# Would you eat at a Kitchen Nightmares restaurant? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking, reality-or-game-show\ **Created:** [October 15, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522 "2021-10-15T00:42:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/1 "2021-10-15T00:42:57Z")
For those of you who’ve never seen Kitchen Nightmares, it’s a show (actually, two shows, a UK and a US version but they’re pretty much the same show) in which Gordon Ramsay fixes a failing restaurant. All the shows are basically the same. There is a reality TV style summary of the family that owns the restaurant (it is almost ALWAYS a family.) Then Ramsay shows up and sits down to sample some of the food. He then looks around. His findings are always: a) The food isn’t fit to be served to raccoons, b) The decor appears to have been chosen and installed by vandals, and c) The kitchen is a horrifying dump. Once in awhile one of those conditions isn’t true - once he went to a soul food restaurant (in Brighton, England, of all places) and found the food delicious. I think that was about it. What always freaks me out is how gross the kitchens often are. I’m talking dangerous. Vegetables swimming in raw chicken juice, things that honestly could make you deathly ill. Of course he always fixes it… but would you eat at such a place a month later? Maybe it was great when he left, but it’s the same mooks running the restaurant. **Would you trust them to keep the kitchen clean?** ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/2 "2021-10-15T00:50:07Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Of course he always fixes it… but would you eat at such a place a month later? Maybe it was great when he left, but it’s the same mooks running the restaurant. **Would you trust them to keep the kitchen clean?** Maybe. [Spunky Monkey](https://www.spunkymonkeybarandgrill.com/) wasn’t on _Kitchen Nightmares_ but it was on a similar show ([_Restaurant Impossible_ with Robert Irvine](https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/shows/2014/01/restaurant-revisited-spunky-monkey-bar-and-grill)) and it’s supposedly not that bad. It’s in the same town I live in, I should check it out sometime. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/3 "2021-10-15T06:54:25Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Would you trust them to keep the kitchen clean? No. Poor service, ugly decor, boring food, etc. might be the result of ignorance, which can be fixed. I wouldn’t trust my well-being to a professional (cook, lawyer, doctor, etc.) who’s been associated with anything reckless or unscrupulous. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/4 "2021-10-15T07:49:43Z")
_Kitchen Nightmares_ is my secret shame and glad to see others are probably in the same camp. Even accounting for _KN’s_ selecting a particular type of Catastrophe Restaurant, and their careful editing, I think the show does a reasonable job in analysing their business and service failures and attributing blame. Ramsay is a tosser but hugely competent in this area. When they have no-hoper chefs Gordon usually chases them out [after publicly crushing them on TV like bugs], but most often the blame is with owners who have complete inability to manage a complex food operation. Food service hygiene requires constant attention and that is one thing the bad owners are not capable of, either because they are in thrall of dirt-bag or bullying chefs, lazy and stupid or they are simply incompetent failed humans. Those people don’t change, they slip back in to their old ways. The massive kitchen clean will not be repeated without a sweary twat and his camera crew on their backs and they will slip into their old ways the minute he’s gone. I won’t be eating there. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/5 "2021-10-15T08:20:34Z")
Food service hygiene? Lol > **[“Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” by Anthony Bourdain](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/19/dont-eat-before-reading-this)** > > The late chef’s 1999 essay about working in Manhattan restaurants. “Gastronomy is the science of pain,” he writes. “It was the unsavory side of professional cooking that attracted me to it in the first place.” > [@](#): > > If you are one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers fondling your food, you shouldn’t go out to eat. As the author and former chef Nicolas Freeling notes in his definitive book “The Kitchen,” the better the restaurant, the more your food has been prodded, poked, handled, and tasted. By the time a three-star crew has finished carving and arranging your saddle of monkfish with dried cherries and wild-herb-infused _nage_ into a Parthenon or a Space Needle, it’s had dozens of sweaty fingers all over it. Gloves? You’ll find a box of surgical gloves—in my kitchen we call them “anal-research gloves”—over every station on the line, for the benefit of the health inspectors, but does anyone actually use them? Yes, a cook will slip a pair on every now and then, especially when he’s handling something with a lingering odor, like salmon. But during the hours of service gloves are clumsy and dangerous. When you’re using your hands constantly, latex will make you drop things, which is the last thing you want to do. > > Finding a hair in your food will make anyone gag. But just about the only place you’ll see anyone in the kitchen wearing a hat or a hairnet is Blimpie. For most chefs, wearing anything on their head, especially one of those picturesque paper toques—they’re often referred to as “coffee filters”—is a nuisance: they dissolve when you sweat, bump into range hoods, burst into flame. > > The fact is that most good kitchens are far less septic than your kitchen at home. I run a scrupulously clean, orderly restaurant kitchen, where food is rotated and handled and stored very conscientiously. But if the city’s Department of Health or the E.P.A. decided to enforce every aspect of its codes, most of us would be out on the street. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/6 "2021-10-15T09:03:49Z")
To be fair, that article was written over 20 years ago and a lot has changed since then. When I first worked in food service in 2000, I didn’t have to wear gloves or a hair restraint, undergo any kind of food safety training, or even wash my hands all that often except when I used the bathroom or came back from break. Today, gloves and hair restraints are mandated by law, anyone with facial hair beyond a mustache has to wear a beard net (though in practice everyone’s wearing a face mask these days), food workers have to get a state-operated certification that has to be renewed every few years, and handwashing is much more rigorously enforced. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/7 "2021-10-15T09:34:25Z")
Thats fair enough. There were also laws in place in 99 and they were seemingly ignored. But it was Manhattan and the service industries have always been a cesspool of corruption. Hopefully things are better today. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/8 "2021-10-15T10:32:34Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Thats fair enough. There were also laws in place in 99 and they were seemingly ignored. Hell, when I started working for Jack in the Box in 2004, there were still grill cooks at that store who’d started in the days when it was common practice to grab raw beef patties out of the freezer with your bare hands, toss them onto the grill, and then go right to assembling and wrapping burgers, or bagging finished orders, or ringing people up. Even by then doing that would have been grounds for severe discipline, and though I don’t work there anymore I can only imagine it’s gotten stricter since then - raw patties are handled with a dedicated set of tongs that never come into contact with anything else, and hand-washing and glove-changing has to happen if you touch raw food before you can touch cooked food, or if you handle cash before handling food. Industry and government are a lot more aware now of the dangers of cross-contamination and foodborne illness, in due in no small part to the Jack in the Box e.coli cases back in '93. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/9 "2021-10-15T11:52:26Z")
Ah, yes, Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. A guilty pleasure - my favorite episode was _Amy’s Baking Company_ in Scottsdale, AZ. Totally delusional owners who invited Gordon to assess their place to combat online critics, which backfired badly. The only episode where he gave up and walked away. While the show is formulaic, and with creative editing focuses on (or creates) negatives, as mentioned, rarely permanently corrects critical problems, like incompetent owners. I believe a majority of the restaurants on the show end up closed anyway, even with Gordon’s well-intentioned efforts. So it’s likely not possible to visit one near you. I suspect getting on the show is not an erstwhile effort to save the business but instead a way for a failing business to make a little money and get attention at the end of its life. I don’t think they advertise being on the show, either. No, I would not eat at one. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/10 "2021-10-15T12:07:18Z")
I have eaten at one - but to be fair, it was a 1\* Michelin restaurant that had lost its chef, its star and therefore its customers, and wasn’t quite the nightmare some other places have been. It was the [Walnut Tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walnut_Tree_(restaurant)) in Wales, which has regained some of its former glory - and its Michelin star. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/11 "2021-10-15T12:24:57Z")
After watching a bunch of episodes of Kitchen Nightmares (as well as the similar Restaurant: Impossible), I think I could identify the same problems mentioned on the shows; overly long menus, poorly seasoned food, food not stored properly, filthy kitchen, filthy dining room, etc. So how is it the people who ask for help don’t go through and fix these problems _before_ calling in for help? Many times, it’s a surprise to the restaurant owner how much food is in the freezers, or how dirty the kitchen is. So if they were so unaware of things prior to calling in for help, how long before the problems recur? That’s a big reason why I’d be reluctant to eat at one of these restaurants. ---
**Author:** ![tricoteuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tricoteuse/32/4334_2.png) [@tricoteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tricoteuse)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/12 "2021-10-15T13:11:32Z")
I am also addicted to these shows, and one thing I’ve learned from them is that 90% of people who want to own a restaurant have no business doing it. I’ve read “where are they now” articles about some of these places, and a common theme seems to be that they slide right back into their old bad habits. If they’re going right back to using canned or frozen foods and mismanaging their funds, why am I supposed to believe they’re keeping the kitchen clean and storing stuff properly? ---
**Author:** ![tricoteuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tricoteuse/32/4334_2.png) [@tricoteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tricoteuse)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/13 "2021-10-15T13:30:22Z")
My daughter is the assistant manager of a chain restaurant (I’ll call it Purple Crawdad) and she says kitchen cleanliness and food safety are top priorities. The health inspectors come and poke and prod around everything. Out of soap or paper towels by the handwash station? Violation. Frozen stuff on the floor instead of up on a pallet? Violation. Employee’s soda in the food prep area? Violation. One time the scooper in the ice machine was found with the handle touching the ice. The whole thing had to be emptied and sterilized, and Corporate was very unhappy and they actually had to have a training meeting to instruct the staff to store the scoop in its designated bucket on top of the machine and not in it. The reports are also published in the newspaper so everyone gets to hear about your den of filth. They maybe go too far in the other direction now, but all it takes is one nosy inspector or a germophobic customer who goes to corporate or leaves a bad Yelp review and corporate gets very unhappy. And they make everyone even more very unhappy then. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/14 "2021-10-15T13:36:03Z")
My first work experience was as a pizza cook in a Chuck E Cheese. Because I was the newest one there, one of my shifts was closing on Saturday nights. And before I could leave, I had to leave the kitchen spotless. The restaurant manager once found a stray pepperoni slice under the prep table and that wasn’t good enough. The point is that the chain restaurants seem much more aware of the safety standards and regulations than the independent restaurants featured on these shows. ---
**Author:** ![tricoteuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tricoteuse/32/4334_2.png) [@tricoteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tricoteuse)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/15 "2021-10-15T13:44:05Z")
Oh, I agree. Before COVID she worked at a much smaller neighborhood kind of place, and while they ran a clean kitchen it didn’t have to be operating room sterile. I put it down to fear of Corporate. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/16 "2021-10-15T13:46:16Z")
BTW, another bit that’s always fun when watching these shows is when Gordon Ramsay or Robert Irvine or whoever else is the outside expert asks the restaurant owner how much it costs to make a particular dish, and the owner has no clue. Sometimes, the ingredient cost for a dish is more than half the price of the dish (and even I know that the formula is that the ingredient cost should be a third or less). ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/17 "2021-10-15T14:31:49Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Ah, yes, Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. A guilty pleasure - my favorite episode was _Amy’s Baking Company_ in Scottsdale, AZ. Totally delusional owners who invited Gordon to assess their place to combat online critics, which backfired badly. The only episode where he gave up and walked away. That trainwreck of an episode was something else! That would’ve been the only restaurant I would visit, but I would go with the hopes of seeing that lovely couple have a meltdown. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/18 "2021-10-15T16:11:22Z")
> [@tricoteuse](#): > > The reports are also published in the newspaper so everyone gets to hear about your den of filth. In my county the Dept of Health is tasked with making inspection reports public. All restaurants appear to be required to display a Green/Yellow/Red placard at the entrance, and via their [online search page](https://emdinspections.saccounty.net/default.aspx) you can check the status of your favorite restaurant, along with viewing their latest health inspection report. Fun times! ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/19 "2021-10-15T16:26:19Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > For those of you who’ve never seen Kitchen Nightmares, it’s a show (actually, two shows, a UK and a US version but they’re pretty much the same show) in which Gordon Ramsay fixes a failing restaurant. I look at the US and UK versions as very different shows with the same premise. The UK show feels more real and the US show is much more reality TV. I enjoy the UK version much more because it seems to be more about fixing the restaurant and the US version is more about personality conflicts. As to if I would go to one of the restaurants, it would really depend on the place. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2021, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522/20 "2021-10-15T16:30:57Z")
The original UK Kitchen Nightmares seemed to be more about the psychology of the situation while the American version emphasizes a big, expensive remodeling, usually included sponsored products. And I still shake my head when I remember [the very first episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBx37KQRbZk), featuring a very young guy in _way_ over his head as the chef. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-eat-at-a-kitchen-nightmares-restaurant/952522.md?page=2)