Over 80 % of restaurants that appeared on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares have closed
More than 80 percent of restaurants on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares have now permanently closed.
How many restaurants in general have closed in the last decade though? 20% surviving might not be that bad considering how expensive restaurant biz is, not to mention covid causing massive waves of failed businesses.
Plus the restaurants on the show were frequently months away from closing due to fundamental issues like owner burnout that aren't going to be fixed on a week or two.
I am surprised it isn't over 85%
You also have to remember that these restaurants were failing largely by their own owners hands. Not keeping kitchens clean, not having a clear vision of the restaurant(too big a menu without a consistent theme), infighting amongst staff/owners, etc.
You don't appear in the show if you're doing well. Even with the facelifts Ramsey provides, it's on the owners and staff to maintain the changes. If they fall back into old habits, then of course they will fail.
I think it's more impressive that 20% actually listened and succeeded during the pandemic.
Came to say the same. 20% surviving is higher than I would have thought.
Yes chef!
That's good numbers, normally 80% of restaurants die in 5 years.
I mean, if 80% fail in 5 years anyway, it sounds like KN has essentially no effect, good or bad.
No effect would be if the restaurant was “average” to begin with. This is Kitchen Nightmares, these restaurants are already failing.
We could say he takes restaurants that have a 100% chance of failure and moves them back to the industry average 80% chance of failure.
The 20% survive at least twice as long, it seems KN has some positive effect.
It's not like there's no attrition after the first 5 years. Also, the show started 15 years ago, so the stats are even better.
does not seem surprising given their criteria for being on the show was something that was going to 100% close and then of course there is the track record in general on restaurants.
I can't remember what sketch show it was, but one of them made that joke.
The end of the episode is always a packed restaurant, but that's just because Gordan Ramsey is cooking the food, and if the restaurant could have made food like that in the beginning, they wouldn't be on the show in the first place.
Maybe it was Mitchell and Webb?
It was Mitchell and Webb! 😁 "Good, simple food, cooked simply! It's easy" "It's easy because you did it, I'm clearly not very good at this if I'm on your show, and you've done things on your plate that might be simple to you, but may as well be magic to me! The only reason we have people in there now is because you're here!"
Edit to add link: https://youtu.be/i1NfWIaYed8?si=0Ra3oDK9TpT9Ixfr
I have not watched one in awhile but I don't recall ramsey cooking in the end he just "convinced" (quotes because maybe behind the scenese insisted) them to have a new look and menu that the show paid for but the staff was the same outside of soemtimes having someone fired.
Only about 20% of them actually followed his advice after he left.
I seem to recall a retrospective where they did examine many of the restaurants he visited in Kitchen Nightmares. All of the ones that closed were due to the owners failing to follow the advice given, too deep in the red financially to climb out, or a rare instance of insight where the operators decided that running a food establishment wasn't for them.
I mean, they were all in bad shape and going to fail without Ramsay's help to begin with, so failing to follow an experienced chef and business operator's instructions on how to fix things is a surefire way to seal the business's fate.
I might be misremembering, but I think there was a similar show with the tall body builder guy who is a chef, and they would come in with a decorator and revamp struggling restaurants.
But the guy would sit down with the books and go through salaries, food costs, budgeting, and show them what they should be charging. They would look at the area restaurants to see what the competition was doing, and they would reset the flow of the floorspace to make room for enough guests to make it make sense.
Making good food isn't enough (although making bad food is enough to fail). Restaurants are a business, and while it's probably not good TV, most of them just need a financial review.
Also, many of the restaurants on the show are is very serious debt. Even if they really do turn around, they might still be unable to crawl out from under their mountain of debt in time.
Might be thinking of "Restaurant: Impossible" with Chef Robert Irvine. They claimed to have a 40% success rate.
That's the one. I liked his approach to the process better.
I have a customer like this. The problem is rarely the Ferrari. The problem is the monkey behind the wheel.
YOU GAVE A FERRARI TO A MONKEy???
The bank paperwork checked out and it was the end of the month?
In comparison, 40% of Restaurant Impossible restaurants are still open.
This is ripe for a Masterchef spinoff.
Master Restauranteur: Gordon vs. Irvine. Only one will survive.
I think a lot of them still wanted to close even after he left. They got a nice influx of cash and equipment at the end to help with debts.