Giuseppi’s did not last long after Gordon Ramsay’s second visit, and it eventually closed down in 2009.
The restaurants that Chef Gordon Ramsay attempts to save on his show, Kitchen Nightmares, often have problems which extend beyond the four walls of the establishments.
Giuseppi’s, an Italian restaurant featured in the second season of the show, managed to get past the family issues that were plaguing the business. But it had to close in 2009 as a result of the failing economy.
All about Kitchen Nightmares
Gordon Ramsay’s show, Kitchen Nightmares has been airing on Fox since 2007, and remains one of the most popular business-rescue shows on television to this day. The show is so popular, in fact, that it was even recently rebooted for an eighth season.
The show sees Ramsay travel all over the United States as a last resort to try and save restaurants that are in dire need of his years of business- and culinary expertise.
However, as can be expected, saving these eateries often requires much more than a fresh coat of paint and Ramsay is challenged to change everything from the menu to complicated family-dynamics before he can successfully re-launch these businesses for another service.
What really happened at Giuseppi’s from Kitchen Nightmares
The “Giuseppi’s” episode from the second season of Kitchen Nightmares saw Ramsay travel to the Macomb Township in Michigan in order to lend his help to the owners of Giuseppi’s Trattoria.
Before opening Giuseppi’s, Joe and Kathy Giuseppi had owned several successful Italian restaurants, so they just could not understand why this business, which they had purchased to pass on to their son, Sam, was failing within just a few years.
But as soon as Ramsay sat down for his very first meal at the restaurant, it became apparent that this family’s behind-the-scenes bickering was at the root of most of Giuseppi’s problems.
Fortunately, in true Kitchen Nightmares fashion, Ramsay managed to transform Giuseppi’s into a contemporary Italian restaurant in which the owners communicated with one another by the time that the guests sat down for the final dinner service at the end of the episode.
Ramsay eventually visited Giuseppi’s again about a year later, in the season three “Revisited” episode. He found that Joe, Kathy and Sam had remained close, even though the failing economy had taken a toll on their business.
Sadly, though, the economy continued to decline even after Ramsay’s second visit to the restaurant and Giuseppi’s ended up closing its doors permanently in 2009, This was just two years after this episode of Kitchen Nightmares started airing.
What happened after Gordon Ramsay’s visit to Giuseppi’s?
Giuseppi’s ended up closing its doors just a month after Ramsay visited the restaurant to film the “Revisited” episode.
But Kathy did later confirm in a follow-up interview with Ramsay that his intervention and changes were not to blame for Giuseppi’s eventual closure.
In fact, Kathy stated that they had initially seen a huge boom in business after the “Giuseppi’s” episode from Kitchen Nightmares started making the rounds on television, but that their business just came to a screeching halt in January 2009, due to the declining economy.
Why did Giuseppi’s close down?
Unfortunately for Giuseppi’s and its owners, this business was just one of many which fell victim to one of the longest economic downturns in the history of the Unites States (and the rest of the world), during The Great Recession.
By the time Ramsay had visited Giuseppi’s for a second time in 2009, Joe and Kathy were on the verge of losing their home and it is likely that they were forced to close down the business, or risk losing everything they had.
To add to this, Giuseppi’s also faced several delays with accruing their liquor license, and Joe admitted that by the time they got this license “The damage [had] been done” and this marginal increase in revenue was simply not enough to save what was left of the business.
What happened to Joe, Kathy and Sam?
Besides their brief appearance on Kitchen Nightmares, it seems like the Giuseppi-family prefers to keep their personal lives private.
Neither Joe nor Kathy currently have public pages on any social media platforms, but it is fairly safe to assume that they have now likely returned to retirement, since it has been more than a decade since the restaurant closed its doors.
Sam, on the other hand, has chosen to remain in the restaurant industry, even though he never ended up inheriting Giuseppi’s. Sam currently works as a chef at a restaurant called “Bar Verona”, which is in Washington Township, Michigan.
