“Did somebody die in here?” – Gordon Ramsay
Welcome to Oakhurst, New Jersey, which is pitched by Narrator guy as just “10 minutes from the Jersey shore.”
So you know anything that’s within spitting distance of Jersey Shore is gonna make for a hell of an edition of Kitchen Nightmares.
Mike and Nellie’s restaurant was opened in 1996 by Nellie Farber and his son, Mike Farber. Mike and the rest of the staff relay how much everyone loved Nellie and how great the restaurant was doing at one point, but Nellie then passed away.
“Now it’s just kind of Mike and nothing,” a server tells the camera.
For Mike’s part, he explains that he’s been overwhelmed since his father’s death because he now is forced to handle double the amount of work to keep Mike and Nellie’s afloat. No word on whether he tried to hire someone to take over the responsibilities that Nellie held down before his demise.
Mike and Nellie’s is super rundown – and “grimy,” as a server puts it – these days, and while Mike believes the food to be great, we see a montage of customers saying things like, “It tastes like there’s chemicals,” with regard to their steak dinners and such.
“Honestly, the big problem is Mike,” Daniel, the sous chef and Mike’s cousin, puts it.
Oh yeah, and people also observe that Mike drinks on the job and “some nights he’s completely hammered.”
Before heading into Mike and Nellie’s for the first time, Chef Gordon Ramsay first meets up with Mike’s oldest daughter, Samantha. She tells Ramsay that ever since her grandfather Nellie passed away, Mike hasn’t “been able to move forward,” and also has the issue that “he just can’t delegate.”
As soon as Ramsay enters Mike and Nellie’s, he’s taken aback by the smell. The hostess, Lexi (also Mike’s daughter), doesn’t know what he’s talking about even after Ramsay asks, “Did somebody die in here?”
When Ramsay meets Mike, we learn that the décor of the restaurant has not been updated in 15 years. Gordon then quickly segues to asking, “Did someone peepee on the menu?” He also insists to everyone he meets on staff that something smells bad, and Jeanine the server agrees with him.
As with every owner/chef that’s featured on Kitchen Nightmares, Mike is absolutely convinced that Gordon Ramsay will be dazzled and blown away by their cooking. Instead, right on schedule and brand, Ramsay’s first reaction to the pasta dish he tastes is, “Wow, it’s gross, it’s bland… everything’s watery, it’s horrible.”
And that’s before the Chicken Murphy gets served, which even Jeanine describes as follows: “It looks like a stew gone bad.”
“I can’t afford to be up all night with the s—s,” Gordon adds, which speaks to the occupational hazard of being the star of Kitchen Nightmares, I suppose.
On the Steak Nellie: “is that steak or charcoal?” And: “That just tastes of burnt charcoal.”
Mike is finally convinced to leave the kitchen and sit down with Ramsay, the latter of whom lays down the boom, ending with: “Your food is watery, bland, soggy.”
Mike, who we’re learning quickly is an obstinate one, simply replies, “I know how to cook.”
“Either you’re in denial, or you don’t care,” Ramsay responds.
Later that day, we see Mike pound a “pre-rush beer” ahead of dinner service. “Pre-rush beer” is a phrase that I might have only heard once in my life as college students pre-gamed to join campus fraternities.
We also learn that Mike doesn’t trust the rest of his kitchen staff, which translates to Mike doing the vast majority of the cooking by himself and pushing dishes out of the kitchen both quickly and sloppily. And meanwhile, dishes are returned to the kitchen by unhappy diners left and right.
Oh, and also the pounding of beers continues through dinner service.
As silly and frankly trashy that Kitchen Nightmares can often be, this is a good illustration about how lack of delegation skills in a business and cripple productivity and quality output.
After dinner service, Mike tells a frustrated Ramsay, “I bust my ass. I cook until we’re done cooking.”
“No one is monitoring standards, and no one seems to care,” Gordon responds.
And then… Ramsay asks him if he’s been drinking. “I’m having a vodka cranberry juice,” Mike says, which is both honest and an evasion at the same time. He then reluctantly admits that he also had “two beers” during dinner service.
Mike finally opens up a little bit more, his voice slurring a bit, and says that he’s “lost in space,” and that he “doesn’t know where to go from here.” Here being since Nellie passed away.
Ramsay tells him that he must stop living in denial and find a way to rekindle his passion. Mike says that he’ll try his best, but honestly sounds a bit halfhearted about it.
The next day, Ramsay heads to Mike’s house and first meets with his daughters. He confabs with them, and then has them give Mike a soft intervention of sorts in which they plead with to be a “more open Mike,” one who is willing to trust his kitchen staff more and allow the business to operate successfully. Mike tells them that he’s “willing to listen” and attempt to change.
A new crisis quickly erupts back at Mike & Nellies, where Ramsay uncovers how wretched the cleanliness and general disorder of the food storage area is. There’s “contamination” aplenty and rotting stuff sitting about all over the joint.
“Come on, this is basic,” Ramsay says, sounding utterly disgusted, ordering a top to bottom cleaning of the restaurant by the entire staff.
Mike decides that he wants to turn things around, and even throws out his personal stash of beers. After the place is cleaned up, Ramsay gives Mike and Chef Daniel a cooking lesson.
“It’s like a ballet with his fingers, I was in awe,” Daniel says of Chef Ramsay.
Post-renovation by the Kitchen Nightmares, the staff is blown away. I’m less impressed, but I’m not able to feel in person the difference that the new carpeting and related removal of whatever rancid smells plagued the place did to upgrade the ambiance.
For the menu overhaul, there’s a tighter focus on being a steakhouse with selections that include Maryland crab cakes, Angus beef sliders, filet mignon, and New York strip steak.
The plan for relaunch night is for Mike to trust the team to take on more responsibilities, particularly Chef Daniel.
Things start out well during dinner service, but things go off the rails when Mike first messes up and then becomes obstinate about how to un-mess the mess up. “You’re f—ing over big time,” Ramsay ends up snapping at him. Eventually things smooth out, and it’s a relatively small blip as compared the catastrophes that plague some Kitchen Nightmares restaurants at this point in the process.
The next day, Ramsay tells Mike and the team that he believes in them and to “keep it going.”
“I’m going to rock this town,” Mike replies in his oddly flat affect.
🍽 Want more? Check out Pop Thruster’s Kitchen Nightmares episode reviews (there’s a lot).
Some stats and info about Kitchen Nightmares, “Mike and Nellie’s”
TV SHOW – Kitchen Nightmares
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 5, Episode 3
AIRED ON – October 7th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX
GENRE – Reality TV, Food Shows, Office Culture, Trashtastic TV, Docuseries
CAST – Gordon Ramsay