Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Springfield fans will have to hit the road – or try a recipe at home – to get their fix of Cheddar Bay Biscuits.

Michelle Ownbey, executive editor of the Springfield Business Journal, tells the WTAX Morning Newswatch Red Lobster is just the latest casualty of the restaurant row along South Dirksen Parkway.

“We lost the Hooters a couple of years ago, Smokey Bones, and now Red Lobster,” she said. “I did not know this, but apparently, that was like the OG of Red Lobsters. Red Lobster started in 1968, and the Springfield location opened in 1972. It was one of the very first franchises, and it had been in that exact same loc for over fifty years.”

Ownbey has another fun fact about the seafood chain: its CEO used to live in Springfield.

“His father was a neurosurgeon. The family immigrated from Nigeria, I believe, and so back in the nineties, when he was a kid, the current CEO of Red Lobster lived in Springfield, and that was his first Red Lobster experience. So you’d think he would have been a little sentimental about that one, but that didn’t save it from the chopping block.”