Location: Pomona, California
An upscale looking restaurant suffers from low quality food, an inexperienced head chef who doesn't take the job seriously, and an employee with sticky fingers aptly named "Buzzard".
Tropes
- Blatant Lies: Buzzard claims to not have known what happened to the brownie they cooked right after the camera shows him taking a huge bite of it.
- Loveable Rogue: The employee who constantly steals food and wine from the kitchen tries to play one (other staff even call him 'Buzzard') but Gordon's having none of it, pointing out that stealing from a financially hard-up restaurant is really not cool. Once he's caught on camera and confronted, Lela soon fires him.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Ricky claims that he's not the only one responsible for the restaurant's failure. Seeing as Buzzard was a serial thief, the other kitchen staff were joking around on shift, and even the most competent staff member, Tabitha, would scare customers by yelling at Ricky so loud the customers would hear her, you can't exactly argue with him.
- Medal of Dishonor: Daniel, the line cook nicknamed "Buzzard" due to the fact that he constantly steals from the restaurant.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Gordon isn't too impressed with head chef Ricky. He blindfolds both Ricky and sous chef Lex and runs both through a simple taste test of two meats- Lex identifies both correctly but Ricky fails (they were chicken and steak). On this basis, Gordon makes Lex the new head chef for relaunch night and demotes Ricky to sous chef. For some reason, one would think that someone as experienced at this as Gordon Ramsay would consider kitchen experience as a factor rather than a taste test, because Lex proved unable to run the kitchen, to get any food out (to make things worse, the town's mayor was in the restaurant) and lacked any real experience, and eventually walked out due to the stress. Ricky decides to take charge and get the kitchen back into order, because he's actually run a kitchen before, and somehow saves the reopening night. Lex did return but was demoted. Even Gordon later admitted that he'd screwed up.
- Sudden Downer Ending: The episode ends with the titular restaurant re-opening to critical and commercial success, and Gordon leaving the restaurant with the staff in good spirits. Things seem to look up for the restaurant, until the episode reveals what happened five months later...Narrator: In spite of business picking up at the restaurant, Lela's debts were too large to overcome, and she was forced to close her doors.
