Kitchen Nightmares, Season 2, Episode 5: J Willys

Welcome to the fifth episode in the second season of Kitchen Nightmares. This is the show where professional chef and entertainer Gordon Ramsay drops in on various failing restaurants across the United States and shows them how to shape up and fix all of their problems. He leaves them with a high class menu, better cooks, and hopefully a legacy of success.

Tonight we find ourselves in South Bend, Indiana, home of Notre Dame University. Just a few miles down the road is J Willys restaurant, owned by Rick and Tricia and their friend John William (“J Willy”).

This restaurant had been making plenty of money in the past but for some reason it is not doing that anymore. The day-to-day management of the restaurant is handled by John, since Rick and Tricia live three hours away and spend their time running another restaurant.

Wow. I think I’m seeing part of the problem already. When the owners live that far away, it is tough to deal with any problems when they arise.

And it turns out that that is the problem. John seems to have lost his passion and doesn’t care how the restaurant is going. As a result, it is being run into the ground.

John admits that things are bad. They don’t even have a full-time chef on staff. Steve is a cook in the kitchen and he seems to be the closest thing they’ve got to a chef.

But even a cook like Steve knows when something is wrong. He is only provided with frozen meat, canned sauces, and pre-packaged food to serve. He admits the food is terrible. We see a short montage of customers confirming that.

This is followed by a montage of each of the owners crying over how much they’ve put into the place and how badly it will hurt when they have to close the restaurant. Oh where, oh where is someone that can save them from themselves?

Right on cue, a tour bus pulls up and off steps our knight in gleaming apron. It is Chef Ramsay. Now, I don’t believe for one second that Chef Ramsay really rode a bus to town and sat shoulder-to-shoulder with common folk and Fighting Irish fans for a couple of days.

Anyway, he strides over to the restaurant and immediately points out how ghastly it looks from the outside. It has a large flashing sign and the exterior is falling apart. Ramsay says that it looks like the place closed down ten years ago.

He steps inside and things aren’t much better. He meets the owners and then orders a few items from the menu. He orders a potato pizza, famous ribs, and a pulled-pork cheese boat.

While waiting, he notices that the carpets look like a herd of buffalo came through. The camera shows us that it is certainly true. You can literally see the dirt caked on. It’s hard to believe that anyone, no matter how lax and uncaring, could let a carpet get this bad.

The potato pizza shows up and Ramsay can’t bear to eat it. He asks some priests at the next table to bless the food for him because it looks so bad. The father obliges.

It doesn’t help and Ramsay just stabs at it with his knife and won’t even take a bite. Next!

The ribs are next. You can’t mess up ribs, can you? Apparently you can because Rick admits to Chef Ramsay that the sauce is generic, from a can. Ramsay is not amused.

The final dish is the pulled-pork sandwich. As expected, it is just shredded pork in a hot-dog bun with processed cheese melted on it. Ramsay calls it appalling.

Then, in a bit of humor, Ramsay rushes over to the priests’ table and whisks away their own pulled-pork sandwich before they can eat. He says that he is saving them from sin. Everyone chuckles except for the one priest who now has to go hungry.

Ramsay makes a bee-line to the kitchen to confront the chef. He is disappointed to find that there is no chef to confront! John steps up and proudly announces that they don’t need a professional chef because he designed the menu to be simple and easy to create the food. Again, Ramsay is not amused.

Ramsay sits all the managers down and asks them what is wrong. Tricia perks right up and says that it is all John’s fault. John seems a little hurt and replies that it is tough to make good food when he is not given any money to work with. Tricia just shrugs.

Ramsay asks how much they’d owe if the business shut down today. Rick looks down at his drink and finally says, “A million or two.” Holy frijoles! That’s pretty bad.

Tricia then adds another twist to the problems. She says that she wants to have children but she cannot because the two restaurants are taking up all of her time. She places the blame for her being childless squarely on John and the way he runs the place. Rick then cries in support of her. Anyone care to guess one of the big reveals at the happy end of this episode?

The next day dawns and Chef Ramsay arrives to watch a day in the life of the restaurant. At lunch he watches a pizza being prepared with frozen dough, ranch sauce, and frozen sausage pellets. He shakes his head in disgust. John says that it is a cost-cutting move.

Tricia pipes in and says that she is embarrassed by how John is running the place. It is all John’s fault for everything all the time. He even caused the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

But maybe she’s right. We get to see a long montage of customers returning food and complaining. The announcer admits that maybe the extra crowd and the criticism is due to Chef Ramsay’s presence. We hear one set of diners say that are not planning on eating anything.