Looking back, Kitchen Nightmares’ Hot Potato Café episode really is one of the most boring in the show’s history.
Now that the rebooted eighth season of Gordon Ramsay’s fan-favorite show, Kitchen Nightmares, is well underway, it is high time that we re-evaluate the least impressive episodes from the show’s past.
And, while no one expects every Kitchen Nightmares episode to be the next “Amy’s Baking Company” or “Black Pearl”, the “Hot Potato Café” episode is just really bland and boring (much like the days-old potato dishes that the restaurant served Ramsay upon his arrival).
The real reason why the Hot Potato Café episode is so bad
The Hot Potato Café’s Claire Kathryn and Erin are certainly not the first owners in Kitchen Nightmares’ history to make the mistake of thinking that they could open a restaurant, despite not having any experience in the restaurant or culinary industries.
But what truly made this entire episode so difficult to watch was these sisters’ blatant lack of passion.
In fact, besides the brief moment of excitement when Ramsay basically decides to throw in the towel on the whole operation and the sisters run after him to try and change his mind, this episode does not contain a single joke (unless you count Ramsay jumping for joy after being served a real baked potato) or a single meme-able moment, throughout.
And since the young chef Danielle is just trying to do her best in the midst of a pretty hopeless situation, this episode does not even feature the standard Kitchen Nightmares Ramsay-vs.-chef screaming match.
And the entire episode just turns into kind of a wash by the end, when even their toughest critic suddenly decides that Ramsay is able to fix absolutely everything that is wrong with Hot Potato Café within just a few days.
What happened after Gordon Ramsay left Hot Potato Café
Ironically, one of the funniest moments from the Hot Potato Café episode happened right as it was fading to the credits, when Ramsay victoriously fist-bumped the air, shouting “Long live the power of women!” at the end of an episode.
This made Claire, Kathryn and Erin seem quite incompetent.
But although this celebrity chef was apparently fired up about Hot Potato Café’s future potential, the restaurant did close down months after the episode aired.
Hot Potato Café’s full history can be summarized as follows:
| Date | Event |
| 2007 | Hot Potato Café first opens its doors |
| May 2009 | The Kitchen Nightmares intervention begins |
| January 2010 | The Hot Potato Café episode premieres |
| August 2010 | Hot Potato Café closes down |
The reason why Hot Potato Café closed down
After Ramsay’s press tour with the ladies from the Hot Potato Café ended, the reviews for the restaurant (and not just the ‘Potato-Riffic’ review from critic Brian McManus) remained quite positive.
But with all but two of the Yelp reviews from 2010 giving Hot Potato Café 4 out of 5 stars.
And though it is always sad to see a small, family business close its doors, Hot Potato Café’s closure was just as uneventful as this episode.
The restaurant’s lease was simply not renewed once it expired in August of 2010 and the landlord put the place up for sale on Craigslist.
The good news – Danielle got out
One of the saddest parts of this Kitchen Nightmares episode was watching how hard Danielle, the owners’ niece who only accepted the job as the restaurant’s chef to help her family out, worked to help the restaurant that she did not even want to be in.
However, the one good thing to come out of Hot Potato Café’s quick closure, it is that this allowed Danielle to move on to career as a registered nurse, which she seems to be truly passionate about.
The producers’ obvious attempts to jazz things up
Any reality television series that has been on the air for as long as Kitchen Nightmares has is bound to have a few duds in its lineup.
And it is certainly true that not every family running a restaurant, can be funny and entertaining once the cameras start rolling.
But it seems like the Kitchen Nightmares producers tried their best to throw out everything but the kitchen sink at this episode, in a failed attempt to breathe some life back into the story.
This includes Ramsay’s almost-convincing walk-out, him bringing in a chef to train Danielle, organizing a few months’ worth of free potatoes, and even changing McManus’s appearance on the show from a lengthy carriage ride with Ramsay to a “surprise” review at the re-launch night.
But in the end the episode’s pacing never quite improve beyond a slow-ish crawl.
