Shrimp Basket closes six locations across the Gulf Coast
Owner Artistry Restaurants is pulling back to 12 beach and coastal sites, pointing resources away from inland Alabama and Florida restaurants.
Artistry Restaurants has closed six Shrimp Basket locations in Alabama and Florida, keeping the seafood chain's remaining 12 restaurants concentrated in beach and coastal markets.
The closures, effective 1 November, cover Warrington in Pensacola, Florida, and five Alabama sites: Bay Minette, Cullman, Gardendale, Tuscaloosa and Auburn. The company called them "mostly inland" locations, distinct from the dozen Shrimp Basket restaurants it says are "best positioned for long-term success" on the coast. Artistry, based in Winter Park, Florida, bought the chain in 2020 and had since added family-meal options, menu updates and an employee recognition programme.
Storm damage and a pattern of pruning
While never an easy decision, it is our responsibility to the team and our guests.
The Pensacola restaurant had been damaged in recent storms and never reopened. Chief executive Bryan Lockwood framed the wider closures as a resource decision rather than a retreat. "While never an easy decision, it is our responsibility to the team and our guests," he said in a statement, adding that the company is directing "resources and future investments toward our beach and coastal locations." The closures follow a separate wave of restaurant shutdowns this week, as operators in several US markets scale back underperforming sites rather than hold the line everywhere at once.
Artistry has pruned before: it closed four of the 20 units in its Hickory Tavern chain earlier this year, even as it keeps expanding Oak & Stone, its eight-unit casual-dining concept concentrated mostly in Florida. The company operates seven brands in total, including Boca, The Chapman, Atlantic Beer and Oyster, and Sandbar.
Staff kept, customers displaced
Two Pensacola employees are staying with the company: chef Donell Stallworth, the first recipient of the chain's Big Catch Award and recently promoted, and general manager Casey Corbin, both reassigned to other locations. Artistry says it will work with remaining staff on transfers.
The Pensacola closure also breaks a local routine. Stallworth made headlines last year after saving a regular customer, 78-year-old Charlie Hicks, who had visited the restaurant for gumbo twice daily for a decade and had fallen at home with two broken ribs. Staff later helped Hicks find an apartment next to the restaurant; after the storm damage, his family moved him into assisted living.
