No thread for this New Season of Burnett’s Restaurant? I’ll try.
They have introduced an apprentice who is such a toady to Rocco’s ‘silent partner’, Chodrow.
Looks like the show is going the way of Survivor/Apprentice in a restaurant setting. Oh the suspense…oh the treachery!
Any comments…anyone watch?
It’s already better than last season. Rocco is a jackass. It’s good to see a god descend and punish him.
Rocco is the second most contemptible person to come from reality TV (Omarosa’s in the lead). The third most contemptible is that little fuck Laurent who works for him. BUT, I have a feeling that little shit intern of Chodowry’s will take the cake after this season is finished. Rocco is just a raging narcissist. How dare such realities of profit and loss interfere with time in the spotlight.
BTW I thought he was gay. He had said/done something near the beginning of the first season that made me pretty sure. Thinking the girlfriend is a beard.
Rocco is just insufferable. He is like a spoiled child having a temper tantrum, not an adult trying to run a business. I thought it was funny when one of the waitstaff said after Rocco stormed out of the meeting that as far as she was concerned, she now worked for Jeffrey.
I can’t decide which one’s worse, Rocco or Laurent. Sometimes Rocco just seems honestly clueless, and Laurent seems to deliberately go out of his way to be a total jackass, just because he can.
What I love about Rocco’s narcissism is that it’s so … self-absorbed. I think he honestly has no idea that the vast majority of his audience is sitting at home thinking, “What a dick!”
Rocco’s puzzlement at Chodorow’s irritation with the way he runs the place was funny. Rocco seemed to think it’s enough that they do a high volume – he was unconcerned that the restaurant wasn’t actually turning a profit. Of course, Chodorow was extremely peeved that the highest volume location was also the only one losing money.
I watched the first season as a marathon on Bravo and I spent the entire time in awe of Rocco’s completely unchecked sense of self-importance. I especially enjoyed him awkwardly working the ladies in the room as everyone got late, cold food. I’m really looking forward to this season.
Oh, thank goodness–I thought everyone in America loved Rocco and didn’t see what an ass he is!!
What Rocco should be is the front man–no duties, no input into menu, staff or anything else–his only job is to give the place a “star chef” name and to walk around and to smooze with the customers.
Poor Mamm. I loved it when Chodorow’s wife was speaking to her and mentioned the importance of making a profit and Mama said (roughly) “I’m old, I’m illiterate, I never went to school, but I know that!”
I’m hoping someone (the intern?) will have enough sense to track down (dang, can’t think of his name) the guy that wouldn’t spend a minute being unhappy and beg him to come back.
Topher. The only one in the entire series who seemed to have any clue what he was doing.
Yeah, Topher, I wondered what he was doing. He seemed like a really nice guy.
And Gideon… did we see him at all last night? The guy that broke his arm opening night?
I am so mad at myself for not taping that dang show! I am going to have to find a rerun of it somewhere!
I can vaguely remember liking Gideon and hating Topher, but I don’t really remember why.
I tried to watch it but I had just had an argument with someone and was a little distracted at the beginning. When I did try and follow what was going on I was already lost and all the background restaurant noise didn’t help my ability to hear what was being said.
I thought it was pretty obvious last season that Rocco can’t do it all as he was trying to do and he relied on a manager that treated the employees like crap. Rocco spread himself way too thin, he couldn’t smooze, supervise the kitchen and get all the employees motivated. He needed to choose one thing and stick with it. Employees got annoyed when he smoozed, customers got annoyed when he didn’t. He kept that snotty bitch waitress way too long simply because she was pretty, he alienated Topher who was good, and the sweet little guy who broke his arm was so damn eager to please he would have done anything.
However, the guy trying to take over and his toady are such zeroes that I can’t see anything getting any better.
I think they should just let Mama run the place. She’ll put them all in their place.
Is Mama still kneading the meatballs by hand (sans hairnet and gloves?) Also, I’d love to see that prick Laurent slip on the greasy floor and break his ass…that’d serve him right!
Honestly, I don’t see the hype about this place-it seems to me to be a glorified meatball and spaghetti place-hardly a place where you would want to drop $200.00/couple. 
No kidding - especially when they’re serving food in those red and white checked cardboard hot dog boats. :rolleyes:
Though to be fair, it looked like they’re not using those anymore. Thank God someone talked some sense into Rocco.
Um, he’s not trying to take over. He is the owner.
I was under the impression that he an Rocco were partners, which meant that they were co-owners.
But like I said it’s hard to follow what’s being said with all the background noise so maybe I misunderstood. One has to wonder, if he does have so much invested why he wasn’t more involved before?
Eh, it’s all just for ratings anyway. That’s why they hired untalented but controversial people in the first season. They just needed a new gimmick for this season.
ARGH!! I forgot it was on.
Anyone know if it is going to be re-run anytime soon?
Am I nuts? On the last “Restaurant”, I regarded Rocco as a sympathetic character. I did think he spread himself too thin, but I also felt like many of his staff were whiny and were letting the business down.
I was a waiter for some years myself, and I still found myself almost always taking Rocco’s side in various disputes.
Is Rocco worse this season?
If you were casually or intermittenly watching last season, I could easily see your coming to the conclusion that he was a nice, down-to-earth guy, trying to run a business and having to deal with inept whiners for waiters. Rocco is moderately slick but once in a while his true colors come shining through; and those colors are an unhealthy mix of Van Dyke brown and Flower pink. He’s patronizing and is passive-aggressive by proxy through his middle managment. It’s tough to explain just why we all hate him, though I have to admit surprise at the overwhemling disdain for him shown in this thread. Did you happen to see when that kid broke or sprained his wrist? I might have thought the kid was just being a pussy too, but when he shows up with a cast it’s time to at least fake concern. He strikes me as the type of guy who acts like a leader until it’s time to actually lead, and then he evades responsibility like a little weasel. He’s all hat and no cattle.
I’m amazed anyone could consider Rocco a sympathetic character based on the first run of “The Restaurant.” Consider:
This is a guy who apparently has never heard of worker’s compensation law – when an employee slips and badly hurts his arm, he makes him keep working instead of sending him to the hospital. Turns out that employee broke his arm. Rocco’s lucky his waitstaff are every bit the reality show famewhores he is, or he’d be fending off a nasty lawsuit.
Same employee is told by Rocco’s manager to show up in a suit, and told he could work the front desk instead of waiting tables. Employee laboriously dresses in a suit (tying a tie is tough with a broken arm) and makes the commute to the restaurant. Rocco sees him and sends him home because he’s wearing his sling and Rocco “doesn’t want to remind his customers of life’s tragedies.” Asshat.
Rocco lures back a disgruntled bartender with a motor scooter, without any regard for how that might affect the other employee’s morale.
Rocco blames his best waiter for fucking up in front of a table of that waiter’s friends. Coincidentally, that one waiter is the only Rocco employee who isn’t a total famewhorey douchebag.
Oh, the groping! Is there any set of customers Rocco won’t try to cop a feel off of, or make lewd and suggestive comments towards?
If Rocco paid as much attention to what’s going on in the kitchen as he did with schmoozing with customers, his opening might not have been so difficult.
Rocco keeps a totally incompetent, whiny, bitchy waitress for far too long. I think it’s because she had a nice ass. And I suspect he was hitting that ass – watch the footage when she’s eventually (finally) fired, it plays a lot more like a lover’s quarrel than a business termination.
If Rocco isn’t hitting it with his employees, he’s prone to fire them at the drop of a dime, rather than addressing their deficiencies and trying to get them to improve.
Rocco hires with his dick, too. In the last ep of the first season, he hires a new waitress who was a customer in the restaurant the night before. And not because she’s a great waitress who coincicentailly was eating there – she showed up for work in heels. Presumably, she was hired because she was a blond hottie.
Rocco hides behind his 70-odd year old Mamma. Every time there’s a complaint from a customer, he wheels her sad old carcass out, essentially saying “see, here’s the nice old lady who made your meatballs; you don’t want to hurt the nice old lady’s feelings, do you?”
Now, I know these are reality shows and Burnett can edit things to his heart’s content, and re-enact and re-film sequences in misleading ways, and pull any number of tricks. So maybe I’ve got all that stuff above wrong. But based solely on what’s presented in the show, I don’t see how anyone could consider Rocco anything other than a prima donna famewhoring asshat convinced that his shit doth not stink.
And this season appears to be shaping up to be no different. Apparently Rocco thinks such bourgeois concerns as “profit and loss” are beneath him.
What amazes me is that Rocco is so blinded by the loving glow of the TV cameras that he actually thought Season 1 presented him favorably, and that he was willing to repeat the experience. Maybe he’s working from that “bad publicity beats no publicity” viewpoint. And maybe that’s true for a celebrith chef who wants to be more celebrity and less chef. But it doesn’t exactly make me want to visit his restaurant, yknow?