Kitchen Nightmares Recap: Olde Crazy

Greetings to you, oh faithful Gasmii! I’m back from my hiatus and so is our man Gordon Ramsay. He’s in a Boston burb with Tom, a restaurant owner who bought the Olde Hitching Post restaurant for his daughter, Andrea. His dream is to hand it over to her and secure her future, which would be great if he’d actually, you know, hand it over. Hey, we’re one-up on most of these places so far, since the owner has actually owned a successful restaurant! And that’s most of the problem—he won’t stay out of Andrea’s ass. He doesn’t believe she knows how to run a damn thing, and won’t leave her alone to let her learn. He verbally abuses everyone involved, and informs us that his way is the right way, and therefore the only way.

Oh great, he’s one of those.

The chef begs to differ, saying that the product is low quality, and therefore will suck no matter what he can to do it. I’m sure this is less prophecy and more speaking from experience.

And the quality issues are showing. Tom is losing money like crazy, and having to finance Andrea’s restaurant out of his own pocket. But Tom, isn’t this the way a restaurant is run?? You know, the RIGHT WAY?? Shut up.

Gordon climbs into Tom’s car and grills him on the status of things. The way Tom spins it is that Andrea doesn’t know shit, and so Tom is forced (forced!) to run the place, which is now losing $7-8k a week under his professional hand. Gordon takes it all in and reminds Tom he has to be honest so Gordon can do his thing. We all know how that will likely go.

Sure enough, Manager Janice blows the doors off Tom’s story of woe the second they walk in, so Gordon sits down with Andrea to get her side. She tells him how Tom won’t let her make any real decisions, and she feels she’s capable of running the place if only Tom would get the hell out of the way and allow that. She has her husband in the kitchen to support her, but Tom’s insistence on running things himself is killing her spirit. So Gordon calls Tom in to hear the back-and-forth. She confronts him, and he blames her for her stubbornness, which she got from him, and she tells him she’d love to fix things, but he won’t give her any authority or let her run numbers or control the money or details. It’s a lot of bickering, wherein he accuses her of not being ready and she blames him for that, and blah blah blah, with him basically talking to her like she’s 12 and blaming her lack of participation for the restaurant’s problems. Man, can you imagine growing up with that? I think I’d lose my damn mind if I was her. Can you picture trying to talk this guy into letting you go on a date as a teenager? It’s a wonder he deemed her competent enough to leave the house long enough to meet her husband.

“You wouldn’t need my help running this place if I allowed you to run this place!”