Pretty much. I mean, Gordon is portrayed as an abrasive asshole (and, by some metrics, maybe he is), but he does know his shit, from both a food level and business level. If I happened to run a restaurant and had him come in to critique me, you bet I would listen to most of what he says.
Yeah well, all those BEEPs don’t help either.
Here are the “instructions” from the Fox website:
Note that one of the questions on the online application is:
“How do you react to criticism?”
That guy was a total douche but can tell he knows how freaking insane his wife is.
I think they actually want people who don’t respond well to criticism, as it means for a more dramatic show. It’s very typical on the show for the chef/owner to reject Ramsay’s suggestions, even though the restaurant is in trouble and they requested that he come to give them advice.
Obviously there is no way this business is legitimately running in the black. My guess would be that there’s some kind of financial records skullduggery afoot, and that’s the real reason Bouzaglo won’t let anyone else touch the POS system. Word on the internet is that Amy has gone under several aliases and served time for identity theft and fraud. I can’t find shit on Salomon Bouzaglo, at least not under that name, but honestly the guy couldn’t act and look more stereotypically thuggish if he was trying out for a part in the local community theatre. Made his money in “construction”, huh? Right.
What I can’t figure out is why the owners of a fraudulent business would ever want to show their ass on national television. But hell, even if this pair is on the up-and-up it still wouldn’t make sense for them to want to show off this shitshow of an operation.
This.
The UK version of KN is a lot less dramatic. Very little yelling at the chefs/owners. Still a lot of cussing though it’s just not directed at the chefs/owners.
This is what blew my mind about this episode - I’m pretty sure they were openly committing some sort of offense by doing this. Maybe someone who knows about Arizona labor law can shed some light on it. If you’re paying the waitstaff Arizona minimum wage then I’m pretty sure you can have a “no tipping” policy, but I’m fairly certain that if customers leave tips for the staff the owner can’t just take them. Perhaps a local DA watches the show, that could be interesting.
I know at least one place in Tucson doesn’t give servers tips directly, but rather pools all the tips and divides them evenly between all servers working that shift. So I don’t think it’s illegal to not give servers gratuities left for “them”.
Then again, that restaurant is open about it, so that may change things.
I did a Google search; it looks like tip pooling is legal, but I can’t find anything about whether a restaurant owner can confiscate tips.
Plenty of places pool together tips and distribute them-- it’s usually a way to make sure busboys and such get tips, too. The point is, they folks are still getting tips though.
I haven’t followed their antics too closely - are they trying to leverage their “fame” in any way? Someone was speculating that they may get a reality show after this - just a shot at it may be reason enough for people like this, no?
That was quite a video. She’s got Michelle Bachmann eyes and the personality of a pit viper.
It’s very illegal for an owner to confiscate tips. The only time an owner can intervene in tip-related payments to employees is to ensure a tipped employee makes at least minimum wage (they have to cover the shortfall). Other than that, the owner shouldn’t be taking any tip money given to servers.
Even if there’s a stated no-tipping policy, tip money given directly to an employee is theirs to keep. The employer runs afoul of federal (and likely state) laws by confiscating it.
There is a sort of loophole. If the restaurant has a service charge (common for large groups in many places), that doesn’t count as a normal tip and the employer can dip into that.
Link to a Department of Labor fact sheet on tips.
It’s probably not fair, but the waitress said she had plenty of experience, so why was shhe slumming it there? I am not sure if confiscating the tips was their evilest thing or firing the girl for no good reason. I am going to say the former because that girl who got fired actually should be happy.
Do you understand that the economy isn’t doing well, and some people have a very difficult time finding jobs? Some places won’t even hire a person who is out of work; they only hire people who already have jobs. And with the job market so bad, many people are waiting tables who wouldn’t have in the past, making it that much harder for servers to get a job.
When I worked at Panera, I wasn’t allowed tips even though I pocketed it all the same. We were given well above min wage but all cash floated our way had to go into the donation jar. As I understand a lot of other fast food restaurants have that policy too. Not exactly the same but not entirely different either.
It is, however, super dishonest to collect tips without advocating that as policy. I can see them getting into legal problems by charging large parties the mandatory gratuity AND not tipping out the wait staff. That would be the only formal form of fraud I can discern.
As for the legitimacy of their business… I can see how someone who got in while the going was good and got out before the going got bad in land development could net a couple of million dollars in the Arizona/Nevada area. Couple that with a small business loan with a multi-million dollar house as collateral and they could potentially have enough funds to grind it out for a couple of years, especially if the construction company was still humming along and either/or had money to begin with.
I have read in comments on various sites (which is to say, this is all completely unsourced and may be a pack of lies) that Gordon got wind of some sort of scamminess they were up to and decided to leave because he didn’t want to be associated with that. Certainly, the way the owner had to put in all the tickets looked shady as hell to me. And it makes a lot more sense to leave for legal reasons than because they were so crazy; crazy makes for great TV! I would have watched another 2 hours of just them doing dinner service! I mean, I watch a good bit of this show (loooove me some Ramsay!) and there are lots of restaurants he goes into where its obvious within a couple minutes that there’s no helping the place. And yet, he stays, because the show is only incidentally about fixing restaurants. It’s actually about watching crazy restaurant owners get yelled at. So I think it’s a plausible theory.
I’ve never worked in a restaurant…why was that shady? I get why it was stupid, and slowed down the entire process to a snail’s pace, but what makes it shady? Is there a way to screw with the books if Samy is the only one using it?
Do most of the owners accept his help? I can understand some resistance to change, but do they take his advice in the end?
(I’ve never watched the show before, please forgive the questions. Oooh, just checked Netflix. The first two seasons are there. Guess I know what I’m doing the rest of the night!)
One of these days someone will pull a gun on him when he does that. I wish I could be there to see it.