“Maybe we shouldn’t of did this.” – Patty
When I realized that this episode of Kitchen Nightmares focuses on the Bel Aire Diner in Queens – and Astoria, New York specifically – my jaw literally dropped.
I was born in Queens, New York, grew up on Long Island, and then lived in Astoria after college for a while before heading west to seek my fortune (you can put air quotes around “fortune” if you want).
When I lived in Astoria, my apartment that I shared with several college pals was within short walking distance of the Bel Aire Diner. And in fact, a long conversation with my man Adam at the Bel Aire Diner played a significant role in the course of my life.
I’ll boil a long story down to this: we decided over burgers, fries, and coffee to pack all of our belongings into my Mazda Protégé and move out to California. Our plan was foolhardy on multiple fronts, but we went through with it anyway. Adam eventually moved back east and is now happily married with two kids, and I’m happily married and live up in Seattle, Washington. So it all worked out in the end.
But back to the Bel Aire: I ate there many times and the food was always good, with fast, efficient service that did not necessarily involve cheerful conversation from your servers.
You know, Queens-style.
But keep in mind that this was circa the late 1990s. Now let’s see what’s doing that caused Kitchen Nightmares and Gordon Ramsay to get called onto the scene in 2023…
Whereupon we learn that the Bel Aire Diner is being run by “two brothers at war.”
Kal, who oversees a large kitchen team of twenty, simply puts it like this: “My brother’s an asshole.” He feels like his younger brother Peter, who runs the front of the house, isn’t pulling his weight and “doesn’t want to work.”
Meanwhile, Peter feels that Kal’s “ego is overwhelming at times.”
We also learn that the Bel Aire has been with this family for 25 years, so it looks like Adam and I moved to California just in time, perhaps!
The parents, Archie and Patty, are still involved in the business, but are retirement age and hoping that the boys can handle things on their own at this point.
When Gordon Ramsay arrives on the scene, he says, “New York City’s 24-hour diners are iconic, serving delicious comfort food night and day.”
Fact check: correct.
When Ramsay enters the Bel Aire Diner, he marvels at the live lobster in a tank in the front of the restaurant. This was a pretty common sight – back in the day, at least – in both Queens and Long Island.
When Ramsay starts off with ordering coffee and finds it to be terrible, you know things are poised to go straight downhill from there.
“Maybe we shouldn’t of did this,” Patty tells the camera.
I laughed when Ramsay says of the thick menu: “it’s like an encyclopedia, this thing.”
This is another thing that tri-state area diners are known for. At the Candlelight Diner in Commack, New York out in Suffolk County, for example, you can order anything ranging from standard diner fare to full course dinners to Greek specialties like souvlaki and moussaka.
Ramsay actually attempts to count the number of food orders that are available and loses track around 270, where he’s only about halfway through the menu. Gordon then orders up quite an array of dishes, including fried tortellini, coq au vin, and lamb gyro. Oh, and also a lobster BLT.
And French fries, of course.
Ramsay spits out the first bite of gyro meat that he eats. I must point out here that Astoria holds the second largest population of Greek people outside of Greece (Melbourne, Australia is apparently the largest these days), so messing up the preparation of a gyro plate is a violation that should get a restaurant kicked out of the borough of Queens.
“That’s about as Greek as Donald Trump,” Ramsay quips.
Then, on the coq au vin: “This thing is like a dinosaur coq au vin.”
The lobster in the lobster BLT is “mushy, raw, and rancid… it’s not even cooked.”
As you might guess, the other dishes go about the same.
When Kal sits down with Ramsay, the good chef lays it out for the Bel Aire Diner co-owner: “That lunch is shocking.” And we’re meant to take that as in not shockingly good, if you can dig. “I mean really bad,” he adds.
Often, head chefs push back at this point of a Kitchen Nightmares episode, but Kal readily agrees, saying, “We could do a lot better,” and he immediately takes accountability.
We also find out that brother Peter, who is a co-owner and therefore getting paid to work at the Bel Aire, isn’t even showing up much as he’s been helping out at his girlfriend’s restaurant instead. Things got to the point where Kal and Peter didn’t speak much over a period of six months, although they’ve once again started communicating recently.
Whereas Ramsay typically gets prickly and aggressive at this stage, here he’s warm and empathetic with Kal as he sees that he deeply cares about keeping the family business afloat – in addition to providing for a baby daughter – and has been thrust into a situation not of his making. On the latter note, Kal relays that his parents have essentially left it to him to figure out the difficult problem of how to handle his brother’s role (or lack thereof) in the business.
“Two brothers at war, and a diner failing miserably,” Ramsay concludes in a bit of colder interpretation of the situation.
When Peter finally shows up at the Bel Aire, he says he doesn’t care what others think because he can “run circles around people.” When he sits down with Ramsay, he tells him that he “doesn’t feel respected as a brother.”
Peter gets teary eyed quickly when he admits that he feels guilty about his role in what’s going on and what it’s doing to his parents. He also tells Ramsay that he loves his brother.
During the first service that he observes, Ramsay quickly diagnoses multiple orders – including a steak and a grilled cheese sandwich – that are not cooked properly. Grilled cheese seems like something a child could prepare satisfactorily after a little practice, so that’s not a great sign.
“This is f—ing embarrassing,” Ramsay says.
“I swear to god, every dish is wrong,” Kal laments.
Meanwhile, Ramsay heads down to the basement, which is almost never a good sign on Kitchen Nightmares… and that’s also the case here.
“Oh my god,” Ramsay says in what’s not the first invocation to divinity in this episode. “It’s like a scene out of Saw.”
If you haven’t seen Saw, it’s wall-to-wall violence, blood, and hideous gore basically. That’s my super short review.
Anyway, Gordon seems legitimately disturbed and disgusted by the rotting produce and meat and improperly stored and mixed food items – we’re talking raw meat jammed together with cooked (or partially cooked?) meat down there. Soon he’s off in the corner gagging, and we even see a quick camera shot of a crew member gagging.
Things are bad enough that Ramsay tells the general manager that he’s “taking care of the bills” of everyone currently dining at the Bel Aire and instructs him to send everyone packing.
Things get even darker, if that’s possible, when Gordon next unearths the dirty conditions in the massive kitchen. Kal takes full responsibility, but something doesn’t quite click with all his talk about how he’s at the restaurant “the most” and even sleeps there out of devotion to the business.
I’ve watched and reviewed many episodes of Kitchen Nightmares in my day, and this might be one of the grossest I’ve ever seen. The blobs of grease alone that squirm and pulse out of the oven hoods – like some alien lifeforce – after a quick pass by Ramsay are pretty revolting.
“What I didn’t expect is this disgusting hellhole,” Ramsay tells the Bel Aire staff. “You should be ashamed.”
“I feel like a failure,” Kal says, who piles the criticism on his own shoulders throughout.
Peter finally tells the cameras here that he needs to “step up” to help his family.
In another tough love-style assembly of the staff, Ramsay commands the brothers to set aside their differences and set the standards that will turn the Bel Aire back onto a course of becoming a quality diner once again.
It’s at this point in the episode that I’m reminded that this is a rare case where we’re not told, at least, that the restaurant being featured on Kitchen Nightmares is in financial straits. And from what we’ve seen, the place seems to be packed (except when everyone gets kicked out).
For what it’s worth, I’m reminded too that the Bel Aire has an outstanding location on 21st St., kind of a main drag in that part of Astoria.
We then head over to Manhattan, where Ramsay takes Kal and Peter to one of his restaurants, Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips in Time’s Square. It looks like a fast food-style place designed for massive turnover of touristy crowds, and Ramsay explains that they serve 1,000 guests a day there. Honestly, it’s probably a gold mine.
When they head into the food storage, it’s absolutely spotless, as is the kitchen and the front of the house. Here, Ramsay gives the boys a lesson in cooking fish and chips.
Meanwhile, the Bel Aire has been renovated in a retro 1950’s style diner style look honestly looks fantastic – one of the best overhauls I’ve seen on Kitchen Nightmares. And then meanwhile there have been wall-to-wall upgrades in the kitchen equipment as well. This new version of Kitchen Nightmares clearly has a larger budget than the seasons that date back to the early 2010s.
Perhaps even more significantly, the massive diner menu has been boiled down to a one-pager. It includes 20 items, “instead of 420,” Ramsay quips. It’s all classy takes on comfort items, ranging from burger and fries to chicken and waffles to shrimp and grits.
For relaunch night, the groups of diners include a bunch of firefighters, a Make-A-Wish group, and a cluster of social media foodie influencer types.
While Kal takes command of the kitchen early, communication breaks down pretty soon and raw food gets sent out, infuriating Ramsay.
If nothing else, this prompts a classic Gordon Ramsay “it’s raw!”
Things eventually smooth out, and we hear customers telling Peter things like, “It’s amazing!” by the end. Perhaps most encouragingly, we see the brothers collaborating and checking in with each other as well. And we even see them hug.
On the way out, Ramsay tells them both, “Keep this diner in the family. Don’t let me down.”
🍽 Want more? Check out Pop Thruster’s Kitchen Nightmares episode reviews (there’s a lot).
Kitchen Nightmares, “Bel Aire”: is it still open?
The Bel Aire is still open as of this writing!
Via Yelp, it has 3.4 out of 5 stars with 755 reviews which is… not great, but not terrible either. For what it’s worth, many of the recent reviews seem to be 5 stars.
Also interesting: via Reddit someone noted that the “Bel Aire brought back their 16-page menu.” One commenter noted:
I mean, the menu Gordon gave them was too small for a diner in NY. Diners are your typical “anyone can get anything” restaurant that’s great for a family with picky eaters. Having a page with 10-15 items isn’t realistic and I’m sure there were people who frequented there often who were like, where’s the menu?
Some stats and info about Kitchen Nightmares, “Bel Aire”
TV SHOW – Kitchen Nightmares
AIRED ON – September 25th, 2023
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX
GENRE – Reality TV, Docuseries, Food Shows
CAST – Gordon Ramsay