**Headline:** **"Red Lobster's Tallahassee Exit Mirrors the Fall of Rome: Cheddar Bay Biscuits as Currency?"**

Headline: “Red Lobster’s Tallahassee Exit Mirrors the Fall of Rome: Cheddar Bay Biscuits as Currency?”

TALLAHASSEE, FL — The abrupt closure of the Red Lobster on Apalachee Parkway isn’t just a local disappointment for Endless Shrimp devotees—it’s a historical parable playing out in shrimp scampi.

Historians are drawing eerie parallels between this shutdown and the Sack of Rome in 410 AD. In both cases, the mighty fell not from a single blow, but from internal rot disguised as decadence. For Rome, it was inflation and barbarian pressure; for Red Lobster, it was the disastrous “Ultimate Endless Shrimp” promotion that bled the company dry, much like Rome’s overextension of its legions.

“The fall of an empire and the fall of a seafood chain share the same DNA,” said Dr. Eleanor Vance, a cultural historian at FSU. “First, the currency debasement. Rome clipped coins. Red Lobster kept refilling the shrimp basket for $20. Both believed their greatness was inevitable. Both were wrong.”

Locals are now comparing the abandoned building to the Colosseum after the fall—a ghost of past glory, where tourists once gathered for spectacle (and biscuits), now left to pigeons and graffiti. The only difference? Rome had the barbarians at the gate. Tallahassee has a new Cheddar Bay Biscuit black market reportedly trading at $5 a pop in the parking lot of the former Outback Steakhouse.

Will history repeat itself with the Olive Garden next? Historians say: only if the breadsticks become infinite.