“Pissing with garlic.” – Gordon Ramsay
For the second episode in a row, Kitchen Nightmares finds a new nightmare in the great state of New Jersey… Montclair, New Jersey in this case.
Rose Leone opened Leone’s back in 1996, Narrator Guy tells us. More recently, Rose has experienced serious health issues, so she’s no longer able to run the place. Son Michael is now managing Leone’s, and the rest of the staff finds him to be super lazy and generally out to lunch.
And so therefore, business at Leone’s is now terrible. Rose is still around, though no longer at full health, and she finds the restaurant to be in dire straits: dirty, poorly run, and heading off the rails.
When Gordon Ramsay shows up at Leone’s, he immediately homes in on the fact that there’s a television sitting on a table right near the entrance. Michael Leone explains that this is where he “watches the games sometimes,” and we in the audience know that he is sending red flags aplenty to the British chef.
“What is this rodent doing next to a television?” is how Michael frames Ramsay’s view of the situation, perceptibly I might add.
Next up: taking in the rather bizarre array of… uh, unattractive baby portraits that adorn Leone’s.
After that, Ramsay meets Rose Leone and the staff, which includes John, Elizabeth, and Trudy. Trudy explains that the big problem is that there’s “no manager… no one who runs this restaurant.” She then lays out in excruciating detail how much she’s doing to keep Leone’s afloat while Michael does close to nothing.
“I don’t think he’s ever had the passion,” Trudy continues.
“This has gotta be your life,” Rose says. Sidenote that as I am close friends with two brothers who grew up in a restaurant on Long Island, New York which is thriving to this day – this is an absolutely true statement.
Then Ramsay examines exactly how many hours Michael actually works (5-6 hours per night) and then how many hours of those that he’s “sitting” (2-3 hours per night).
“Holy crap,” Ramsay concludes. And further sidenote that this is where Kitchen Nightmares most excels, with Ramsay’s expertise in the industry and cutting personality slicing open precisely why the businesses he examines are careening toward failure.
We then learn more: Leone’s has a “breakeven” revenue number of $12,000 a week that it needs to pull in, but is only averaging $8,000. Meaning this is a business that’s losing $4,000 per week, or over $200,000 a year.
“We’re drowning. We’ve already drowned… there is no business,” Rose says.
Next up: Ramsay requests that the staff prepare one of every dish on the menu… which is a massive challenge as the Leone’s menu is “15 pages long.” When over 100 dishes are presented to Gordon, he pretends that he didn’t know what he had asked for in terms of the quantity of food.
In any event, Ramsay then asks for a “sick bag” before cursing a bunch and talking about how the seafood smells awful and the pasta is very bland. And then, with regard to a chicken dish: “pissing with garlic.” Gordon then refuses to allow Rose to taste anything as he doesn’t want to “put her back in hospital.”
The endlessly deluded Michael falls back on saying, “I think it’s good.”
Because Ramsay is “in town,” business at Leone’s for dinner service that night is the “busiest it’s been in years.” This gives Chef Gordon the opportunity to uncover many awful practices in the kitchen and food storage area, including petrified meat in the freezer and the fact that raw veal is sitting right next to cook veal in the food prep area. And that’s before they get to rancid mushroom sauce and “green” flounder.
No one is able to take responsibility, and the entire staff stands around kind of staring at one another.
“This restaurant is being run like a pigsty,” Ramsay concludes. “You should be ashamed of yourselves.” And then he adds: “Get f—ing cleaning!”
And at that, Leone’s is shut down for the night.
Sitting down with Rose and Michael, Rose fully (and rightfully) throws her son under the bus. “He has no integrity,” she says. “See, he’ll never die for the restaurant.”
“You’re oblivious,” Ramsay says, and then takes a poll of the entire staff who all unanimously agree that Michael is “lazy” to his face.
At this point, Michael finally agrees that he has been “irresponsible” and joins the staff that night in cleaning up Leone’s.
Which means it’s time for a gimmick! Ramsay takes the Leone’s staff to a local art gallery the next day, where there are images on the wall of the cuisine of nearby restaurants, which all look super tasteful, elegant, and delicious. And meanwhile, the framed images of Leone’s dishes are clearly inferior-looking by comparison.
Back at Leone’s, Ramsay gives Michael a lesson in leadership in the kitchen by way of a cooking lesson. This seems to wake Michael up to the fact of how much he doesn’t know about his own restaurant works, and he professes a desire to do better. The dishes they (read = pretty much Ramsay) prepare are amazing looking.
In any event, the staff – including Rose and Trudy – seem encouraged by the progress and the “new Michael.”
On the morning of the relaunch, the Leone’s staff is introduced to the overhauled décor, and it really does look like a major and positive transformation. It’s a much more modern, tasteful, and clean looking Italian bistro. There’s also a new point of sale system installed, which left me wondering why some restaurants featured on Kitchen Nightmares get this while others don’t.
Meanwhile, the menu gets its own overhaul, including Herman tomatoes, capellini, and fresh crab, shrimp scampi, and cod. The staff is thrilled and amped to move forward with it.
Relaunch night dinner service starts off smoothly enough, but then goes sideways when Michael gets confused and starts sending out orders “twice” to the same customers who have already received their dishes.
However, Michael seems to rally quickly and gets the team working together once again, and dinner service goes well overall. And the staff even compliments him for being a competent manager for once. And even Rose is happy with the restaurant and her son.
🍽 Want more? Check out Pop Thruster’s Kitchen Nightmares episode reviews (there’s a lot).
Kitchen Nightmares, “Leone’s”: is it still open?
While Rose Leone sadly passed away in 2014, this is a rare case where the restaurant is still open as of this writing under the original owners. In fact, the Kitchen Nightmares wiki says that Leone’s is owned by Michael Leone to this day.
According to Yelp, Leone’s has a 3.4 out of 5 stars rating with 413 reviews.
Some stats and info about Kitchen Nightmares, “Leone’s”
TV SHOW – Kitchen Nightmares
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 5, Episode 2
AIRED ON – September 30th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX
GENRE – Reality TV, Food Shows, Office Culture, Trashtastic TV, Docuseries
CAST – Gordon Ramsay