On the final weekend of existence for the Red Lobster in Times Square, the lobster tank near the entrance was empty, yellowish-green water left sitting, waiting to be thrown out for good.
“These Are Days” by 10,000 Maniacs played over the restaurant’s speaker system. Customers ordered endless shrimp, lobster tails and seafood linguine, some of them unaware that this bastion of reasonably priced fish was closing.
“It’s the only place I eat lobster,” said Mercy Kamau, 51, who tagged along on her partner’s business trip from their home in Princeton, N.J., just so she could have lunch there on Friday. She said she was crushed when she learned the restaurant would be closing.
The downfall of this once-great lobster depot was “specific to this location and the realities of operating in that building,” the company said in a statement. Scaffolding, erected a while ago as part of a prolonged construction project to convert the building above the restaurant into residential units, “created ongoing challenges for visibility and guest access,” the statement added.
On Friday, tourists converged on Times Square from around the world, filling the blocks outside Red Lobster with a rainbow of soccer jerseys signifying the arrival of the World Cup. The three-story restaurant, in its final week, provided one of the few relatively uncrowded venues to catch the New York Knicks in the N.B.A. finals without an opportunistic cover charge.
But for Red Lobster, it was too little too late.
The news of the closure saddened regulars like Ms. Kamau, and also everyday New Yorkers, who might not have dined at Red Lobster frequently but counted on the bright light of its lobster logo on the corner of West 41st Street and Seventh Avenue as a constant in uncertain times.
Among the latter group was Curtis Sliwa, the former Republican mayoral candidate and founder of the Guardian Angels, who announced in a social media video that he would be “sitting shiva” for Red Lobster.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Sliwa said he had planned to sit shiva for eight days — one more than the customary seven — but his wife went out of town, so he had to look after their cats, and then the Knicks won Game 4 of the finals and he had to patrol the streets with the Guardian Angels. So in the end, his intended eight-day mourning period turned into two.
But he made sure to make the most of them. Decked out in his signature red beret and a red windbreaker with “Curtis Sliwa for NYC Mayor” stitched in white thread, he said he is often mistaken for a lobster himself. As he enjoyed his second consecutive day of all-you-can-eat shrimp on Friday, he went out of his way to inform his fellow diners that Red Lobster was closing.
“Sunday night, 11 p.m.,” he told them, dismayed.
“Is he the owner?” one customer asked a reporter.
Mr. Sliwa is not, in fact, affiliated with Red Lobster in any official capacity. But for the past week, he has taken it upon himself to spread the word of the Times Square location’s closure.
Diners lined up to take photos with him on Friday in between rounds of shrimp; a Red Lobster waitress was even among those waiting their turn. Mr. Sliwa said he was worried that the demise of Red Lobster was a bad omen, that eating out was becoming too expensive, even at what he considered to be a family-friendly restaurant.
“I think this is a harbinger of really bad times,” he said.
For at least one group of customers, Red Lobster used to be synonymous with good times. Bennett Wilson, 45, runs a film studio in Brooklyn with five friends, who have made it a tradition to take the subway up to Times Square when celebrating positive developments with the business. Most times, they even have the same server, Jose.
“I know it’s strange, but we’ve done it for 15 years,” Mr. Wilson said.
So when the film studio business recently expanded, the six owners knew just where to go. But then they learned it would also be their last time.
They went all out, with bottles of red wine, beer, seafood samplers, a crab boil and, of course, Cheddar Bay biscuits.
“New traditions may have to be made,” said Scott Wilson, 49, one of the studio owners.
The closest Red Lobsters are in Baychester in the Bronx; East New York in Brooklyn; and Secaucus, N.J., about a 15-minute drive from Times Square over the Hudson River — essentially a world away.
“We may have to find an actual New York seafood restaurant,” Bennett Wilson said.
For Mr. Sliwa, these traditions are some of the only things bringing him solace as Times Square, where he frequently patrols, loses one of its institutions.
He said that if his unsuccessful bid for mayor proved one thing, it was that he was a true New Yorker, someone who would be passionate about “iconic locations” like the Times Square Red Lobster.
“They left a lot of people with good memories,” he said. “That’s the main thing.”
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