Yeah, mismanagement or crappy but safe food are one thing, a breeding pit for food poisoning is quite another. There are some food safety things I can kinda see a person not necessarily realizing such as not regularly cleaning the ice machine but when you’ve got mold covering the walk-in, chicken left out on the counter at room temperature, or rats running around the kitchen that’s just someone not caring and I don’t trust that a pep talk is going to change that. You don’t need to food handler’s permit training (as pathetic as such training tends to be) to realize that shit just ain’t right.
So while I might be willing to hit some of those places on the grand reopening night going back later would be a scary proposition. Even firing the kitchen staff doesn’t necessarily clear things up because for things to hit that level management didn’t care and who is to say they’ve started caring?
A couple of years ago, an Indian restaurant that Mr. Neville liked was shut down by the health department. The article in the local paper said that the reasons for this included a recurring roach infestation and food held at unsafe temperatures. Mr. Neville was surprised when this happened- he had never seen any evidence of any of that when he ate there. Last year, a restaurant I liked was closed for, among other problems, the presence of rat droppings and dead rodents. It has since re-opened.
Either Pittsburgh is unusually bad in this respect, Mr. Neville and I have bad taste in restaurants, or this kind of thing just isn’t that uncommon.
But if they’ve been on a show like Kitchen Nightmares, there is evidence that someone did care enough to get them on the show. They don’t go to restaurants unless someone from management calls them in, do they?
Your business is failing - just can’t figure out WHY, darn it, you run a great business you hardly ever need to pay attention to, the staff is so great, and these people are offering you a free makeover and TV publicity. Why not take it? They’ll come in, find out you’re not really so bad, and turn it into a sob story. The money will come pouring in!
That they cared that their business is failing doesn’t mean they cared that their kitchen was dangerous. If they cared to maintain the safety of their kitchen they’d have procedures in place to maintain that safety and would ensure those procedures were being followed. If hypothetically they couldn’t get their employees to follow those procedures (new hires or existing staff), or were somehow unable to do the procedures (say can’t afford to) they’d fold up shop/close the kitchen.
I rad that the success rate for shows on Restaurant Impossible with Robert Irvine have a higher success rate than those by Kitchen Nightmares Gordon Ramsey. I think part of that is that I’ve read Irvine actually takes a personal interest in the restaurant and does alot of followup and also allows the owners to call him with questions. I dont read that Ramsey does the same.
Another, to get even on RI requires a lengthy process of a detailed questionnaire (found on their site). My take, if you know THAT much information about your restaurant, your farily on top of most issues and only need a little nudge.
And on failure. Irvine has told restaurant owners that if they can sell a restaurant for a decent price, take that as a success. He said that selling a restaurant is never easy even for highly successful ones. So if an owner, after a RI makeover, is doing fairly well their is nothing wrong with selling the restaurant while its still doing well.