Last night Fox had to scramble for extra coverage when the World Series abruptly ended after a two-day rain delay in Game 5. Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” returned in its usual slot at 9pm ET, with a bonus re-run episode at 8pm. In the new episode, Ramsay visited South Bend, Indiana….his second venture to the middle of America after doing most of these shows in New York and Los Angeles. The establishment here, a few miles from Notre Dame University, was J. Willy’s, a bar/restaurant focusing on barbecue cuisine.
The restaurant was owned by three people–married couple Rich and Tricia, who owned another restaurant three hours away and were rarely at J. Willy’s, and J. Willy himself, a.k.a. John William. Dave the manager and Steve the chef as well as the rest of the staff were just pawns doing what John made them do, which was to use more and more processed, cheap food and cutting corners everywhere. As a result, this restaurant was $1.2 million in the hole. Yes, you read that correctly.
So Ramsay arrived and noticed the ratty decor and then proceeded to order from the menu….potato pizza (blech), beef ribs and a pulled pork sandwich. He was grossed out by all of the items and I was too watching it. At the dinner serivce that night, Ramsay also noticed that the poor food quality was scaring customers away. So he brought the three owners to a nearby church and posed as a priest at confession, asking them to share their feelings about why the restaurant was failing. The general verdict was that John had lost his passion and it was all his fault. Ramsay convinced him that if he freshened up the menu and got his staff on board, things could quickly change. They went back to the kitchen and started throwing out all of the processed and spoiling food.
Then Ramsay taught the kitchen staff how to make homemade BBQ sauce, and they served it that night along with fresh hamburgers and fresh cut fries. Everything was a hit until they ran out of food and started using frozen stuff again that had somehow been saved from the purge, angering Ramsay. So before he gave them a re-design of the restaurant, Ramsay made sure the owners were all committed to making changes. They agreed, he made it beautiful and brought in four of his own chefs to help re-design the menu further. The kitchen got behind and was making mistakes again, but manager Dave, and the three owners were able to rally their staff and have a great dinner service.
Ah, success. And they showed the restaurant months later still enjoying success and winning BBQ sauce competitions. Good for them, and hopefully they are climbing out of that big financial hole. Ramsay, you bugger, you’ve done it again.
