So. We watched the first episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares the other night. It was good, and so cool to see him in another format. If anything, the episode length was too short really to show enough of what happened, but I supposed better to keep it from getting bogged down.
The chef reminded me way too much of my friend Adam as he looks now.
I was pleased to see they found a sore need, in this case kitchen equipment, and installed it for the participating restaurant. I was also pleased to see that they cover more than food and management, and seem to help jump start future marketing. Then again, deciding on a menu, look, approach, price and quality level is all marketing, too.
Just as this is a show more about management and business than about food. If you were expecting a foodie show, you were probably disappointed.
There had to be some behind the scenes heart-changing activity we didn’t see on screen. Peter was an absolute mess, and his turnaround at the end seemed awfully abrupt. He was THE problem in a nutshell. Managerially
, most of the rest was a morale problem, and he was the main source.
You get a morale situation like that, you get employees simmering with anger all the time, still working for you only out of inertia. Then nobody cares if they do a good job, and it makes them feel even worse to not care and to do wrong. It’s a spiral that can take someone being about as blunt and earth-shattering as Ramsay coming in was.
I look forward to seeing more of them.