Stephen Anderson

Red Lobster food-and-beverage leader nets recognition with winning recipes

Life is good at Red Lobster these days — unless, of course, you’re a lobster or some other tasty crustacean.

In late February the 663-unit chain announced strong third-quarter results, including same-store-sales growth of 12 percent.

Behind the company’s success have been innovative promotions like “All You Can Eat Shrimp” and “Lobster fest.” Helping develop those and other menu items for the chain is Stephen Anderson, director of new product development and inventory management and corporate executive chef.

As a leader of Red Lobster’s food-and-beverage department, Anderson heads a team of four chefs, two financial analysts, two senior kitchen assistants, a supervisor of commodities inventory and an administrative assistant.

In 1999 he accompanied Tom Vogel, then Red Lobster’s vice president of food and beverage, to Chicago when the chain earned a MenuMasters Award for “best menu revamp.” Anderson says that then, as now, he feels awkward accepting an honor that was the work of so many. “Everyone contributed, all my team, as well as purchasing, marketing, our operators in the field and many more.”

Anderson and his group recently were in the midst of the 12-week Lobster fest, the chain’s biggest annual promotion.

Brimming with enthusiasm, Anderson says: “We have some exciting items for Lobster fest that our team has developed. One is a lobster cocktail made of split Maine lobster tails served chilled with a cocktail sauce. Another is grilled fresh salmon served with a lobster mashed potato.”

The Red Lobster menu is in a continual state of improvement. As Anderson puts it, “Coming up with new things keeps us young and in the game.”

Cooking has been Anderson’s “game” since he was growing up in Syracuse, N.Y. “Foodservice is in my family,” he says. “My grandfather had a seafood-breading business called Red-E-Made, and, ironically Red Lobster used to buy from him.”

But the real food influence on Anderson was his mother, Paula. “She was, and still is, a great cook and really inspired me. When I was growing up, she would enter cooking competitions at the New York State Fair.”

Anderson followed suit, entering his own recipes. One year his Snicker Doodles cookie recipe earned him a blue ribbon.

Paula Anderson now lives in San Diego. “I always let the children cook and bake with me,” she recalls. “ I encouraged them, and Steve really took to it. He started competing in the sixth grade.”

During high school Anderson spent a year in Switzerland as an apprentice in a restaurant before enrolling at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., where he earned a degree in hotel administration.

After graduation he spent five years with Harvey Hotel Corp. in Dallas, primarily designing menus for the hotel properties. “That’s where my passion for menu development really started,” he explains.

It’s a passion that took Anderson into many restaurant and foodservice venues before he joined Red Lobster. A particularly intense experience was becoming a founding partner and chef at Erika’s restaurant, a white-tablecloth establishment in Pacific Palisades, Calif.

“It was always my dream to own a restaurant and be a partner in it,” he says.

Anderson says that though he “poured himself into the concept,” Erika’s closed after two years. “I was kind of burned out and ready for a total change in my career,” he says.

That change came in the form of Sky Chefs Corp. in Dallas, where he signed on as a corporate chef. “It was my first real work with a large corporation dealing with a large client,” he says. The client was American Airlines, and Anderson worked on its international first-class foodservice to Europe and Tokyo.

Switching from the entrepreneurial side to the corporate world was no problem. “Perhaps it was easier for me than it might have been for other chefs because I had a culinary background and also a very strong business background, which I got at Cornell.”

After three years at Sky Chefs, Anderson and his fiancée, Jeanne, who lived in Los Angeles, decided to marry. “At that point I moved back to L.A.,” he adds.

He and his wife stayed on the West Coast for several years, where Anderson’s work included being executive chef and director of operations for two California restaurants, the Spaghettini Rotisserie & Grill and the Tortilla Beach Grill & Bar.

Ready for something new, the 39-year-old chef got a call to open a Mexican restaurant in Reykjavik, Iceland. While preparing for that new adventure, he was contacted by a search firm looking to fill a menu-development position at Darden Restaurants. Ready for something new, the 39-year-old chef got a call to open a Mexican restaurant in Reykjavik, Iceland. While preparing for that new adventure, he was contacted by a search firm looking to fill a menu-development position at Darden Restaurants.

En route to Iceland, Anderson stopped off in Orlando, Fla., to interview at Darden. He then spent four months getting the Mexican restaurant launched. “I loved Iceland. It’s a fascinating place with wonderful people,” he says.

He joined Red Lobster in 1995 and says, “It’s been a great seven years.”

His mother agrees. “He says, ‘I owe it all to you,’ ” she explains. “That makes me feel like I’ve done my job.

His mother agrees. “He says, ‘I owe it all to you,’ ” she explains. “That makes me feel like I’ve done my job.