In one episode of Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay found a dead lobster at the Spanish Pavillion, which is still open and operating.
Kitchen Nightmares had a successful seven-season run before it was cancelled. There are a number of episodes from the seven seasons of the culinary reality format show which still remain popular rewatches for fans of the show who have not gotten over some of its most shocking moments.
One in particular is the episode which profiled the Spanish Pavillion. In this episode, Gordon Ramsay found a dead lobster in the fish tank, amongst other shocking discoveries which explained why the restaurant was not performing well. Interestingly, the restaurant is still open since its appearance on the show.
Is Kitchen Nightmares coming back in 2022?
Kitchen Nightmares ended on a whim after the host and executive producer, Gordon Ramsay, made the decision to pull the plug after eight seasons.
The culinary expert and television personality ended the show as a result of the continued backlash over the lack of success the show had in turning around the restaurants that it profiled, coupled with the fact that the show was facing lawsuits and previously hosted restaurateurs publicly lambasting Ramsay and his team.
While Ramsay has since spoken about his regrets on ending the show, it seems unlikely that the show would make a comeback as Ramsay and his team are working on new shows.
Kitchen Nightmares: Dead lobster at the Spanish Pavillion
Season four of Kitchen Nightmares premiered with the episode which featured the Spanish Pavillion.
The premise of the episode is, “Spanish Pavilion is run by a family constantly at each other’s throats who are ignoring the problems, and the dead lobster floating in the tank.”
The Spanish Pavillion restaurant holds the honour of being the oldest Spanish restaurant in New Jersey. This is as the restaurant was opened in 1976.
The restaurant was first opened by Antonio Fernandez, and when he retired, he left the restaurant to his daughter Balbina, and his two grandsons, Michael and Jerry.
At the time, the Spanish Pavillion was a successful restaurant that had customers waiting outside for a table. Five years after the business changed hands, it barely had enough customers to stay afloat.
When Gordon Ramsay first visited the restaurant, he ordered lobster bisque, paella, and a chicken and garlic main dish from the server, Joe.
But upon tasting the lobster, Ramsay suggested that it was not fresh, and upon inspecting the lobsters, he discovered a dead lobster amongst the others in the fish tank.
Thereafter, during the kitchen inspection, he found more dead lobsters in the fridge, along with other produce and protein food items that were well past their expiry dates.
Jokingly, Ramsay suggested that the freshest produce he could find in the kitchen was the live pigeon flying around in it.
How did Gordon Ramsay intervene with the Spanish Pavillion?
Gordon Ramsay introduced a few interventions to help turn the restaurant around. The first was to show the owners that there were more than 40 Spanish restaurants within a two mile radius.
Therefore, to help Spanish Pavillion stand out, he introduced homemade tapas as the restaurant’s speciality. Moreover, he changed the formal tuxedos that the waiters wore as their uniform to less formal attire.
While initially overwhelmed at the beginning of the intervention, Jerry and Michael ended up working together to ensure that the relaunch went ahead successfully.
Is Spanish Pavillion still open?
As of August 2022, the Spanish Pavillion is still operational, and it is a successful business. Following Gordon Ramsay’s intervention, the business became popular again amongst the locals.
Moreover, the fact that the restaurant maintained the changes that Ramsay introduced ensured that the quality of the food and the reviews of the restaurant remained mostly positive and complimentary.
The restaurant has proven so successful after the intervention by Ramsay, that it has a website on which you can find out their trading hours, and you can make a reservation at the restaurant.
What happened to Jerry and Michael?
The fiery relationship between brothers, Jerry and Michael, was something fans wondered about, even long after the episode aired.
After the shooting of the first episode, when Gordon Ramsay returned to the restaurant for a follow-up, it was revealed that Michael was less active in the restaurant as he turned his focus to his political career.
Moreover, Jerry reported that their grandfather had sadly passed away in the time since Ramsay’s first visit. However, overall, the turnaround of the business had seemingly made the relationship between the brothers less antagonistic.
