Last night’s installment of Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares” featured The Olde Stone Mill Restaurant in Tuckahoe, New York, a small town about 40 miles north of New York City in Westchester County. The space was a cotton mill in the 1800’s and a rubber factory for a while after that, long before current owner Dean took over and renovated it into his dream business: a restaurant.
The Olde Stone Mill focused on casual yet upscale dining in a really unique location along the Bronx River. So what was wrong with it? It was losing loads of money, and Dean admitted that if they closed the doors he would owe half a million dollars in debts.
Enter the great Gordon Ramsey.
Ramsey rode in on his motorcycle and was immediately marveling at the location of the restaurant. He met Dean, chef Michael, general manager Tom, and Dean’s wife Barbara and then sat down to lunch. He ordered crab cakes, chopped salad, mushroom risotto and fish that’s cooked in some sort of “edible bag.” First off, Ramsey notices the waiter chewing gum and kind of ribs him about it. Then, he tastes the food and is extremely disappointed all the way around. The crab cakes have a “sour mayonnaise” taste, the salad was shaped with a funnel, and the fish is like, as Ramsey said, “shit in a bag.” He sits Dean down and tells him point blank that his food is “crap.”
Then Ramsey sits down with Dean and Barbara to find out just how much money this place is losing. And that night, he witnessed a dinner service to really find out why. It didn’t take long to realize that it is in fact the food….customers are not happy, sending it back or just complaining that food is cold or doesn’t taste good. Thankfully, this episode spared us cockroaches and rats–the one thing chef Michael was doing good was keeping the kitchen clean. But he was feeding customers crappy food, and this was why no one except folks from a nearby retirement community were eating there. Ramsey also berated Dean, saying he was rushing meals out even though he knew they weren’t cooked properly. He even called Dean “a fake,” and questioned how bad he wants his restaurant to succeed. This resulted in a bit of a shouting match…or should we say, Dean was shouting a Ramsey and Ramsey was calmly calling Dean out for not wanting this bad enough.
Ramsey went and spoke to a local butcher who said the area desperately needed a good steakhouse, especially with so many Italian restaurants in the area. He took back some prime ribs and gets to work cooking with Michael. Ramsey then took a blow torch to Michael’s funnels that he uses for the chopped salad, showing him that the funnels are just not necessary. He also tells Dean that he’s revamping the menu to a steakhouse menu, and Dean is extremely resistant. Tell me, why would you be resistant when your restaurant is hemhorraging money? So he goes with it. Ramsey puts a nice new sign out front, re-does the interior and changes the menu. At the dinner service, the restaurant is hopping, but Tom is having trouble keeping up and is tripping over himself. Orders are not being filled, and there is a printer problem in the kitchen, which prompts a shouting match between Dean and Michael.
Finally, the printer is fixed and food gets served. The customers, including the mayor, are loving the new menu. Ramsey is shown talking to Dean, explaining that sometimes you have to fail first in order to succeed, and earns Dean’s respect when he tells him that he too first failed when he started in this business.
They showed that in the following weeks, Michael regained control of his restaurant, Tom became a better manager and Michael took back his own passion for cooking again. Ah, another feel-good story. We can only hope now that the place is making money now and back on track.
Chef Gordon Ramsey, you are the greatest. See you all next week, when Ramsey visits a Hollywood pizzeria. Finally, we get away from these brash, loud New Yorkers with raging tempers.
