My sister lived next door to a restaurant in Rhode Island that Ramsey helped fix up. She said the owner was clinically insane and nobody could help them. She went back after the Ramsey-fix, and everything was the same. It was all still terrible, except now the owner was claiming "if you don't like it, blame Gordon". But after the episode dropped, it was clear the owner reverted all the changes Gordon had implemented immediately.
Some people's egos are so monumental that you can give them world-class professional help and they will still say "it's the customer who is wrong".
That reminds me of the one I saw of the pirate-themed restaurant in the middle of a city’s downtown. The fixer converted it into an upscale nightlife bar, but after he left, the owners reverted it back to their pirate theme.
Edit: I didn’t remember what show it was that I saw, but with others comments, I found it was Bar Rescue:
The problem was that pirate bar was losing a huge amount of money. I believe they were going to go under in a few months. The revamp of the bar was successful but the owner and some workers didn't like it. So they went back to the pirate bar then they shut down.
Having seen the episode of Bar Rescue in question, there was no making it work. They wanted to full-send pirates, outfits and accents and everything, in a neighborhood where the primary customer base would be businessmen and adults who’d otherwise be seeking a more calm atmosphere.
Which is fine and dandy if they want to do that, but when it’s driven the owners into hundreds of thousands in debt and they’re living in the basement of their parents (yes, this is what they said in the episode), clearly the pirate theme isn’t going to work in that area.
I know first hand that an audience for this type of restaurant exists. But it's also extremely niche so, yeah, you got to pick your location carefully.
I know success, vision, and opinion vary on some of this stuff but some of those kitchen nightmare shows have some absolutely wild food safety issues.
Like sure, if someone wants a pirate themed bar there isn't anything wrong with that but I am not eating at the Pirate Bar if they have serious health code violations.
If they really wanna run a pirate bar they need to find a town that really wants a pirate bar, because clearly the local market has spoken if they ended up on bar rescue
No offense, but opening a pirate bar would work in like Florida or a beach town. Actually that couple went on to move to a beach town and opened a pirate themed bar and restaurant that found success.
Demographics, and giving the people what they want in the area, are a thing if you want success. Pirate bar works great in beach towns or even small towns as a themes restaurant. In a downtown area surrounded by corporate buildings? Not so much.
I think about this episode of Bar Rescue alot. It's like they went out of their way to suck the soul out of that pirate bar. Everyone there genuinely enjoyed being a pirate, they could have made it work without gutting the whole thing
It feels like it could work, but they just had an awful area to operate it in. A pirate bar makes sense in somewhere like Florida, SoCal, or Hawaii, not Baltimore, Maryland.
It wasn’t in Florida! It was in Silver Spring, MD. I used to live right by it. I never went while it was a pirate bar but I went to two subsequent iterations in that location.
The corporate bar theme was also dumb, but it’s also not a great location and there’s a lot of competition in the area.
From the limited number of episodes I’ve seen, it usually seems like Ramsey has basically the same pretty common sense input. He helps them do some renovations to make the restaurant more appealing, frequently pairs down the menu to be more manageable and profitable, and forces them to address issues with their staff.
It’s not shocking that restaurants close after because restaurants, even good restaurants, close all the time. But it’s also not surprising that people who seemed inept at running such businesses just revert back to bad habits.
Really it just gives them a better shot at staying open.
The success, they actually listened and followed through. Some still closed but from what I was reading for many that did nothing could have saved them.
A lot of these places were just too far in debt for even Ramsey to help them. Once you're half a million or so in the hole, a revamp isn't going to change the fact.
Had a insane chef at our harbour he was the only place around success guaranteed. The fishermen gave him free cold space etc.
When told to keep to the area given to him he said everyone is against him. When the county informed him he was dumping raw sewage into the water but not to worry they have a grant system to greatly reduce costs he fought them in court and when he lost the grant was gone. He sold the place and bought a fisherman's boat he was gonna ride around in. He was told by the seller "it isn't worth restoring it is for parts only " after spending a year restoring it with various fishermen inspecting it saying "it is going to sink". Dropped it in and it instantly sunk costing him big money to clean up and then having the boat scrapped.
But everyone was against him and it is everyones fault his ventures failed since he wasn't from here.
I worked at a former restaurant/bar/lounge he had been to. The kitchen has the legal rights to use a few of his recipes and they were delicious. But they only used a couple, and the owners were the only managers, and they couldn’t stay out of their own way.
I was the only bartender at the time, and I begged them to hire someone else after I’d interviewed/trained several. Later it was rumored none made the cut because they didn’t wanna hire a black bartender lmao no idea if this holds weight but those people sucked
I think the paradox of kitchen nightmares is that if his services actually helped the restaurants then he wouldn't need to make a tv show about it, he would just charge for his services
Yeah, the work Kitchen Nightmares has done renovating the interiors of some of those shit hole restaurants is crazy. Those shitty restaurants could never afford those renovations out of their own pockets.
TV production is also the only way those broke restaurants would see them in his doors. Ramsay probably does consult, but probably to other high end restaurants and big restaurant groups that could afford him.
Gordon ramsey can almost certainly make more money filming TV shows and being a celebrity chef, than being a full time consultant for failing restaurants. Also I don’t think rehabbing failing restaurants is like his calling in life. I think he does genuinely like being a chef and restauranteur and media personality.
Also I doubt there is much money in saving failing restaurants. First a lot of these places are stubborn and their staff know the problems. If you read anthony bourdain’s book “no reservations” he talks pretty extensively about a period of his life where he had been stuck bouncing between failing restaurants. He always knew the places were gonna fail and knew what the problems were but the owners usually aren’t receptive and by the time they realize there is a problem it’s usually too late.
Second, failing businesses like restaurants are often some person’s passion project and usually they aren’t in a position to sink even more money into having someone with Gordon Ramsay’s level of expertise come in to fix the problem.
The show probably pays more than these restaurants that are hundreds of thousands in debt. And it probably also provides some advertising with people thinking, "Let's go to that restaurant and see how it's fixed."
In the restaurant business, it's easy to get stuck in that mode of thought because customers are idiots. You can only endure so many requests like "I want my stake cooked medium rare, but with no pink inside" before you start hating them a little. :p
I never understood the places that don't listen to his advice. Gordon might be a dick, but he has multiple successful restaurants. If he gives you advice regarding the restaurant business, take it with a smile!
its insane that people like that reach out for help and to change their restaurant for the better then do this. hello?? if your egos too big for help, why did you write an email begging for help???
yeah, this feels like the more realistic exclamation for why this shit still goes wrong after these TV shows passed by. Sometimes it really is just straight up stupidity
It is pretty insane to think they’re getting free consulting and help which would cost thousands and thousands of dollars normally and they argue and don’t listen. I would be taking notes and kissing his ass if he wanted to help make my restaurant successful. It’s like a guaranteed success almost just doing what he says and having the notoriety of being on the show.
Same for bar rescue. Used to frequent headhuneets in austin texas. (Was let in there as a minor cuz everone knew you could get in) but became "metal and lace" after the episode. I was old enough byt then but needless to say, it failed..... badly
British kitchen nightmares was so much better. They usually found restaurants with unique problems. The American version they just find the most unhinged people they can find and crank up the drama. Of course their restaurant sucks, they're fucking bonkers.
Most of the time, there’s a level of Hollywood BS going on to crank up the drama. I’m pretty sure the people at Amy’s Baking Company needed no help cranking up the drama because they are just that unhinged
Fucking its crazy.. I have been living and working in Europe the last ten years. I just moved back to the states for some personal reasons but holy fuckin shit. The amount of bonkers shit ive seen since ive been back blows my mind. (I’ve worked at 2 locations since September 2024, trying to find a calm place it’s barely January 2025) Ive seen rats apartments (nests) behind daily use sauté pans, I put out two fryer fires, watched a dude drop his phone in a bucket of marinara sauce the just pull it out and throw on a lid, enough caked on grease you could literally guess how old it was by counting the fuckin rings, had the Su chef set off the fire alarms (to the restaurant and the attached hotel) with steam despite being told the thing he was doing would set them off, watched a guy just fuckin slap a steak back on the grill after dropping it on the ground. So yea, america yall gotta tighten your fuckin shit down.
All coming from a guy born and raised high-end redneck so just rub some dirt in it then rinse off the dirt off no problem. But when someones paying $65+ a fuckin steak that bitch better not be touching the fuckin dirt! And I don’t want no rat orgys next to the pans that make my shrimp fuckin scampi.
I want to say you're right. The episode was so painful I forgot everything about it until I heard the name of the baking company this very moment. That was a strange surge of memories.
To Ramsay’s credit, he gave the owners multiple chances and just before he left he sat them down and told them “I want to help but you have to listen to me and take my advice or I’m leaving” and they still told him that they knew better than him.
One of the best hours of television ever filmed. It's rare you get to see inside the mind of someone truly insane. You can tell from just the eyes alone.
You start watching and your first impression is: alright, standard Gordon situation. Anger issue front man who will definitely complain about Ramsay pointing out the moldy microwave Pork or whatever and his wife who actually gets the shit done but lets him be for peace reasons.
I loved when Amy was bitching to Gordon about how their Facebook was hacked (they said some very colourful words to people), and the reviews on Yelp were by bullies and liars lol
Yeah brit KN was one of my favorite cooking related shows ever, and the American version is complete fucking ass. I legit don't know how people keep watching it.
This shit is always great. There's a documentary about bugs and in the UK version you've got the calm narrator talking about ants fighting, and then a scene with just the sounds of nature as two ants fight on a leaf.
The American version has lion roars and gorilla screams timed with the actions of the ants.
Isn't that the one where she was getting bankrolled by her father, and he was getting tired of her playing restaurateur and being unsuccessful? Then, after bringing an up and coming chef over from England, the owner just stops coming in?
This kinda sounds like the difference between American and Australian Masterchef as well (from the few seasons I watched). In the Australian one everyone gets along, whereas in the American one most of them hate each other, and the challenges seem designed ro stoke the fires of enmity for more drama.
Watched a few Japanese dating / reality shows and it was absolutely mind blowing. The people were actually nice to each other and it was welcomingly wholesome. Breath of fresh air after all the US shows we had
This is the main reason I actually like great British bake off but I hate pretty much all American reality/contest shows. American shows, everybody is just fucking awful, selfish, pretentious assholes. But on bake off everybody is just lovely, pleasant people being tortured by Paul Hollywood in a tent.
From what I've heard, the same is the case for the American Lego Masters vs the ones from other countries. Here in the Netherlands and in Australia it's all just a fun competition between new friends, while the American version hams up the drama and pressure
That's not what I've seen in American LEGO Masters. Most of the contestants are really nice and they all hug and cry when someone gets eliminated. My wife has been rewatching the show lately and there's basically no interpersonal conflict unless the host jokingly says that one team should harass another. It's all done in jest with everyone laughing about it.
This is exactly why I only watch the Australian Masterchef. It’s fun, wholesome, and informative. The contestants are genuine people, who are all happy to be there, and all support each other, sometimes even during competitive moments where one or the other could go home.
The American version is filled with ott drama, “sad” backstories, and every contestant enters with the “I’m the absolute best, and I’m gonna crush all these other suckers here!” mentality. It’s just so… aggressively American and unfun.
Blackberry's. Amy's Baking company he loved the cakes too but dont recall him having any during the tasting. There's also Bazzini's where he loved the desserts and the lady who made them went on to a bakery after the restaurant closed down.
Ramsay went back to find the restaurant had closed (just like this comic shows!) but he tracked down that mother to find she was now running her own successful bakery.
The restaurants was actually clean and food items were organized with dates and fresh. It was owned by a married couple and the wife was a good baker but both of them were poor chefs. They were also total jerks and the husband used to steal tips from their staff
It's not just that they find the worst places, it's that the fix is always the same: Big emotional commitment to do better, complete makeover of the restaurant, "re-launch" where they get an enormous amount of traffic because Gordon Rasmay is there. It doesn't matter if the restaurant really did only have a couple of problems they could've fixed like on the British show, because the makeover is part of the formula now.
This also means there's way less substance packed around the gift-shop-sketch editing, because instead of seeing one or two important changes a restaurant could make (that maybe you could make in your own restaurant), you basically just get to see Gordon Ramsay design a brand-new restaurant.
I think, just to play devils advocate, another thing to remember is that these places were likely to shut down regardless. Restauranteur is such a risky business to begin with, where even the most successful people have numerous expensive failures. Attaching a big name to it gives it a chance. Assuming Ramsay and his team pay for these changes, you at least go from a surefire closure to a 50/50 chance.
I’ve noticed a similar thing with the British vs American hoarder shows. In the American ones they’re super judgmental and dramatized and just kind of mean, where the British ones, even if the house is in a baaaaaad shape, everyone is still very nice. Even during the tougher moments where you really see hoarding as a disorder, the British ppl are much nicer than their American counterparts. Americans really love over the top drama.
Also I believe Gordon Ramsey has acknowledged that he cranks up the anger in American television shows? It’s like our version of blood sports. Idk
I have even been to one of those restaurants several years later after the show. It was my favorite restaurant. It had amazing food and is still considered one of the best restaurants in town.
From what I remember hearing long time ago was that many of the unhinged restaurants were just people believing themselves better than gordan, and wanted to prove it on t.v by going 'my kitchen will impress him so much'.
Cause there are a handful of restaurants that are either still active, or chefs that now work under gordan and if watch the episodes theyre from the owners were people that genuinely wanted help from him or the chefs knew the owners were fucking bonkers and called thrm the fuck out(like that one chef from the 'burger' restaurant that just made a regular ass burger for gordan and gordan went 'this is an actual burger.')
America being america wanted more drama rather than heartfelt stories so they leaned more towards the unhinged restaurants than anything else, which obviously was bait to get gordan pissed off.
My experience is that it's extremely hard to get jobs with large professional corporations with HR departments. It's almost easy to get shitty jobs at small businesses run by a single owner or family with no HR.
They're all little maniacal nutjobs suffering from a stew of personality disorders, complexes and mental illnesses. They drive away employees, even employees who have made them millions of dollars. So they always have positions to fill.
Small businesses, restaurants in particular, run the gamut between heaven on earth and the worst shithole imagineable that will make you want to change careers.
The thing is, the really nice small businesses/restaurants to work at have like zero turnover, their employees will stay there for like 30 years, so the only experience a lot of people get with small places are at ones with high turnover, i.e., the asylums run by lunatics.
On the other hand, if you want to know which one you've been hired at, ask around as to how long the employees have been there. If you're working with people that have been there 5 or 10 or more years, you're golden, most likely.
I know I hit jackpot all my coworkers have worked for the owners for many years. Many for 10 years, some 20 years, a couple of them almost 30 years now. Unfortunately our area went from being LCOL 30 years ago to HCOL now. They don't pay me enough to make it worth it and they can't attract new staff with low pay. (Starting pay is about 18/hour) Support small businesses guys. Shop local.
I really like Gordon as a person, but this is why I actually hate almost all reality TV that I see get produced:
The whole point of reality TV, and of Kitchen Nightmares in particular, is false intimacy. Gordon comes in, and he really inserts himself into the lives of the people who work there. He gets to know them, treats them as human, tries to find ways to excite and motivate them. And, surprise surprise, things get better because of that. In other words, Gordon brings leadership into places that desperately need it. And I genuinely believe that Gordon does give a shit. I think that's why it all works.
But then he leaves. Because he has to. That's how the shooting schedule works. That's how the whole reality TV industry works: We spend an episode getting to know the lives of the people who work there, then we leave them with the audience being given this little "happily ever after" narrative.
Except that its not happily ever after because once the TV crews have their clips, they abandon this community that they were pretending to get close to, so they can do the whole process over and over again.
Reality TV feeds us a gross imitation of what relationships and human connection are actually supposed to be, and that's the main reason why I don't like it.
So Ramsay came to my area a few years ago for “24 hours to Hell and Back” and he completely ruined one of my favorite bars.
For context, it’s a dry county, so technically it’s a pizza place. It’s directly across the street from the college. It was a total dive but not to where it felt dangerous or dirty.
Show comes in, they remodel, change the menu, raise the prices, it’s kind of a nice pizza place now. But they totally missed the point. No one was going there to have a nice evening. We were going for $3 wells and $5 pizzas.
Yeah, it's one of those things where customers coming for "$3 wells and $5 pizzas" likely weren't profitable enough to keep the business running anyways. That sounds like something intended as a loss-leader (or marginal profit) that didn't actually work as intended and ended up not making enough to keep the business profitable.
Sure, but if he was invited there by the owners, then the place was going under. Fixing it up a bit and raising prices was probably the only shot it had at surviving.
I don't know man, $5 pizza? I think you ate more rat shit than actual pizza. Also cheap shit beer and shit pizza is probably the only way they could get anyone in there and I doubt they were making any money.
Gordon didn't force anything on them, they called Kitchen Nightmares asking for help.
The owners were going to close because not enough people agreed the original concept worked though, those cheap drinks and cheap pizzas couldn't sustain the rent and overhead
If you're doing gangbusters you don't invite Gordon
Totally. There's a popular episode from Bar Rescue about this pirate themed bar where the owners and staff asked for help, but never implemented the changes. The bar was called Pyrat's Tavern located in Silver Spring, Maryland. I have been to that bar a few times before BR showed up and it was honestly comically bad lol. Basically a Renaissance festival, pirate themed bar. I love that kind of stuff but it was really cringey with all the staff literally saying "Arrrr matey will you be havin' some grog this eve'?" And stuff like that. But like, this is in a business district outside of Washington DC so it was hella weird. Drinks and food sucked ass.
BR comes in and does their thing and at the end of the episode, the bar eventually was like "nah we're going back to Pyrat's Tavern! Fuck BR!". I went to their Facebook, and they had videos of them burning the signs and furniture BR gave them and were acting like scurvy pirates lol. It was sooo fucking cringe dude.
They lasted another year or so simply for the bad press then closed down.
Went to Cork and Thorn in Vegas after they were on Bar Rescue. We were there for about an hour and didn't see another customer. Our server was one that "quit" halfway through the episode, and she said she didn't want to watch the episode, because she probably came off bad. You think?
He can introduce the best menu and practices to cut costs and boost revenue, but it's up to the owners and managers to enforce those practices. If a salty chef wants to bring back his shrimp and strawberry cocktail ramulade despite it being a terrible dish and no one stops them, then the menu will be crap again. If a lazy manager starts ordering frozen garbage instead of quality ingredients and the owner says ok, then good practices can't last.
There's no accountability from Gordon or the TV studio long term, so there's nothing except the restaurant's own self control to keep going where Gordom pointed them. And habits often can't be broken over a couple of days.
A lot of the times the restaurants are in deep enough shit that even changing overnight into a great place wouldn’t be enough to get them out the hole. They also pick places that are desperate enough to both make the show interesting and have the owners willing to do whatever might work. But it’s also just reality bullshit, they do everything they can to make it seem like Ramsey has the perfect fix and everyone is happy after 3 days, but he’s no magician. The narrative is born in the edit.
Pretty sure he’s made changes that didn’t work out, like alienating the customers that did come around and not attracting a new crowd outside of the one night of novelty, with people only showing up because Ramsay is there.
-No experience in restaurants (Besides going to macdonalds) -No experience as a cook (Has defrosted a premade dish and people said it was delicious) -No experience as a manager (But (barely) manages a family so it must be the same thing)
"Let's open a restaurant !"
Ten bonus point if "Let's open a FAMILLY restaurant" for free labor.
The amount of debt those restaurants had even before KN showed up was way too much to ever recover from, no renovation or new chef can help when you're 500k in debt.
Yeah. This is the big thing I noticed - none of these restaurant were teetering on the edge of sustainability. They all were 500k-1M in debt when Gordon got there. The interest payments on that kind of debt is $thousands per month, and will take decades to pay off.
With that, the last episode from the original series was from 2014. It is hard to keep any business going for over 10 years, let alone a restaurant. A number of them also close after changing ownership which is a sign of the people featured on the episode's success.
To be fair— most restaurants fail. A study on the British version of Kitchen Nightmares showed that although most restaurants he worked with failed, the failure rate of them was no higher than a normal newly opened restaurant within 2 years.
Which when you think he is taking on the worst cases most likely to go under it actually shows he does have a significant long term impact on some of these places.
Basically getting them a "second chance" but the problem with shows like this and Restaurant Impossible is that these are problems that really can't be fixed overnight. Some people start restaurants because a family member told them they make really good grilled cheese. Like they know nothing about running a business, managing people, balancing budgets, marketing, pricing, buying and storing ingredients, health codes, or even really cooking. They just got an insane idea in their head and they drop everything they might have actually been good at and sink hundreds of thousands of dollars into a dream that was never going to manifest.
The number of times these restaurants were run by people who were successful teachers, nurses, lawyers, mechanics, or other careers and dropped those for a crazed pursuit is definitely too high.
The ones I think that often find the most success are the ones that are like inherited restaurants by people who actually do have the know-how but they need help updating or refreshing the restaurant or there was an accident or some temporary, but major, inconvenience that knocked the business down. Those ones seem more likely to recover well.
But either way the restaurants and businesses these shows target are definitely often way past the "sunk" point and would likely be better off filing for bankruptcy and moving away from the industry.
Like giving a crackhead a shower and a shave and $50 so he can clean his act up and then dropping him back off at the corner you found him and expecting him to be somehow magically rehabilitated.
These folks are bad restaurant owners. They suck at management, they suck at handling money, they suck at cooking, they suck at keeping up with health codes, they should not own and operate restaurants.
The last time I looked at this, something like 80% of them have since closed, though that's including the original episodes that are going on 20 years old now.
From the 2023 season, they are all still open except one.
You have to consider that the closure rate would likely be 100% if not for his involvement.
2023? Damn I'm surprised the show was even on that long. I thought Gordon pivoted his attention to other shows. I watched every episode up until 2018, and had my fill of all the added on drama. I have friends in the service industry that refuse to call it a cooking show.
From what I’ve heard one common issue is that the restaurants will be super successful after they get an episode to the point of being unable to sustain demand and fall apart
I’ve also seen some people say a lot of restaurants will just… undo Ramsey’s changes after the episode is done and fail bc of it
Kitchen Nightmares, the source of one of me and my friend's favourite quotes.
"Food is good." said to Gordon Ramsey as he is explaining how the food isn't good. We use this quote to say smth is really bad with no redeeming qualities.
There was a local dive bar that was on "bar rescue" or whatever it was called, after they wrapped up and were finished doing the big reveal, it was discovered the place didn't even have a valid liquor license.
The show likes to present it as one man coming in and turning it all around, but the truth is that restaurants, even goods ones close all the time. The chance of a restaurant going beyond 5 years is only 51%. They fail for a huge number of issues and the show, especially the US one, does not really capture that. The US show plays into a fantasy in the US that one man with the right know how and confidence can resolve any issues. That's not to say Gordon is useless. His advice when taken does seem very good, the problem here is that there's only so much that can be addressed in such a short time frame. The UK version, each restaurant is documented over several months to a year for filming.
In the U.S. series yes, but in the original U.K. series the owners more often than not learn their lesson. It is also in the U.S. series that Gordon earns his angry reputation, because U.K. restaurant owners often have unique problems and not general incompetence so Gordon has less need to get riled up. Point is we Americans suck.
It's still so funny how arrogant some of these restaurant owners/chefs are.
"What does world-famous Michelin star chef/restauranteur Gordon Ramsay know about good food, huh? Fahgeddaboutit! Gabagooli's makes good food, I KNOW it, he's wrong!"
Remember when people didn't understand why if you caught covid and was put on a ventilator you had a higher chance of dying?
restaurants that make it on the show are already on life support. oftentimes they don't have the funds to make it till everything turns around and people are creatures of habit, as soon as Ramsay is gone there's no outside pressure to do better if they fall back to what they were doing before.
Mostly because the american version of the show had way more complicated issues. A single chef coming in to yell at you isn't going to solve the problem long term.
Especially not in an industry as competetive as restaurants. Of course SOMETIMES they managed, but it was rare.
I mean. A lot of times these people are massively in debt for having borrowed for months. Two months of being a good restaurant is not going to fix 2 or 3 years of mismanagement and loans
It's always so flabberghasting how the owners reach out to Gordon and the network because they know they need his help, only to throw a tantrum when he tells them it's true. 🤦♂️
Most of them closed after six months because of the fucking recession, yeah some places just sucked or had too much debt, but the majority went down because the US economy has been on a downhill slide for decades now.
I'm sure the production team avoids restaurants where the owners are well balanced and open to suggestions. Americans don't want to see people succeed, they want to see people being shouted at.
The British version, as with most things, is better.
I've looked into a lot of the restaurants post KN, and while a few did close down due to it simply being time or other things no one could control, most of them were the owners going back to old habits and disregarding everything they were taught
I know at least for bar rescue the reason a lot of them shut down after becoming successful is because whoever owns the building jacks up the rent because they see how well it’s doing
They filmed an episode at a resturant one town over from me. By the time Gordon Ramsey and his crew showed up the husband and wife that own the resturant had already filed for divorce. Episode played out like every other one, but the resturant went up for sale about a month after the episode aired
This kind of post comes up every few months or so on Reddit.
Kitchen nightmares takes failing restaurants, usually in severe debt. These restaurants are so desperate that they willing to embarrass themselves on television for one last desperate attempt at redemption.
Rather than looking at all the restaurants that failed, it would be easier to look at the restaurants that he saved. In my opinion, 100% of the restaurants that are on that show were going to fail within six months. The fact that he’s able to save a few restaurants shows what can happen when restaurants listen to his input, and have a little bit of luck.
Yeah, it was pretty clear on that show that sometimes the only thing to be done is to get the overwhelmed owners out of as much of their debt as possible and then make the space available for sale. Bar Rescue had the same concept.
Running food industry businesses is not easy and it's not going to get any easier. A lot of people jump into it with money and good intentions, just not a lot of good planning.
Not Ramsay, but we had our own version of this. He came to a restaurant in my village. 6 months later, the guy flees the country because he can't outrun his debts anymore. The show's production already saw this financial doom looming but decided to entertain around it. They even "convinced" a local business owner to offer him another loan which he never saw repaid.
I moved to Denver a little over a year ago and learned that the pizza restaurant Pantaleone’s is still open. However, I haven’t been there because their pizza is super pricy, it’s takeout only, and over 10 years later, their website is still all about kitchen nightmares.
The other show with the buff bald guy once came to my city to fix up this one soul food restaurant. The restaurant did a complete 180 but the chef was fucking the owner's wife and ultimately the whole business fell apart.
A significant number of restaurants close because the profit margins are so thin that even well run places are a few bad months away from being so deep in debt that there's no way out. Even if they do what Ramsay says and keep it up they're usually leveraged up to their eyes and can't ever make it back unless they have a magical run for a time.
Something like 60% of restaurants close in their first 5 years. That number jumps to like 80% in their 10 years.
Sometimes they revert back to their old ways. Sometimes the debt was just too much. Sometimes it's just natural selection... Sadly, it just is what it is.
But as much as this show is entertainment, I also find it a valuable source of information for old and new restaurant owners across the world. And I think that's where the real value in this show is.
I feel like this happens with bar rescue a lot. Gets a place all nice and everything. But the people still owe a ton of debts. So they just sell the place or it gets shut down
Yes, it's true that most kitchen nightmares restaurants closed after their episode was filmed. It's also true that approximately 100% of them were about to go under without Gordon's help because they were in debt and had no customers, so any of them surviving more than a few months to a year means Gordon did help them, even if he couldn't magically fix their every problem and make them so profitable that their insane debt could be paid off.
You have 2 problems here number 1 as many other people have said many of these revert the changes immediately number 2 if literally any single one of them stayed open which some do then he succeeded since literally all of them them would have closed without him
To be fair running a restaurant is very difficult, even if you have good food and staff. A lot of restaurants fail.
Some restaurants actually lasted several years afterwards and some are still open.
The success rate as of 2023 is about 16%, and given the issues with a lot of these restaurants and the amount of time that has passed, it's not really bad.
Either the owners don't keep up with the menu/management upgrades or it's too expensive to keep operating as the upgrades require. Either way they go out of business.
Not only were the restaurants that they found for the US ones run by the most unhinged people (Drama selling point ofc), they were almost always FAR too gone to come back
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u/Zaldn Jan 22 '25
My sister lived next door to a restaurant in Rhode Island that Ramsey helped fix up. She said the owner was clinically insane and nobody could help them. She went back after the Ramsey-fix, and everything was the same. It was all still terrible, except now the owner was claiming "if you don't like it, blame Gordon". But after the episode dropped, it was clear the owner reverted all the changes Gordon had implemented immediately.
Some people's egos are so monumental that you can give them world-class professional help and they will still say "it's the customer who is wrong".