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Saturday, June 28, 2008
The "Kitchen Nightmares" Business Model
Like a ten car pile-up with bodies strewing the highway, I can't tear my eyes away from the reality program Kitchen Nightmares. The pain and squeamishness I feel watching people getting their asses kicked by Chef Gordon Ramsay is tempered by the outrage I also feel at watching people letting their restaurants die through inefficiency, intransigence, and sheer stupidity. As disingenuous as the reality show can be, Chef Ramsay and his team have actual knowledge, informed by experience, as to why these businesses are failing, and make an attempt to turn them around. And as dippy as it may seem, I have come to believe that Ramsay's techniques could be used successfully for all kinds of businesses. If he could tone down the restaurant-bred rage and profanity, I believe that Gordon Ramsay could be the progenitor of an improved business reality.
Like most reality shows, the action in Kitchen Nightmares follows a prescribed format. Chef Gordon Ramsay surprises the restaurant employees as they're preparing for dinner service. He talks to the owner about the restaurant's problems. At dinner, Chef Ramsay orders from the menus and judges the meal, unanimously negatively. He rips into the management. Then, during dinner, he stands over the chef and the staff, screaming at them in derision. A major conflict between Chef Ramsay, the owner, the manager, and the chef ensues. Things get uglier as Chef Ramsay issues pointed insults and character assassinations, usually resulting in someone storming out. He returns the next day with a plan that he believes will save the restaurant. The staff tries it, and lo and behold, it starts to work. There are hugs and tears, as Chef Ramsay then gently explains to them, with convincing sensitivity and concern, that they are all wonderful people, and that all he really wanted was for their restaurant to work. Ramsay returns two months later, and if they have adopted his methods, the business is no longer in peril.
Most of Chef Ramsay's business advice is common sense, something which most of the restaurant owners that are selected for the show do not possess. This is revealed by restaurants that are filthy, disorganized, and rely on menus based on frozen and pre-packaged ingredients. Kitchen Nightmares forces them to try something new, or risk televised humiliation. The other strategy that Chef Ramsay relies upon is also straightforward, if brutal, in its simplicity: breaking someone down to build them back up, shaking off their old, bad habits that are the products of the restaurant owners' bizarrely huge egos. Gordon Ramsay is skilled at psychological confrontation. His bullying is perversely effective, and always squirmingly fascinating to watch.
True, the restaurants that are featured on Kitchen Nightmares are going to be the worst examples of business ineptitude in order to provide television drama. I sometimes feel sorry for the poor idiot who is getting torn a new one by Chef Ramsay, but one has to remember that these people signed up for this. Their dual desperation of wanting to be on TV and trying to dodge bankruptcy has caused the reaming, and so it seems warranted.
Wouldn't it be great if Gordon Ramsay expanded his bellowing métier to other enterprises? Wouldn't there be immense satisfaction if he showed up to turn around the swindling realty in your neighborhood? Gordon, scream at the dishonest louts and force them to return rapacious broker fees! Offer discount incentives in order to sell new property! The too cool for school hair salon? Chasten the staff, who desperately cling to their snotty prejudices! They'll make more money if they're nonjudgmental, not just tragically hip. The rude delicatessen? Why should customers endure abuse to order food from them? Constrain them to volunteer in a soup kitchen and see what it's like to have no job at all! And when these deeds are done, how about a big group hug so that they all feel appreciated and validated? Chef Ramsay, please turn your techniques into a compulsory study for all business owners, and save us from occupational ineptitude.
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COMMENTS
yes! add to that, gordon ramsey going into doctors' offices disguised as an overweight woman, setting them straight on how patients are the subjects and not the objects.
or gordon ramsey attending gallery openings, and busting up the little gallerist-sidle-up to the rich collector-looking dewd, by insisting on interpreting the white walls racially.
or gordon ramsey, breaking into the last segment of a hetero date, and observing the poor technique of the hapless male, pointing out to him, with much contempt and profanity, where the clitoris and the g-spot are, and demonstrating how to touch a breast effectively.
I like it!
Posted by: claire at July 14, 2008 6:12 PM
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