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.
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.
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.
That’s 80% of ALL RESTURANTS that fail.
Not 80% of resturants that already had one foot in the grave.
He was working with that 80% failure group and got 20% of THOSE not to fail.
The 20% are the ones succeeding
He’s working with the worst of the 80% failing
Huh, I did typo that. Good catch
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?
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.
The arrogance of some of those owners was astounding. Think of the hubris required to sit in your failing restaurant and argue with the most successful chef in the world about his opinion. Literally moronic.
It was early on in the first American season, that a large beet-red man howled at Gordon that he (Gordon) was “A FUCKIN BLOWJAHB” for telling him (the owner) what to do. To save his restaurant. That was failing.
That guy and the guys like him? They’re losers, in the true sense of the word, because they sabotage themselves so thoroughly and constantly that all they can do is fail. Without serious introspection and personal growth that guy is gonna is gonna die of an aneurysm at 55 firmly believing that he was right and the entire world was wrong.
