“What is this, a tea party for rats?” – Gordon Ramsay
We’re told that the Brick Hotel is located in the borough of Newtown, about 30 miles away from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is interesting to me as I didn’t know the concept of boroughs existed in the U.S. outside of New York City.
But then again, I’m NYC-centered guy at heart, having been born in the borough of Queens, where I lived again for a spell post-college.
Verindar Kaur, a former therapist, bought the Brich Hotel in 2006 with her son, CJ, who is a “silent partner” in the business.
You can tell how insanely over their heads these two were from Jump Street when CJ relays that they were “told” that the Brick Hotel would “run itself” when they purchased it. Verindar then corroborates that they had “zero idea what this business is about.”
Tammy, the hotel’s event coordinator, calls Verindar’s regime a “dictatorship,” while Paul, a server, deems her a “control freak.”
Maryanne, who works at the front desk, adds that Verindar:
- Has no people skills
- Is not a people person
- Screams out demands
- Is very rude at times
So not great is what the staff is saying about her basically. This has also caused massive churn, with people quitting constantly, we learn.
Maryanne also calls the Brick Hotel “the laughingstock of Newtown.”
When Gordon Ramsay arrives in town, he starts off with a slight twist from the typical Hotel Hell formula by meeting with a roomful of the hotel’s former employees. We quickly learn that “massive churn” of staff may be an understatement when one woman asserts that Verindar has burned through “at least 50 managers” during her ownership of the Brick Hotel.
The same woman calls Verindar “cruel,” relaying that she’s seen her reduce staffers to tears.
Further, another woman talks about in the pre-Verindar era, locals loved the Brick Hotel and that business was “booming.”
When Ramsay enters Brick Hotel, the first thing he notices is that a glass panel next to the front doorway is smashed up, which does not form the best impression for our guy. He later finds out that it’s been that way for the entire 10 years that Verindar has run the place.
That’s followed by his questioning Maryanne about holes in the wall. She agrees that it’s possible that they could be “bullet holes.”
“We’re 250 years old, so…” she explains, trailing off.
Ramsay hadn’t even made it out of the hotel entryway before he gets busy tearing off strips of musty, ancient wallpaper off the walls.
“The place is filthy,” he observes while heading up the stairs to his guest room. “There’s dust and s— everywhere.”
Ramsay is just warming up, though, and soon he quips about an odd little inset area where there’s a doll-sized table and two antique chairs, “What is this, a tea party for rats?”
Things get more serious though as Ramsay prompts Talaya, the housekeeper, to take him on a tour of all the mold, dirty linens on beds, and other ancient and odd paraphernalia (example: “an empty box of tights”) laying about.
“He found all the nasty,” Talaya later tells a group of colleagues.
Things aren’t much better at the hotel restaurant. Ramsay finds the French onion soup to be tasteless and the cauliflower steak – a menu item he had not ever heard of before – to be “a mess.”
After Ramsay lays it on the kitchen and Verindar how bad the meal was, he asks her why she’s burned through so many staff members over the years. Her response: “I don’t know.”
“I’m a little bit lost for words,” Ramsay replies, before going on at length at all of his appalling findings during his visit to Brick Hotel up until this point.
At dinner service, Ramsay is finally able to observe Verindar’s micromanaging and hair trigger temper in action. “She’s driving me nuts,” he soon whispers to a kitchen staffer.
Then we get a classic Kitchen Nightmares-esque scene where Ramsay uncovers the grungy, filthy conditions lurking behind the scenes in the kitchen, with Varindar chiming in with, “We just cleaned that, so…” remarks.
It’s therefore fantastic when a kitchen staffer throws her directly under the bus with, “No one’s ever cleaned back here.”
In an overhead area near the fryers, Ramsay collects a full bucket of black sludge that literally looks like chunky motor oil. It’s genuinely hideous-looking.
“Do you have any idea if that caught fire?” Ramsay asks her.
After Ramsay goes back for another round of investigating the mold and filthy conditions in the guest rooms, he decides it’s time for a gimmick and pulls the fire alarm (which is maybe a real and actual crime if there’s not a fire?) and then addresses Varinder and all of the hotel guests outside the hotel.
“I’m done,” Ramsay announces. “There’s no fire but I’m not going to continue.”
Now back inside the Brick Hotel with Varindar, Ramsay asks her, “When are you going to get real?”
This leads the hotel owner to blame her staff for not liking her, being lazy, stealing from her, and so on.
“I’m going to tell you something you’ve never heard before – you’re out of your depth,” Ramsay responds.
Eventually, Ramsay persuades Varindar to meet with the staff to hear their concerns. This quickly devolves though into more accusations from the Brick Hotel owner about cell phone use on the job, drinking, and stealing from her.
Finally, Ramsay nudges her to tell her team that she’ll “try” to change and “evolve” as part of a “process.”
Out of desperation, Ramsay turns to the affable but uninvolved CJ, telling him privately that Varindar continues to be a “dictator” and that she’s “stifling the business.” CJ’s take is that he’s tried to tell her that what’s acceptable in their native India just doesn’t work nor is appropriate in running a service business in the U.S.
The next morning, the overnight renovation is unveiled, and the transformation in the hotel entryway alone is stunning. And most importantly, the place is finally clean-looking in addition to being modernized significantly in terms of furniture and décor. A restaurant menu overhaul is also mentioned very briefly.
The relaunch night segment is super short, but Ramsay’s voiceover talks about how well everything is going. Varindar promises Ramsay that she’ll work on continuing to improve in becoming a proper manager that her staff can respect.
Hotel Hell, “Brick Hotel”: is it still open?
This was an episode where I was pretty sure that I’d discover that the hotel had closed, but as of this writing, the Brick Hotel is still open!
I’m almost tempted to ask, “How?” though based on it’s terrible overall rating situation: 2.5 out of 5 stars on Yelp, and 2.8 out of 5 stars on Trip Advisor.
One recent Yelp review, from Les M. states: “RUN! This place was offering a room that reminded me of some creepy, insane asylum.”
Some stats and info about Hotel Hell, “Brick Hotel”
TV SHOW – Hotel Hell
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 3, Episode 6
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX
EPISODE DESCRIPTION – Gordon visits Newtown in Pennsylvania, to try and save a historic hotel that is desperately in need of help. Verindar, the owner, runs the hotel like an angry tyrant. Her staff is ready to quit because they are so unhappy with the way they are treated.
GENRE – Docuseries, Office Culture, Trashtastic TV, Reality TV
CAST – Gordon Ramsay