"Kitchen Nightmares" - September 11, 2008 and September 18, 2008 episodes

September 11, 2008 episode

The Handlebar Restaurant in Mt. Sinai, NY doesn't have any problems attracting bar patrons, but the restaurant's tables sit mostly empty. Owner Bill seems completely clueless about how to run a restaurant and is even fairly ignorant about his staff, including an executive chef who doesn't want to be a chef. Bill and his wife Carolyn bought the restaurant with a dream but apparently no real conception of how to run one. It was in a horrendous condition when they bought it, but Bill feels that he's done a lot with it from what it was before. When Gordon Ramsay came in and found that things hadn't been cleaned and all kinds of other problems with it, Bill got mad that Gordon didn't give him credit for everything that he *had* done with the restaurant. Bill didn't seem to understand that "it doesn't suck as much as it used to" really wasn't going to cut it. The more Gordon criticized, the madder Bill got until he walked out and refused to speak to Gordon, and he called up Carolyn to tell her he was just going to sell the restaurant. Carolyn rushed over but missed him, and when she saw how much her staff was doing to try to get the restaurant to the right place (a fact that Bill completely disregarded), she decided they needed to keep going and at least try to bring the restaurant back.

OK, so when Carolyn came in and was talking to Gordon, was she not drunk? At first, I couldn't understand why she seemed weird, but then I realized that she was kind of slurring her words and talking in an oddly slow way, and this was all very different than her behaviour prior to that point and after that point. At first, I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I couldn't think of any other explanation for her behaving so oddly in that fashion all of a sudden. The husband's comment was that she was "plastered". And then later, after dinner service started and Bill came back, I couldn't believe that Carolyn was still cajoling him. I would have been so mad that he wanted this restaurant but that he was completely incapable of seeing what was wrong, even when someone on the level of Gordon Ramsay was telling him, and he was just being a complete baby, but she kept trying to placate him. I turned to the husband and told him that in a similiar situation, I would so be yelling at him, and he agreed that I should be.

In Bill's absence, the staff had continued to work, which bolstered Carolyn's resolve to give it a go. Gordon showed them how to make fresh home-made potato chips, which were given as a complimentary snack to all patrons as they perused the menu, and fried clams, which was offered as an appetizer. Both were well received by the customers.

Bill eventually came around and began to see that Gordon was right, and Bill became more receptive to Gordon's suggestions. The last obstacle was not-chef Melissa, who tried to do everything herself and when frustrated just shut down and stopped communicating. After much cajoling by Gordon and Bill, she was finally able to ask for help from the other two cooks, and she delegated tasks to them, so working together, they made the kitchen hum.


September 18, 2008 episode

Giuseppi's Trattoria outside of Detroit is owned by Joe and Kathy, where Joe served as the executive chef and son Salvatore (Sam) served as another chef. Joe wanted Sam to run the restaurant, but he was constantly in the kitchen telling Sam what to do and what he was doing wrong. Joe has diabetes, which hindered him, but he seemed incapable of letting go, even when his health was at stake. The kitchen relied entirely too much on microwaving food in an effort to get the food out faster, but faster isn't better, since microwaving can change the texture of food, and heating is also uneven, so even though the food was sent out quickly, it was just as quickly sent back because of problems. Joe finally kicked Sam out of the kitchen, and Sam continued to be at a loss at how to please his father.

Gordon proposed a cook-off between father and son, and the staff would have a taste test to see which dish was better, and the winning dish would be the special for the night. Joe's pork chop ended up beating Sam's salmon, but Gordon deemed them both good enough to be specials. It was actually nice to see each of them making their dishes, and Sam had already expressed his dislike for the microwave, but it makes you wonder why Joe settled for serving his customers microwaved food when he could cook such great food himself.

As much as they told Joe that he had to pull back and let Sam do his thing, succeed or fail, Joe had a difficult time letting go, and Gordon himself had to personally kick Joe out of the kitchen multiple times. Things finally started to work, but then Brian the sous chef was joking around too much, which distracted Sam, and things went bad again. When Gordon tried to reign them in, Brian blamed the problems on Gordon and then just left. I sure hope they fired his ass. With Brian gone, father and son were actually able to work together to successful send out dishes.

Gordon had some food and restaurant issues to fix, but the biggest problem to solve was between father and son. Gordon had asked Kathy to write a letter to Joe and Sam and had individually asked Joe and Sam to write a letter to the other person, all expressing exactly what they wanted to say. He then had each person read their letter in front of all of them, and they all teared up at the pent up words and real feelings that had never really been expressed. Sam was finally able to see and hear that his dad was proud of him and loved him, and it looked like Joe might finally be able to let go and let Sam run the place and get the rest he needed to properly fight his diabetes.


One thing that I noticed and disliked particularly in this episode, probably because it was even more prevalent than in other episodes, is that they spent a lot of time showing you what you were going to see in the rest of the show. There was one "and coming up next" segment that was so incredibly long that I at first thought I'd fast-forwarded through parts of the actual show. When I went back and watched it, it turned out that no, that ENTIRE SEGMENT was actually all stuff that was going to be shown after the next commercial break. Maybe they just have episodes that are short and where there isn't enough footage, so they have to put so much more filler in. I just find it hard to believe that with as much footage as I would presume they shoot, that they can't come up with enough to fill a one-hour show.