Kitchen Nightmares Recap: Olde Crazy

He tries arguing with Gordon, which never goes well for people who aren’t Gordon, and Gordon waves him off to tell Andrea that she needs to take the initiative to defy Tom. Then he throws Carla to the wolves by standing there and making her inform the customers that everything is frozen bullshit. The customers are not as enthusiastic as Tom claims, yet Tom is still insisting that his frozen seafood smells “ocean fresh” (like his balls, maybe?) and demanding the respect he deserves. He yells at Gordon and Andrea, and Gordon is having little to none of it. Tom makes some really insane argument that fish frozen overnight hasn’t actually been frozen.

I guess it only counts as freezing if it’s been 24 hours or longer.

They actually start screaming at each other, and Andrea wisely moves aside. I love it when Gordon gets riled, but I guess it’s scarier without the buffer of a television screen. Tom continues to yell that there’s no difference between fresh and frozen food, and that might beg the question about why he feels the need to lie to the customers if he does in fact believe that.

Check out the exit, background screen right. She knows not to hang around when the Ramsay fingers become a fist.

Andrea knows better than everyone that Tom is full of shit, but if she had the capability to correct that, Gordon wouldn’t be there in the first place. Still, Gordon thinks she’s the person to enlist to make Tom see sense. Yeah, that’s worked great so far. So Gordon takes it one further and goes to the local radio station. A bunch of people call in to tell him how much the food sucks ass, then takes the recording back to the restaurant. Yes, I’m sure all ten people who still listen to the radio called in. The staff gangs up on Tom, and Gordon tells him he needs to change, and his strategy of hoping for a better day is not an effective method of doing so. Someone in production must have bribed Tom or threatened his family or something, because suddenly Tom has tucked his considerable balls in his pocket and agreed to work with Gordon however he needs.

Gordon visits some local customers for meatloaf recipes, because I guess they never covered meatloaf in culinary school. He brings it back for everyone to taste, and they all love it. The customer thing did have a good point to it, though, because it drives home the point to Tom that if he wants people to pay for his food, it has to be better than what they can serve at home. This somehow cuts through the bullshit cloud surrounding Tom’s brain, because he gets it and vows to change. Well, that was quick.

The redesign is adored by all, despite the wall of old window shutters, and Gordon warns them not to break the decorative plates in a fit of Greek behavior. The menu revamp is similarly well-received, and now I want a lobster roll. They all love the food because it tastes nothing like what they’ve been serving, and even Tom readily admits he’s never tasted anything better. No word on if he’s had a change of heart concerning the fresh/frozen debate.