It is easy to forget that the way things are now is not the way they have always been. It also means the ways things are now is probably not how they will be tomorrow. For instance, the giant book stores that are going out of business never existed forty years ago. When I was a kid, there we old crusty book sellers and the mall shops. If you wanted mass market paperbacks, you went to the mall. If you had more exclusive tastes you sought out the old crusty place. Then with the flood of free money, every town in America suddenly had a massive book superstore. Now, they are going under as people remember that they don’t really read that much after all.

The same is true of casual dining. Thirty years ago, casual dining meant a local joint run by local people, usually foreigners. Then all of a sudden we’re flooded with massive chains like Olive Garden and Red Lobster. Now it appears they may be following the path of Borders and Barnes & Noble.

In a move sure to set the culinary world and classy guys everywhere reeling, Darden has announced that it will either sell or spin off its Red Lobster restaurants.

Adding to the devastation, the company, which also runs Olive Garden and other fine-dining establishments, said it will suspend the opening of new Olive Garden locations and slow down new locations for LongHorn Steakhouses.

Why, you ask? Dear God, why??

Because Darden isn’t doing so good. It seems that consumers are turning their noses up at hoity-toity sit-down places like Red Lobster and Olive Garden these days in favor of cheaper chains like Chipotle.

Darden is one of the largest companies in the casual dining industry, with a market value of $6.7 billion, but its core chains have had stagnant growth, according to The New York Times. Last quarter the company experienced a 31 percent drop in net earnings. “The reduced unit growth will lower capital spending by at least $100 million annually,” the company said in a statement.

Red Lobster has 705 restaurants in the United States and Canada and had annual sales of $2.6 billion in 2013, but we guess that wasn’t enough for ol’ Scrooge Darden.

Putting aside the millennial snark from the writer, there could be a bunch of reasons for this that have nothing to do with the economics of chain restaurants. Red Lobster is awful. I’ve had to eat at them while traveling, they tend to be near motels and business parks, and I never had a good meal. They even put butter on salad. I like butter, but there’s a limit to everything. Olive Garden is a bit better. They tend to be in the same locations as Red Lobster so I’ve been to a few in my day. The food is better, but the value proposition is not great. Pasta is cheap. Paying $25 for spaghetti seems wrong. Maybe people have simply turned on these two chains in favor of others.

There’s something else. The rise of massive chain stores is due in large part to the credit boom. When you can bet money at 2% you will make different bets than when the money costs 10%. More important, you can make money from things with 2% money that you can’t with 10% money. Big capital projects like restaurant and bookstores can’t exist at borrowing rates at or above historic averages. Olive Garden is as much a creature of the free money era as bloated corrupt banks. Let interest rates rise to historic levels and a lot of things go away quickly, including Olive Garden.

Interest rates remain artificially depressed, but lending is not as free as we saw for two decades leading up to the crash. Giant corporations can get plenty of credit, but their customers are a different story. The Fed keeps pumping money into the system hoping the clogs eventually break free, butt hat’s looking like a fool’s errand at this point. Eventually, interest rates will return to normal and everything based on cheap money will go away, including a healthy chunk of government. Maybe this is another step along that path.

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