Famous Food: A (very) Soft Opening

Hello, Gasmii!  Welcome back to Famous Food, or as I like to call it, It’s-Counterproductive-To-Pay-Fame-Whores-For-Screen-Time.

Scott and his posse stroll up to the gang in front of “lemon basket”.  Remind me, who came up with the restaurant’s name?  Because “lemon basket” sounds like one of Ashley’s resumé highlights (one that costs an extra $50).  A random Scott minion tells our z-listers that they now have their permits and are free to commit various acts of food poisoning.  Hooray.  West Hollywood, I’m sorry that you have to suffer through this restaurant.  Let’s hope it closes as quickly as the LA Soul Daddy did.

America’s Last Great Restaurant:  Chipotle owes me some money, yo.

The group sits down with Lonnie & Mike and begin to Ashley-bash.  She’s used to groups of angry people banging her, just not verbally.  After that’s over, L&M decide the group needs to have a soft opening in two days (instead of opening in 9) to make this episode interesting test the participants’ commitment.  Vinnie has to take notes because he apparently has no idea what a soft opening is.

Soft Opening … isn’t that the name of Ashley’s last movie?

Down to business:  uniforms first.  DJ Paul and Juicy J have their own clothing line (Dangerus/Skandalous, natch) so they have had some super classy Hooters-like tank tops made at their local sweatshop.  Next on L&M’s list is the menu, which DJ Paul also pulls out of his garbage bag of tricks.  Dude, you are impressing me, too, but get a briefcase or a backpack.  Final item on the agenda:  crack the whip over Scotty and make sure he delivers all the fantastic furniture they paid for.  What could go wrong?  As we close on the meeting, we get a parting shot of Heidi’s Birkin bag (nice!) and a Heidi confessional about how hard all this restaurant stuff is (not so nice).

This is one of the few bags big enough to cover my … other bags.

Vinnie’s in charge of the bar, Heidi’s in charge of uniforms (Dangerus/Skandalous tank tops notwithstanding), and Jake’s got first shift with Scotty today.  Jake and Scott have an Odd Couple argument/Mr. Smarm Universe competition as they discuss polyurethane … “shiny on top” … bar … sorry, I fell asleep.  While Heidi and Ashley stay back and “work”, Danielle and Dudes follow Scotty to the warehouse and check out the restaurant furniture.  Scotty gets all defensive once the four “stars” display their stellar math skills and figure out that Scotty shorted them on the furniture.  In the celebretards’ defense, the producers show us a flashback during which we witness Scotty promise them seating for 129 instead of the tables and 82 chairs he has produced.  Scott blames his poor work ethic on the fire marshal’s limitations, but the Little Rascals ain’t havin’ it.  Juicy J breaks out his super-fresh Maury Povich skillz and starts throwing chairs.

You ARE the father of Baby lemon basket!

Scotty moves aside, shaking with fear in his weirdly tight-fitting “Won’t you be my neighbor?” cardigan and pisses his pants.   Methinks Scotty’s wearing a bullet-proof vest under that sweater, and he would be right to do so.  Danielle whines that Juice should stop throwing chairs but like most people in Danielle’s life, Juicy J ignores her.  As they leave, everyone bitches about the situation in his own way, and each whine is more annoying than the last.  Suddenly, throwing chairs doesn’t seem so ridiculous.

Vinnie tells Ashley they need to buy liquor before Friday and Heidi triumphantly brings in white button-down shirts to wear over the Skandalous tank tops.  $1700 bucks for white shirts?   Did you buy them at the Bernie Madoff auction?

And now arrives the most amusing part of the show (in my irony-is-comedic opinion).  We get shots of laborers ripping up carpet late into the night while the team members trade excuses about hyper-sensitive immune systems which require them to leave for the day while the dusty, allergy-inducing carpet is pulled up by other people who are actually, you know, WORKING.

I’m allergic to dust, to masculine clothes, to manual labor, to testosterone, to whores …

Furniture is delivered.  It sucks on every level.  Danielle points out a snag in a bench’s upholstery, which Scotty ignores.  DJ Paul asks him more than once to clean a stain on another chair …  Scotty ignores him too.  Paul threatens, while rubbing his golf club of a right arm menacingly, to clean the chair with Scotty’s face and Scott walks out, smiling all the way to the bank.  His dried-up balls, though, he leaves with Paul to hang on the wall, and they do go so well with the decor.

I could knit a snuggly muffler in one of these lovely chairs you purchased for those testicles hanging on the wall.

Lonnie & Mike walk in for a status meeting, and instantly complain about the beige monotone, which Ashley must re-design to get back into everyone’s good graces.  Ashley looks overwhelmed, and that means Plan B:  BJ’s for everyone!

Vinnie, Jake, Danielle and Paul whine about the water-based sealant Scotty put on the bar top, which now must be repaired, and Jake whines some more until Heidi pulls on the reins and tells Jake to do something, anything, instead of just complaining about the paint.  Go Heidi go!  Just don’t go into the kitchen … your face might melt.

Ashley has called in Jonny, a famous restaurant designer who she “knows” and whose “work she admires” (want to be a little more surreptitious about your plants, FF producers?), to de-beige-ify the place and help Ashley worm her way back into L&M’s pants hearts.  Seriously, the restaurant’s called “lemon basket”.  We could go the literal route and put some LEMONS IN BASKETS on the tables, or be subtle and use lemon-colored paint and rattan chairs/patio furniture.  Will you pay me $110,000 to design your restaurant, celebretards?

Danielle explodes at Jake for no reason.  She’s screaming something about him having no balls but all I see is them wasting more time when they should be repairing boring broken beige chairs.

When we return from commercial, Danielle gets into a fight with Ashley about paying Jonny the designer $750 to paint a few walls, and Ashley makes the mistake of questioning Danielle’s maternal integrity.  A lemon basket work day is not complete without a Danielle peri-menopausal incident.

Best Mom in the Fucking Universe, Bitch

Jake actually repaints the bar while Ashley’s out shopping for decorative items.  Ashley returns with $1900 worth of Pier One’s sale items, and the rest of the team is not impressed.  They send her back out and send Juice as a chaperone.  He takes it upon himself to buy (and sample) the liquor for tonight’s soft opening … bad decision, team.

Meanwhile, Vinnie’s working behind the bar, setting up the liquor and offering advice to his bartender about glass organization.  I have to admit, the bar does look very nice, despite having Jake Pavelka’s ass on it a few hours ago.  The liquor’s arranged artfully and Vinnie’s supervising his staff like a pro.  He also mentions a few times that the bar provides the highest profit margin in a restaurant, but we all know that stating facts, having common sense and actually performing well is not going to get you the win, Vinnie.  Can you throw a knife or something, so L&M will pay attention to you?

I’ve got a gentleman’s club to open in 48 hours, so let’s get this lemon in a basket.

Ashley returns to the restaurant with liquor, decorations, and one very drunk chaperone.  It’s only a few hours ‘til the soft opening, so everyone on the team scurries around like cockroaches under a motion light while Juice stumbles his way around the restaurant drinking Bombay Sapphire from a fishbowl.  Cheers!

Thanks, Vinnie.  I needed this.

Lonnie and Mike show up and ask Drunky McDrunk to leave.  Juice interviews that if they had just pulled him aside and asked him privately to remove his inebriated personage from the premises temporarily, he would have happily done so.  But then again, he WAS less drunk sober during the interview so I don’t know if I believe him.  So like a skinny black tornado, J. stomps his way out of the restaurant, breaking at least $500 worth of Dollar Store inventory along the way.  Thanks for nothing, J.  How is Danielle going to top that exit?