My wife’s new favorite TV show is Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares” (on BBC America), which, of course, pretty much makes it MY new favorite TV show as well.
The show centers around world renowned chef, Gordon Ramsey and his quest to set various poorly performing restaurants back on track by first assessing, then correcting the problems that have come to make them unprofitable.
The show started with a number of European eateries and has subsequently moved to some new fertile territory right here in the USA.
One recent episode, ironically enough, captured almost exactly what is currently wrong with America in a restaurant-based microcosm.
This episode took place in Babylon, Long Island, which is a suburb of New York City. There, Gordon Ramsey encountered yet another dysfunctional eatery called Peter’s, a local upscale restaurant that served Italian food.
Ramsey always starts his assessment by sampling the restaurant’s fares, checking their menus, their prices and how busy they are.
Upon his arrival at the Babylon Station of the LIRR, Gordon Ramsey had to wait about an hour for the restaurant’s maitre de and self-described “co-owner” to pick him up in his high end luxury automobile.
At Peter’s Chef Ramsey found the food undercooked, rushed and not of very high quality. It showed in their lack of patronage.
It turned out that Peters is owned by Tina (Peter’s sister), but run by her domineering, rough-around-the-edges brother, who spends much of the restaurant’s profits on $3,000 suits, glitzy watches and his car, while the restaurant that bears his name needs a new stove and a major rehab job on its walk-in refrigerator.
I think you can see where I’m going with this.
Another complicating matter in the business is that Tina’s and Peter’s parents are fixtures in the place and seem to demand that Tina keep the relatively useless, yet boisterous Peter happy and working at the restaurant, despite his bizarre behavior and general, all-around uselessness. I guess it’s better than having camping out at Mom and Dad’s place all day every day.
When Chef Ramsey confronts Tina over how long she can go on at this pace, she tells him, “only a matter of months,” after which she’d almost certainly lose her house to pay off her debts...many, or most of which, Peter has incurred.
Even when Chef Ramsey assesses the restaurant’s problems and sets up a new family style menu, with a new set of parameters and even a new kitchen with new appliances, Peter isn’t able to curb his ways. When he’s assigned to help out in the kitchen, he demonstrates that he has absolutely zero culinary skills and his quick temper, coupled with his hulking frame, make him a liability in too many ways to measure.
As you might expect, I saw, in this episode, a microcosm of America’s current problems, with the owner, Tina representing America’s long suffering and beleaguered entrepreneurs and business owners, her Mom & Dad, fixtures in the restaurant and stalwart of her brother Peter, no matter how much of a liability and how little help he offers the “family business,” are fairly representative of the various local governments and Tina’s brother Peter (who likes to call himself a “co-owner” despite the fact that it’s Tina’s name on all the lines of credit, the leases, etc. Peter, an ill-tempered, self-centered, lazy oaf with no restaurant nor business related skills, almost perfectly represents the U.S. government.
The loutish, incompetent and mostly useless federal big brother (Peter) likes to fancy himself a “co-owner” of the business that is America and likes to think that “nothing here would exist without him.” Mom and Dad (the local and state governments) ALWAYS can be counted to side with Peter over the beleaguered Tina (America’s entrepreneurs and business owners) and America’s kitchen staff (its workers) – the main artery of that business.
The beleaguered kitchen staff at Peter’s adequately represents America’s workers. It’s amazing that you can find real life lessons almost everywhere you look.
No wonder Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares is my new favorite TV show!
The show centers around world renowned chef, Gordon Ramsey and his quest to set various poorly performing restaurants back on track by first assessing, then correcting the problems that have come to make them unprofitable.
The show started with a number of European eateries and has subsequently moved to some new fertile territory right here in the USA.
One recent episode, ironically enough, captured almost exactly what is currently wrong with America in a restaurant-based microcosm.
This episode took place in Babylon, Long Island, which is a suburb of New York City. There, Gordon Ramsey encountered yet another dysfunctional eatery called Peter’s, a local upscale restaurant that served Italian food.
Ramsey always starts his assessment by sampling the restaurant’s fares, checking their menus, their prices and how busy they are.
Upon his arrival at the Babylon Station of the LIRR, Gordon Ramsey had to wait about an hour for the restaurant’s maitre de and self-described “co-owner” to pick him up in his high end luxury automobile.
At Peter’s Chef Ramsey found the food undercooked, rushed and not of very high quality. It showed in their lack of patronage.
It turned out that Peters is owned by Tina (Peter’s sister), but run by her domineering, rough-around-the-edges brother, who spends much of the restaurant’s profits on $3,000 suits, glitzy watches and his car, while the restaurant that bears his name needs a new stove and a major rehab job on its walk-in refrigerator.
I think you can see where I’m going with this.
Another complicating matter in the business is that Tina’s and Peter’s parents are fixtures in the place and seem to demand that Tina keep the relatively useless, yet boisterous Peter happy and working at the restaurant, despite his bizarre behavior and general, all-around uselessness. I guess it’s better than having camping out at Mom and Dad’s place all day every day.
When Chef Ramsey confronts Tina over how long she can go on at this pace, she tells him, “only a matter of months,” after which she’d almost certainly lose her house to pay off her debts...many, or most of which, Peter has incurred.
Even when Chef Ramsey assesses the restaurant’s problems and sets up a new family style menu, with a new set of parameters and even a new kitchen with new appliances, Peter isn’t able to curb his ways. When he’s assigned to help out in the kitchen, he demonstrates that he has absolutely zero culinary skills and his quick temper, coupled with his hulking frame, make him a liability in too many ways to measure.
As you might expect, I saw, in this episode, a microcosm of America’s current problems, with the owner, Tina representing America’s long suffering and beleaguered entrepreneurs and business owners, her Mom & Dad, fixtures in the restaurant and stalwart of her brother Peter, no matter how much of a liability and how little help he offers the “family business,” are fairly representative of the various local governments and Tina’s brother Peter (who likes to call himself a “co-owner” despite the fact that it’s Tina’s name on all the lines of credit, the leases, etc. Peter, an ill-tempered, self-centered, lazy oaf with no restaurant nor business related skills, almost perfectly represents the U.S. government.
The loutish, incompetent and mostly useless federal big brother (Peter) likes to fancy himself a “co-owner” of the business that is America and likes to think that “nothing here would exist without him.” Mom and Dad (the local and state governments) ALWAYS can be counted to side with Peter over the beleaguered Tina (America’s entrepreneurs and business owners) and America’s kitchen staff (its workers) – the main artery of that business.
The beleaguered kitchen staff at Peter’s adequately represents America’s workers. It’s amazing that you can find real life lessons almost everywhere you look.
No wonder Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares is my new favorite TV show!
