Most people would think that having an opportunity to be on Gordon Ramsey’s show would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, at least for those restaurants, the odds don’t seem to be stacked in their favor.
When Ramsey was filming his shows for five years, he visited restaurants in Spain, France, the UK, and the United States. The show, Kitchen Nightmares, may have been popular but out of all of the restaurants he visited, some 80% closed permanently.
57-year-old Gordon Ramsey would force his way into those restaurants and tell the staff what they were doing wrong. In many cases, he would yell at them, which was some of the charm of the show.
Fans absolutely loved watching him transform those restaurants into something more profitable and popular. It seems as if it didn’t last very long because many of them are closed.
There were 105 restaurants visited by the celebrity and only 19 of them are still open today. Considering the fact that many of the restaurants were struggling when he visited them, it’s easy to see that it could happen.
In addition, the pandemic has played a part in many restaurants closing, which would work into this as well.
Some shows were so pointed against the restaurant that it broke their reputation. For example, at the Oceana Grill in New Orleans, a video has resurfaced of Gordon Ramsey vomiting in the restaurant. He also found three dead mice in the kitchen.
They claim that the videos were over-dramatized and it wasn’t noted that it happened a number of years ago. The restaurant attempted to sue him for the issue.
According to the owner of the Oceana Grill: “None of the above-described events were real, but were contrived and orchestrated by defendants to manufacture drama for their show.”
The lawsuit states: “During the episode’s filming, defendants went to great lengths to over-dramatise and even fabricate problems with the restaurant in order to increase ratings.
“The footage intentionally portrayed Oceana and its employees in a patently false and negative light, as it depicted the appealing restaurant as an unsuccessful, unsanitary and mismanaged restaurant.”
Interestingly, that restaurant is still doing quite well.