Restaurant Rejects Gordon Ramsay’s Changes After He Gives Their Menu A Makeover
(UPDATE: The episode of 24 Hours To Hell & Back surrounding this restaurant will premiere on August 15th on FOX.)
Gordon Ramsay is kinda getting back into Kitchen Nightmares with his newly greenlit show, Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours To Hell & Back. And while we can’t wait for Ramsay to throw more tantrums and insults at restaurant owners, not everybody appears to be on board with the changes he’s leaving behind. One restaurant scheduled to appear on the show has already reverted the changes he made to their menu.
Customers are king in the dinning room, but tonight on an all new @HellsKitchenFOX I’m the king of my kitchen ! See you at 8/7c pic.twitter.com/q1GtF9ftIr
— Gordon Ramsay (@GordonRamsay) November 3, 2017
Now, if a restaurant rejects Gordon Ramsay’s changes, they probably have good reason to do so despite the man being a Michelin-starred chef. In the case of Sacramento’s Sandra Dee’s Barbeque & Seafood, the soul food establishment felt that Gordon “misunderstood” what Creole and Southern dishes really are all about.
“I definitely think he misunderstood this type of food,” manager Tatiana Johnson told SFGate. “He was saying everything used too much spice. I don’t think he has that type of taste palate… The owner decided to stay with what she knows best.”
Based on SFGate’s coverage of Ramsay’s visit to Sandra Dee’s, it feels like the restaurant was getting slighted from the get-go. The 20-year-old restaurant had agreed to participate in a Fox special and have contractors renovate the interior, but they didn’t know Gordon Ramsay was involved until he walked into Sandra Dee’s in disguise, ripped a fake beard off, and began ranting about how bad the restaurant was.
Over the next 24 hours, Ramsay and his crew proceeded to change both the restaurant and the menu. Sandra Dee’s previously extensive selection was cut to three entrees, one dessert, and a few appetizers and sides. Diners found his changes to be “surprisingly limited,” but “pretty good.”
As for the decor, nearly everything, save for some portraits of African-American musicians on the restaurant’s exterior, was changed. The Sacramento Bee describes many of the new decorations as “pig art elements.” Ramsay’s team did also take down signed head shots of both Lil Wayne and Faith Evans, which the restaurant plans to put back up via digital projection. Other than that, most of the remodeling will stay put, but longtime customers will be happy to know that a new look doesn’t mean that the food will change much.
While Gordon’s menu makeover just happened this past weekend, by the time viewers will get to see Sandra Dee’s episode, they’ll never be able to taste what Ramsay came up with for the restaurant.
