Learn about what happened when Gordon Ramsay visited Burger Kitchen in Kitchen Nightmares, and when Burger Kitchen closed.
Burger Kitchen, a Los Angeles restaurant was featured on Season 5 Kitchen Nightmares. Keep checking in to see the latest news. As an owner of a hood cleaning business, we find these episodes fascinating.
Burger Kitchen Episode Recap
Burger Kitchen is only 16 months old, but already it has serious problems with a family in war.
Alan Saffron, the owner of the restaurant, didn’t have enough cash so Daniel Saffron, his son’s inheritance money, gave $250,000.
His Grandfather left him a million dollars as a legacy. He used the money without his consent to help him pursue his dream of opening a restaurant.
Alan does not consider Daniel a partner in his business. He makes important decisions and doesn’t inform Daniel about the restaurant’s finances.
Gordon arrives at the restaurant and is impressed by its central LA location on trendy 3rd Street. He also loves the interior.
He meets with Jen and Alan, who tell him that they’ve been open for 16 months and have lost approximately $6000 each month.
Gordon questions them about why they blame Burger Kitchen staff because they change chefs and servers all the time, as well as multiple menu changes and a Yelp conspiracy.
Alan believes Yelp is ruining the restaurant’s reputation by deleting his 5-star reviews and leaving only negative reviews.
Alan tells Gordon his son is bitter and says that he thinks that the food is a 4/5.
Gordon orders a variety of burgers, including the California and Cowboy Burgers. They are cooked medium rare. Gordon also requests an Australian meat pie.
Both burgers were disappointing. They are tasteless, unappetizing, and have disappointing buns. The Australian Meat Pie is bland and tastes like cat food.
David must cook the Redemption Burger, a fresh burger; while Alan prepares a frozen prepared hamburger.
While they prepare the burgers Gordon visits Daniel at his house. Gordon is told by Daniel that Wendy and his family had a fight and that they don’t respect Wendy.
Gordon is told by Alan that he thinks Wagyu beef will be better than the expensive variety. He also tells Gordon that his father wrote a book.
Daniel is assigned to the evening service to serve the dinner. The food rushes out of the kitchen, only to be returned because they weren’t properly cooked.
David is like a deer caught in the headlights, and is unable keep up. He is fed up with the ticket drama and threatens Daniel.
David returns to the service to collect the money owed to him. David owes $1000 and does not want another cheque to bounce.
Jen and Alan don’t believe they have $1000. They offer to pay him the next day, but he refuses to tell them that he’s not sure they’ll be open the next morning.
Wendy, Daniel’s partner, tells them that he won’t be contributing any more money to the company. Another argument ensues.
Gordon invites them all to a theatre the next day and brings out the Yelpers in an attempt to discredit Alan’s conspiratorial theories.
Yelp has a Community Manager and many diners have posted Yelp Reviews. Alan refuses to believe they are real.
Alan is told by the Yelpers that they provide constructive feedback. One poster claims that he received a reply from Alan and was then met with a barrage of emails.
Alan threatened Yelp reviewers with violence and threatened to report one of them to the LAPD Hate Crime Division.
Ramsay finally gets across to a fellow restaurant owner about how to deal with Yelp. He says that he must accept criticisms and learn from them.
Gordon must address the next problem, the family relationships. Daniel says that mistrust is caused by them taking his money.
Alan claims that Daniel had put $250,000 in his money, while Daniel said that Daniel had put $250,000 in his. But Daniel reminds him that Daniel didn’t put any money in and that he did not have permission to use it. He then took the money.
Gordon presents a new recipe for burgers that uses fresh ground beef instead of the Wagyu beef frozen.
The menu has been shortened and updated. It will include new burgers, including a lamb burger, and side dishes like vodka battered onion rings or parmesan fries.
They will also make their own barbecue sauce. Staff sample the new menu, and they are impressed by the new food.
Relaunch
Gordon surprises us with a surprise: The restaurant will be packed full of writers from Yelp and Urban Spoon.
Daniel starts off well, but Alan can’t help but get in the kitchen and distract Daniel.
This causes some food to be returned to the Chow Table because it is undercooked. Gordon then loses it. Alan urges Daniel to get out of the kitchen and let Daniel do the cooking.
Gordon and Alan hear that Daniel did an excellent job with the relaunch, while Daniel says that Daniel is doing an excellent job running the restaurant.
Jen and Alan promise to let Daniel manage the restaurant, and that they will not interfere with the show.
Burger Kitchen Up-to-Date
The restaurant was reported to have been sold by its previous owners in August 2011. In October 2011, the brand had changed hands and a smaller menu was created. A new team of chefs and management were also hired.
Customers reported that Gordon’s burgers were not on the Yelp review list.
In mid-January, there was a sign indicating that the restaurant was available for lease. The restaurant closed in February.
Comment Section
This episode is much more comprehensible if you read the book tour of the grandfather’s and father’s books.
The sequel is worse. Although the grandfather had left Alan money, Danny didn’t get any. Instead, he took Danny’s money. Who is the greater SATAN
It was so hard to feel sorry for him. His dad took his money and it’s not like other children who feel pressured to give money to their families.
I wish Daniel would have pressed charges for the money he took. His father was a straight-up felon.
Everyone should be aware that her mother, spiteful and selfish as she may have been, clearly has prescription drug issues. Close up, take a look at her eyes. This is why David, the chef, was so insistent about the hole Prozac and why she was so defensive about it. It is also interesting to see how she looks at the remodel to find what she can sell to make quick cash. The fact that the parents didn’t have the money, but wanted their son to spend it all was what really bothered me. Pay attention to the discussion in the restaurant about finances. They knew he had $160,000 in his bank account. They are manipulating thieves to get the money they think they should have received from the inheritance. They are the worst type of people. I hope the son will read this and take the time to listen to someone who understands ……… Get out of their way and let them die. You are responsible for your own life, and you have a family to start. Good luck.
Evidently, he had endured a lot of nonsense by this point. Sometimes, narcissists push the insane into acting in ways that they wouldn’t normally. Since they opened 18 months earlier, he was almost the 20th chef. This is what law enforcement calls a clue. It was not the same with him as it was with them.
The episode was interesting. I hope that the father is not sentenced. Manager of a trust fund does not mean that you can take whatever money you like and invest in your pet projects. Because the mother and father knew how much the son was taking advantage of them, the girlfriend couldn’t get along. This was especially true since the son wasn’t a half-owner. They said that they did not have to pay their son, as he was worth 160 grand. And they wanted him to also pay the chef’s wage. After it was revealed that their child had been robbed of money, I don’t believe Chef Ramsey owed the parents any respect.
It’s amazing that this place survived as long as it did. I’ve never seen people so disconnected from reality. Jen and Alan seem to need mental health professionals. He should have sued his father to recover the quarter million dollars he took from him. Only the chef seemed to be able to see what was going on.
