Gordon Ramsay's 24 Hours to Hell and Back is a Creator-Driven Successor to Kitchen Nightmares, starring celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay as he visits struggling restaurants and attempts to turn them around in only twenty-four hours. It aired on FOX from 2018 to 2020.
The show is considerably more condensed than Kitchen Nightmares was, due to the time Gordon and his team spend at the restaurant reducing from an entire week to a single day's work. Unlike Nightmares, Gordon's first visit to the restaurant is undercover, sporting a disguise and accompanied by locals or actors. The menu revamp usually happens off-site on a tractor trailer kitchen, as the restaurant's renovation happens simultaneously, while the new dishes are being prepared.
Episodes usually end with follow-ups submitted by the owners and employees themselves some three months after filming, rather than revisits from Gordon or follow-ups from the camera crews.
The show ceased production due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Tropes pertaining to the show in general:
- All for Nothing: A few restaurants revert away all the work Gordon Ramsay has done almost immediately, La Serenata and Boardwalk 11 are particular offenders, the former ending up stopping paying their son for his cooking, and the latter demoting the best employees and re-hiring the worst ones fired during the episode's runtime.
- Big Badass Rig: Gordon's "Hell On Wheels" truck has a trailer that converts into a state of the art kitchen with a big TV screen on top. The screen's used to replay the secret footage of the restaurant to staff and customers early in each episode. As the restaurant is normally inaccessible while it's being redecorated, the truck kitchen then gets used to train the chefs on the new menu.
- Dagwood Sandwich: The "Goon Burger" at Shanty On 19th.
- Downer Ending: As mentioned above, some owners will just revert the changes Ramsay has made for them and thus, their problems will return to the restaurant.
- Jerkass: Oh yes does this show have them but a couple stand out.
- Vinny from Bella Gianna's is very critical of every small mistake and pins everything on the staff even when it seems clear that he’s in the wrong. He's so focused on losing the money his father's been putting into the business, and how much he thinks he's disappointed his dad, that he's oblivious to how much his behaviour hurts everyone else.
- Lou from Blend on Main is as Gordon himself states, a “dinosaur” that is utterly sexist to both his female staff but even his own wife. And like Vinny, he likes to pin the blame on the people around him when he gets called out.
- Never My Fault: Vinny from the very first episode is a very vocal example of this trope.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Some of Gordon's disguises aren't the best, and he manages to get recognized by the staff. Special note to Blend On Main, where Gordon's setup was spotted ahead of time, so he put his friend and fellow chef James Avery (previously seen on episodes of Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares) in a blatant and horrifying disguise to draw attention while Gordon himself took a look at the state of the restaurant and tasted food while posing as a cameraman, wearing nothing but a false beard and wig yet never being spotted.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the promotional posters shows Ramsay with three knives jutting out between the fingers of each hand, mirroring one of the classic Wolverine poses, with the knives in place of the usual Wolverine Claws.
- Ramsay mentions that the car and disguise he uses for the first 'family' visit to Bella Gianna's is inspired by National Lampoon's Vacation.
- Split Screen: The series uses split screen, usually via a wipe, to contrast scenes, provide a quick snapshot montage of a restaurant's situation, show the countdown alongside the progress, or sometimes show exactly the same events from multiple perspectives.
- Stealing from the Till: Geraldine, Catfish Cabin's general manager, is caught on camera taking money out of the register and pocketing it. She is promptly fired by the owners.
- Very Special Episode: The series finale, "Save Our Town", features Gordon visiting the town of Ellicott City, Maryland, whose main street had been devastated by floods in both 2016 and 2018, to revamp not one but three restaurants.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Episodes tend to end with an update from the restaurant several months later, with a glimpse of how the main staff members are doing and a few words about how well business is going.
