I happened upon two hours of The Restaurant. NBC was using it for filler I’m sure.
I have to say Rocco is so immature. I had to laugh when Mama told Jeffery he was immature and so was Rocco! Pizza dough on Rocco’s head not withstanding. :wally
Hopefully I’ll happen upon the finale sometime.
So they didn’t advertise that it was going to be on? Or maybe I should check the TV listings once in a while. So what else happened?
I’ll try a short explaination…I think I was the only person to watch it, it wasn’t listed in the local rag here.
Rocco confronted Jeffery, Jeffery had copies of all the bils and emails etc, gave them to Rocco and then he passed them on to his assistant who said she didn’t know what he wanted her to do with them.
There was another fire in the restaurant,caused by using wood (against the fire code)
Rocco fired the Ex-chef, Tony who was doing all the work in the kitchen, in an effort to save money, said he would run the kitchen, then, ex chef was told by Jeffery that they were happy with him and gave him a raise. Then there were fireworks between Jeffery and Rocco. Rocco started to cook in the kitchen, then went upstairs and the kitchen ended up so backed up. Rocco got drunk and put pizza dough on his head.
Anyway the floor manager, told Rocco to get his head back in the game, the evening was a disaster. Rocco said he would.
The final episode will be on next Saturday, but I’m not sure if it’s 8:00 or 9:00.
I will say that both Jeffrey and Rocco looked liked asses in these two episodes, although I still feel that Rocco is mostly to blame. At one point, Rocco found out that three psychologists were eating at the resturant, so he joined them and got an impromtu counseling session. They then had Jeffrey come and join them. This was the only time these two guys actually spoke to each other without ending up screaming at each other. It made you feel like they could work together, but they would need to work out a better understanding of who was in charge of what.
I think it was right after this that Jeffrey gave Tony a raise the night before Rocco fired him. Communication is not a strong suit for these guys.
Actually these two things happened the other way around. First, Jeffrey gave Tony a raise and told him how well he was doing in the evening, while at the same time we saw Rocco and Laurant plotting Tony’s firing for the next day. Then the next morning, Rocco called Tony over to his office and canned him, while someone (who was that, anyway?) broke into his locker and took out all his personal stuff and put it in a big trash bag, along with his personal knives and things like that and delivered it to him at Rocco’s office.
Tony then locked himself in the conference room and called Jeffrey, while checking to make sure all his personal things were there (in the trash bag!). Jeffrey told Tony to come to his office, and then reamed Rocco out, telling him he had no legal right to fire Tony like that.
I thought it was pretty funny later that night that Rocco started out in the kitchen, but just couldn’t help himself and had to go up and schmooze with the guests (and drool on the women), while things went to shit down in the kitchen. He is such an ass.
So, was that it? I think I heard that the show’s been canceled, but is there another episode, showing the aftermath of that night?
First time I saw the show ever. ISTM that Jeffrey is just an uptight New York money man, and has every right to be. He knows what works – all of his other restaurants are making money – and insists that things be done his (i.e. the vetern restaraunteur) way without regard to Rocco (i.e. the novice). Granted I’ve only seen 1.5 episodes, but that is my brief impression. He knows what he has to do to get his money back, and Rocco can either come along for the ride or be left behind.
To this end, it showed Jeffrey and associates eating at a restaurant in Brooklyn and talking to the apparently wonderful chef there – an Italian guy named Red (Rosso). Apparently, this is a candidate to replace Rocco, who is on a very short leash. Jeffrey jokes that if he hires him to replace Rocco, he would only have to change two letters on the awning from Rocco’s to Rosso’s.
I’ve read some restaurant reviews of Rocco’s, and apparently it’s not all that great. Perhaps Jeffrey did go and get a new head for the restaurant, someone less attractive and divisive, so NBC was forced to cancel or move to a new restaurant?
Google searching revealed some interesting tidbits…they may be spoilers so beware:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/food/features/n_10216/index.html
I tell you, this show is painful to watch. It should be shown at management seminars as what not to do.
Both Rocco and Jeffrey are jerks and neither has any business dealing with people. And a few of those Corporate Task people of Jeffrey’s were rather jerky, too. That one chick who kept reaming out the head waiter while he was trying to train people because he let them have coffee and wasn’t jumping all over them every second was wasting more time bitching about it than she was accusing him of doing.
Jeffrey reams out Rocco for firing Tony without consulting him, yet I didn’t see him consult Rocco on the giving Tony a raise issue. Frankly, from what I saw, it seemed they gave Tony a raise because he was their “inside” guy. So Jeffrey would get pissed at Rocco for the same thing he was doing to Rocco.
Jeffrey whines about the place losing money so they go on a mad spending spree, replacing barstools, silverwear, uniforms and giving a huge raise to the chef?! It may be true that you sometimes have to spend money to make money but there’s also the saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, how would spending more money on those items help them make more money? I don’t think people are walking out and not paying because they don’t like the barstools. If they want to give raises, give them to everyone who has been working hard and trying to make changes not just their “inside guy”.
It seems that Rocco could well have been justified in letting Tony go if he did indeed not make any improvements since his last review. However, breaking into his locker and all that was just wrong.
I almost had hope that they might actually start acting like adults when they both talked to the therapists but that didn’t last long. I have to say, though, I was glad to see Rocco admit to being a narcissist.
They replaced the barstools so that more people could sit at the bar at the same time, thus allowing the bar to make more money. They were cheap–15 for about 100 dollars a piece, and this is a one time expense. The stools Rocco had were too big and took up too much room–and I bet they cost a mint, so maybe they’ll be sold to pay for the replacements.
I’m not sure why the sliverwear was a problem. One of Jeffrey’s people did say it was expensive, but how often does it have to be replaced? I guess a resturant could go through a lot of replacement silverwear (being stolen, bent, etc) but it seems like a de minius cost of business.
The uniforms were to insure that customer knew who was who and didn’t try to get the bus people to take their orders. Again, a one time big out-lay, and then a cost-of-business expense to keep new ones available.
Rocco was not justified in letting Tony go–Tony really did run the kitchen and the crew both respected and responded to him. He kept everything going in the kitchen, pitching in where it was needed, which is what an executive chef is supposed to do–he’s like the conductor of an orchestra. Rocco was looking for a scrapegoat–Jeffrey said things were too expensive, Rocco decided Tony was to blame (he looked at the kitchen books/expenses and commented “Tony should ahve been on top of this”). Knowing how controling Rocco is, and how unwilling to look at financial matters, I bet Rocco told him to order from specific venders or certain qualities etc, and if Tony tried to talk to him aobut kitchen expenses, Rocco just shut him down. Plus, if the kitchen expenses had been too far out of line, Jeffrey would have known and he wouldn’t have given Tony a raise.
In real life, Jeffrey did eventually sue Rocco. It’s in the court system right now. I believe Rocco counter-sued (saying Jeffrey cooked the books). I don’t know if the resturant is open or not–I checked the phone book when I was in New York last month, but it wasn’t listed.
I got the feeling that Jeff wanted to take the silver to a better restaurant(ie one that makes money) and replace Rocco’s with cheep stuff.
It was said by one of his corporate people that they were going to take it to a different restaurant.
As for the barstools. I saw them measuring and heard the comments about them being too big. Still, how many more spaces at the bar did that get them? I don’t see how it could get them more than one or two extra seats. I doubt people are clamoring to get a seat at the bar or that an extra couple seats will bring in the big bucks. Yes, maybe they could have sold the old barstools to get some of the money back but it’s doubtful it would be enough to cover even the cost of one batch of stools. More likely, he wanted to move those to another one of his restaurants, like the silverware.
My main point in these expenses in that they were not necessary to make at that time. IMO, it was Jeffrey just trying to show who’s boss. If Jeffrey and his team are so good at restaurant management then why couldn’t they just look at the income and expenses and see where they could cut corners, instead of looking to spend more money right off the bat? It seems to me that their biggest problems were all involved in getting people their food fast, correctly and good. Since Tony was responsible for most of the food stuff that means that at least part of that was his problem.
From a managerial standpoint, if an employee is given things to improve at a review and does not improve in those areas then management has every right to fire them. It doesn’t matter what the things needing improvement were, the employee was warned about it. Management could say, stop wearing blue shirts and if employee still wears blue shirts he gets fired. One of their points was his management of staff. I quite frequently saw him yell at staff in front of other staff and then half-heartedly apologize, granted we have to rely on what the producers chose to show us but I seem to recall that happening a lot in the first season too. Yeah, he was well-organized and could get people doing what they were supposed to be doing, but I don’t agree that they all liked him.
As for his chef abilities, I have constantly heard that the food there is mediocre, since Rocco wasn’t actually cooking all that time, then who’s responsible for that?
Another problem there is Laurent. I have never seen him do anything or handle anything in a decent manner. In the last episode he listened to people in the kitchen gripe about Rocco leaving the kitchen, so he went upstairs and watched Rocco smooze. Why not say, “hey, they really need you in the kitchen.”? They didn’t show him actually talking to Rocco until much later in his office. But again, maybe everything Laurent does right doesn’t make it onscreen.
I am not defending Rocco, he’s a jerk but Jeffrey is as well. One of those articles linked to above indicates that he seems to have just as big an ego problem as Rocco. It seems it was a big mistake to give these guys a forum to flaunt their egos. I really can’t sympathize with anyone on that show except to feel sorry for the non-managerial staff.
I didn’t watch these two episodes but I’ve always been under the impression that the cameras have sabotaged the restaurant from the start.
Stuff that should be common sense was overlooked because the cameras were there. The staff was filled out mostly by people only looking to be actors rather than anyone with actual experience. Cold food was pushed to the back burner because Rocco needed to alternately smooze and yell at everyone to show he’s boss. All the shit with Gideon.
It was a joke and if these posts say anything, it’s that it’s gotten worse.
Tony is an employee of Chodorow Management, not of Rocco’s restaurant. Jeffry had no legal or ethical obligation to consult Rocco about the raise.