The Sandgate Hotel has changed hands quite a few times since it was featured on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, and its reviews are mixed.
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares is the original British predecessor to Gordon Ramsay’s other business shows It saw the chef travelling to different restaurants that needed his business advice desperately.
The “Sandgate Hotel” episode has always stood out from the other restaurants featured on the show, since Ramsay had to focus on rescuing not one, but three different restaurants, under the same roof.
The Sandgate Hotel Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares episode
Before Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay’s wildly successful business rescue show in the United States started airing; the celebrity chef used the same concept for a show based in the United Kingdom, named Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
The Sandgate Hotel is a quaint hotel with 25 rooms, located in Sandgate, England, just across the canal from France.
Ramsay visited this hotel and its three failing restaurants in the second episode of the thirteenth season of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, which aired back in February 2006.
An update on Sandgate Hotel from Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
It was quite evident from the moment that Ramsay stepped foot into the Sandgate Hotel that the property’s confusing three-restaurants-under-one-roof layout, which included a terrace restaurant, a bar, and a basement Japanese restaurant, was not working for the hotel staff or its customers.
But by the end of the episode, Ramsay had used his years of experience in the culinary and hospitality industries to reduce the total number of restaurants at the Sandgate Hotel, by closing down the Japanese restaurant (which was costing more than it was making, anyway).
Ramsay also helped to simplify Sangate Hotel’s menu, and with the aid of Stuart (the head chef), he created a new seafood-based menu which was inspired by the local seafood available in the area.
Ramsay even revisited the Sandgate Hotel six weeks after their successful relaunch, and Stuart happily informed the celebrity chef that Sandgate Hotel’s turnover had doubled since his last visit, to about £14,500 a week.
Regrettably though, it seemed as though all of these changes and the increase in revenue were just not enough to sustain the hotel.
Lois and Peter, who were the owners of the Sandgate Hotel when this episode was first filmed, eventually sold the property just a few months after Ramsay’s second visit.
When was the “Sandgate Hotel” episode filmed?
Avid reality television fans will already know that there is a lot of editing and refining that goes into every episode of their favorite shows, behind the scenes. The same can be said for Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
So, while the “Sandgate Hotel” episode from Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares first aired in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 on February 28, 2006, the footage of the episode was actually filmed many months prior to this airing, all the way back in 2005.
What happened to the Sandgate Hotel after it was sold in 2006?
Lois and Peter, who owned the Sandgate Hotel at that time, sold it shortly after Ramsay’s second visit (almost a year after his first) in 2006.
Unfortunately, the hotel’s new owners, Richard and Helen Morgan also did not have much success running it as a business. As a result, Sandgate Hotel changed hands, once again, just two years later, in 2008.
After that, this five-story building was sold to Kiki Cole. The Caterer reported in 2009 that Kiki had bought the Sandgate Hotel at the Morgans’ asking price of £900,000.
Kiki, much like Sandgate Hotel’s previous owners, Lois and Peter, had almost no experience in the hospitality industry and had owned a care home before making the jump to the hospitality industry.
Is the Sandgate Hotel still open in 2023?
Although the Sandgate Hotel has changed hands multiple times since the original Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares episode aired, it is still open for new bookings in 2023.
However, as a result of the frequent changes in the Sandgate Hotel’s ownership and a brief closure in 2020 (on account of the COVID-19 pandemic) the reviews for the hotel are a pretty mixed bag.
One reviewer, who stayed at the hotel in August of 2022, rated it 4 out of 5 stars on Trip Advisor, stating that the hotel had “great potential” outside of a few teething issues and that the “The bar at the front of the hotel, with outside seating, is a great space to relax and have a drink.”
But a more recent review, which only gave the hotel one star, said that the hotel had not responded to any messages or emails since 2020, which certainly does not bode well for future guests.
