t something I’d make a special trip to seek out. But as one of the last corporate restaurants to express its theme with distinctively flamboyant buildings, Bahama Breeze’s demise marks an even blander, more austere era in the American commercial landscape. And that’s kind of a bummer. Save me, Coconut Onion RingsDarden was going through some turmoil when it opened its first experimental Bahama Breeze location in Orlando in 1996. The company had been spun off from General Mills the previous year after its China Coast chain had collapsed with reported losses of $200 million. Its flagship brand, Red Lobster, had seen several years of rapid expansion suddenly plateau amid rising wholesale seafood prices and a decline in customer satisfaction. At the time, chain casual dining - in other words, the kind of in-between restaurants that have metal cutlery and cloth napkins and happy hour, but also a nationally standardized menu, often with pictures of the food - was booming. Competition for the family going-out dollar was fierce, and investing slightly more for a more dazzling experience was considered a good investment. The faux-Tuscan villas of Olive Garden and the pseudo-adobe of Chi-Chi’s were cheap knockoffs, to be sure, but brought at least a little whiff of interest to otherwise visually barren oceans of asphalt. So Darden’s next bet was a fairly novel Caribbean theme. Bahama Breeze packaged that inspiration in such culinary “innovations” as Angel Hair Martinique and Coconut Onion Rings, along with more standard fare redolent of the region’s spice-and-citrus palate. The theme was also reflected in the buildings themselves. Bahama Breeze mimicked the British colonial style of the actual Bahamas, with white walls, red roofs, open verandas, and shutters.
Initially, it worked. Positive local headlines (usually including the word “mon”) for the first few stores soon had lines around the block on Friday nights. Within a couple of years, Darden saw Bahama Breeze as a potential flagship brand for the company. “It is our plan that Bahama Breeze will expand and become the third restaurant company in Darden Restaurants,” said CEO Joe Lee in 1998, putting the tropical newcomer on the same exalted footing as Olive Garden and Red Lobster. Storm frontThat never quite happened. Bahama Breeze peaked at 43 locations in 2014, compared to some 900-plus for Olive Garden at the time, and around 700 for Red Lobster when Darden sold it that same year. It never became a ubiquitous fixture of American suburbia outside of maybe Florida, which strikes me as weird because that seems like the last state that needs a simulated tropical getaway. It’s not really clear to me why Bahama Breeze stalled out at that point. It had its fans: its Yelp reviews are generally as positive or better than Olive Garden in the same location, and consistently better than Red Lobster. Maybe it’s because of the low culinary profile of Caribbean food in the US. “I could really go for some jerk chicken” just isn’t a widespread enough driver to compete with Italian or Mexican. Or maybe Bahama Breeze just came along too late to sink roots in a crowded market. 30 years isn’t a bad run in the restaurant business, but the death spiral has been tightening for a while now. Bahama Breeze’s profitability wasn’t great, so Darden invested less, so customers noticed a drop in quality and stayed away, which made profitability even worse, and so on. Bahama Breeze sales were down 7% in 2024. “When you start serving frozen proteins at a $30 price point, the customer leaves,” writes marketing analyst Eric F. Gilbert. “This Bahama Breeze closing is a symptom of a larger problem: consumers are tired of overpaying for corporate-grade, reheated meals.”
Same but less differentI’d say the closing is also a symptom of another problem: the increasing homogenization of the built environment, especially in suburban commercial strips. Look, I know the distinctive chain restaurant buildings of the past were as cookie-cutter as any other chains. I know they were pale imitations of their chosen styles. I know, architecturally, even the most elaborate amounted to a few frills on a cheap, basic box. Problem is, now, even a few frills seems like too much to ask for. It adds to that pervasive feeling that, more and more, customers get the barest minimum for their money, even as everything seems to get more expensive. That brutal math includes the built environment. We’ll take the cheap box and we’ll like it. I don’t expect the Taj Mahal in every strip mall. But a little imagination, a little personality, a little color: it’s not nothing, especially when you have to drive past it every day. Far cheaper to just slap on your logo and leave that basic box gray and unadorned, except for maybe a few panels of fake stone, and even that is probably on its way out. You just want to unwind with some slushy booze and a mountain of deep-fried appetizers - can’t you get a moment’s peace from the relentless squeeze to take more and give less in return? If there’s any consolation, it’s that there will be a few dozen empty commercial buildings scattered around the country with airy verandahs, wooden shutters and railings, and little belfries protruding from the roof. As with the likes of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and iHOP, old Bahama Breeze locations are about to become hosts to all kinds of ill-fitting businesses. Why does that orthopedic clinic look like somewhere Jack Sparrow would drink? Because it used to be a Bahama Breeze.
I’m fairly sure I’ve never been to a Bahama Breeze. Of the various better-than-fast-food-but-still-chains restaurants out there, I probably went to Olive Garden the most. I mean, those breadsticks were pretty great. How about you? Did your family have a go-to restaurant for not-super-special-occasion-but-not-just-drive-thru? These past Shoddy Goods stories are breaded with our island-style toasted coconut curry oatmeal, pan-seared in our jerk ginger guava oil, and served with authentic Kokomoan tamarind tequila mayonnaise and a side of mango mahi mahi poppers:
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