Comments on: MBA By TV: Business Lessons Learned From Watching Kitchen Nightmares

By: NFB

NFB — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:33:10 +0000

Strong analysis. I’ve watched all the U.S. Kitchen Nightmares and some of the British — great entertainment all around. Now, a couple years later, it’s interesting how many of the former Kitchen Nightmares restaurants are now closed. All the restaurants Ramsay visits are hugely in debt – I remember being curious, do so many places close because Ramsay didn’t help that much, or were they just so far in the hole already there was nothing he could do about it? I collected some data and wrote a short blog on the results. It can be found here: http://unfashionablyeconomic.blogspot.com/2010/07/kitchen-nightmares-makeover-or-yelling.html

I’m just happy that even though all these episodes were broadcast years ago, Fox still left them on their website to view for free. I might be sending Rupert Murdoch some fan mail later for that

By: Wally Bock

Wally Bock — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:21:07 +0000

Kitchen Nightmares is starting to develop some buzz as one of the best how-to business shows on the web. Thanks for such a thorough post, Nikole. And thanks to Ironman for sharing info on the British version of the show.

By: jack

jack — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 05:15:17 +0000

I love this article.I’m running a restuarant.i hope these article Helps me to reach my goal

By: Kim Guymon

Kim Guymon — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:21:40 +0000

I LOVE Kitchen Nightmares. It SHOULD be required watching for anyone with a struggling business or thinking about starting a business of any kind that deals with the public. I have blogged about it as it would relate to struggling retail stores in my industry. So many businesses are on the brink of failure but have no idea WHY they are failing.

By: Lord

Lord — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:04:07 +0000

I find him incredibly creative in how he approaches how to communicate with the staff. Rarely does he take the direct approach of telling them what they don’t want to hear, but finds a way to put them in the situation where they realize the problem for themselves. It is fun to ask oneself how one would go about this, and then see the course he selects.

By: Nikole Gipps

Nikole Gipps — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:35:49 +0000

I totally agree that follow-up is of vital importance … and that FOX Viewers in the US love their drama! They also tend to portray him as cold and harsh … when in reality he’s a loving family man as well as a restaurant business whiz. Thanks for the tip!

By: Ironman

Ironman — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:43:08 +0000

The biggest problem with Fox’ version of Kitchen Nightmares is that they try to turn up the dramatic aspects way more than they need to. If you get a chance, watch the original British version – Ramsey is still aggressive in his methods, but definitely comes off more as the restaurant business turnaround expert that he is.

Aside from that, the biggest advantage of the British version of the show is that Ramsey comes back after several months to review how well all changes made have taken hold. The U.S. version makes this kind of consulting seem like a fire-and-forget one-time-only exercise. In the real world, the inevitable outcome of that approach is disaster.