Let me start with this: I love Gordon Ramsay. He's a talented chef in the kitchen and he's very entreprenurial as well; you can see it from the many restaurants he has and several different tv shows that you watch on TV.
I've watched Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare for several seasons now. I realized after the first season that almost every single episode follows the same formula/story line, which gets boring after a while. In fact, you can probably make your own episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare. Here's the step by step process:
1. Tell a bit of the restaurant background+meeting restaurant owner(s)
The narrator will tell you a bit of the restaurant background and why the owner thinks they need help. Chef Ramsay walks in to the restaurant to meet the owner(s) during lunch time.
2. Order lunch from the restaurant & insult the food
After meeting the owner of the restaurant, he usually meets the head server to order lunch. Sometimes he ask for recommendation of the restaurant's specialty, sometimes he would just order from the menu. Often, one of the restaurant's biggest mistake is by having such an extensive menu that makes it hard to remember all the menu and make the food not fresh.
After trying the food for the first time, Ramsay would insult the food for being too hard or too mushy because it's over cooked. Other times he would say it taste frozen/not fresh and ask the server if it's fresh or not. Ramsay often Spit out the food, and tell them to bring the next meal. Sometimes he'd ask his server to taste the food before sending it back to the kitchen (not the one he spat on already).
The owner(s)/chef would think he's a jerk for insulting their food.
3. Watch the restaurant do a dinner service
From the first dinner service, they would show how most of these people don't know how to run a kitchen. They falls behind, takes forever to prepare such simple foods. Once the food are out of the kitchen, they're often get sent back because the food is either raw (Ramsay would say: "It's colder than a sushi bar") or burnt.
4. Show how dirty their kitchen and freezer are
There are very few restaurants in the show that have a clean kitchen; Not only their kitchen is dirty, their freezer is disgusting too. Some of the food found in the freezer are really old, and a lot of them are already mouldy. It makes me wonder how clean and fresh are the food that are being served to me at a restaurant.
Depending how dirty it is, Ramsay would stop serving food to the customer for the rest of the night if the freezer is disgusting. He'd make the staff clean the kitchen that night.
5. Having a serious meeting with the owner(s)
Ramsay would identify what the restaurant's problems are and sometimes he would point out some strength the restaurant has.
(optional step): run the restaurant again on the second night, the chef could possibly walk out of the kitchen if s/he can't handle the heat. Sometimes they would come back to the kitchen, sometimes they have to be replaced by a new chef that Ramsay's brought in.
6. Remodel the restaurant+introduce new menu+announce a relaunch of the restaurant
Chef Ramsay brings in his interior crew to renovate the restaurant overnight and supply them with quality kitchen wares. In the morning when the owner(s) and staff comes in, they would say something like this: "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is really happening. This is much better than anything I could imagine! Thank you so much Chef Ramsay, you're not a jerk afterall!"
After that, they'd proceed to the kitchen and introduce them a new menu that is fresh. There are no longer any frozen food in the menu.
Often, they would go to the city and serve some finger foods to let the city know their restaurant is having a relaunch that night.
7. Relaunch/final dinner service
During the relaunch of the restaurant, the kitchen usually off to a strong start, but then their old habit would kick back in the middle of the service. Chef Ramsay would say some words or two to motivate them. In the end, the kitchen staff make a come back and every one's happy.
8. Goodbyes
After the relaunch service, Ramsay says his goodbyes to the restaurant crew. Tell them to never give up and tell them that he'd come back one day and wanna see them still in business and serving fresh food.
So yea...this is pretty much how every episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare goes. If you haven't noticed it before, after reading this, you'd agree with me the next time you watch an episode.
