(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 2 | View All Season 2 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: August 18, 2014
Calumet Inn Address: 104 Main St W, Pipestone, MN 56164
Episode Recap
Calumet Inn was a Pipestone, Minnesota hotel featured on Season 2 of Hotel Hell.
Though the Calumet Inn Hotel Hell episode aired in August 2014, the actual filming and visit from Gordon Ramsay took place much earlier in 2013.
It was Season 2 Episode 5 of Hotel Hell.
In this episode of Hotel Hell, Gordon Ramsay visits the historic Calumet Inn, which is in Pipestone, Minnesota.
Pipestone is a small city with a population of under 5,000 people.
The nearest city is Sioux Falls and it’s about a 3.5 hour drive from Minneapolis.
Sisters Rina and Vanda Smrkovski own the hotel.
The hotel is historic and was built in the 1880s.
The sisters’ father bought them the hotel as a present.
Rina couldn’t handle the work and left for six weeks.
Vanda was left to run the hotel when Rina left, and she sleeps in every day until 3:00 PM.
Mandy Thompson is the general manager, but the sisters think they know best and have removed her from all managerial duties.
Obviously they might not really know best, given the fact that the Calumet Inn Hotel Hell episode exists and things were so bad that they had to call in Gordon Ramsay and his team.
The girl’s mom and dad have moved into the hotel to help the girls because things have gotten so bad.
Their mother misses her home and works seven days a week to support the hotel.
When Gordon arrives, he is greeted by an empty front desk.
Mandy eventually apologizes, saying she is the only staff member on duty.
When Gordon meets the owners, they complain about Mandy.
They take Gordon to his room, where he finds an old fridge and a pathetic rail for clothes.
Vanda is responsible for the front desk and the restaurant.
Rina still has no idea what her role in the hotel is.
The owners blame the staff and their attitude for the declining hotel. Maybe take some responsibility? Geez! You’re the owners…
Gordon goes for lunch at the restaurant and is waited on by Jocelyn, who has been there for two years.
The menu is vast, but the kitchen only has two head chefs.
After sitting down, Gordon Ramsay orders soup and a fish meal.
During lunch, Gordon sees Mandy, who complains about the owners.
The food Gordon is served is disgusting, which is probably no surprise if you’re a fan of Hotel Hell and/or Kitchen Nightmares.
The staff and Gordon Ramsay gather together for a meeting.
The chef tells Gordon she loves to cook, but the owners make it hard to love her job.
Rina and Vanda get defensive and say the staff is to blame.
The owners threaten not to pay the team, which is super messed up (and totally not legal).
Guests begin checking in to the hotel, and many complain about the room and the food.
Rina runs away to cry to her mother, Rita, who explains it is normal for Rina to do this when things get rough.
Gordon calls another staff meeting.
The sisters condemn Mandy, who lashes out at them and walks out.
Gordon tells the sisters it is time to step up as they are the reason for the hotel’s decline.
He then gets into some more practical fixes based on the issues that Calumet Inn customers face.
The hotel has no gym; Gordon uses the gym down the street.
One guest complains to the owners about the dust in her room and how she now feels sick from it.
During this time, Gordon goes to see Mandy and asks her to come back, and she says she isn’t sure.
Gordon then calls a family meeting. He tells them to bring in a manager or sell it.
The sisters tell their staff that Mandy will run the hotel the next day, and they are stepping back.
Gordon reveals all the changes he has made.
There is even a new gym.
The sisters interfere, and Gordon calls them a car to leave the staff alone.
So was the Hotel Hell Calumet Inn visit a long-term success?
Keep reading to learn what happened next and if this Pipestone MN hotel is still open in 2025.
Calumet Inn Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped the Calumet Inn Hotel Hell episode, let’s talk about what happened after Gordon Ramsay left Pipestone, MN and these two sisters behind.
Things started off well, as the Calumet Inn owners said they had significantly improved their revenue after appearing on Hotel Hell.
However, they sold the hotel shortly after in mid-2015, just about a year after the Calumet Inn Hotel Hell episode aired on TV (though it was longer than that since the actual visit from Gordon Ramsay happened).
At first, the Smrkovski family sold the hotel to three Texas men for $800,000 on a deed.
However, that sale didn’t do well and eventually fell through after the Texas men gave back the hotel.
Then, the Smrkovski sold it again to a new owner named Tammy Grubbs. This time, the sale price was for just $500,000.
As of 2022, Tammy Grubbs is still the current owner.
Tammy has had some issues with the city when it comes to repairing failing parts of the building.
This culminated in the city condemning the hotel in early 2020.
However, after making the relevant repairs, Tammy was able to get the city to give Calumet Inn its clearance again and the hotel reopened about a month after the closure.
Is Calumet Inn from Hotel Hell still open?
As of May 2022, Calumet Inn is closed because of new issues with the Pipestone City government.
Prior to this closure, it was already operating under new ownership as the hotel has been sold multiple times since appearing on Hotel Hell.
The new owners do have plans to reopen the hotel if possible, but they’re not sure if they’ll be able to do that.
The hotel was closed in May 2022 because the Pipestone government condemned the historic building that houses the hotel again.
This is after the building was already condemned in 2020, though the hotel was able to make those repairs and reopen shortly thereafter.
The new owners do not believe this is justified and wrote a lengthy Facebook post explaining what’s happening.
You can view the full May 6, 2022 Facebook post here, but here’s a quick excerpt:
I am sad to announce that our beloved Calumet was forced to close this week.
We hope that this is temporary, but do not foresee getting back open by the summer.
I wish we could say that this closure is a direct result of the pandemic.
However, the situation we find ourselves in has nothing to do with any virus.
This situation is very much the result of the nightmarish domino effect triggered on March 10, 2020, when certain Pipestone City officials (particularly Building Official Doug Fortune and City Administrator Jeff Jones) illegally condemned our historic landmark on wildly false pretenses all while violating a long list of Due Process laws at the City, State and Constitutional levels.
The bureaucratic and financial chaos resulting from this extreme/unnecessary/unlawful action created such a gnarly obstacle course which we are STILL trying to crawl out of.
To the point where I STILL am not able to fully operate the Calumet with my own LLC and have had to depend on 3rd party for help.
The situation is a giant ball of yarn that I am still trying to untangle on a daily basis.
Again, the new Calumet Inn owners are planning to reopen the hotel if possible.
But it remains to be seen if that will happen.
They were successful in 2020, but this seems like a new situation.
As I’m updating this in May 2023, the hotel is still closed, so it’s doubtful if they will be able to make Calumet Inn open again.
However, Vanda Smrkovski and the new Calumet Inn owner – Tammy Grubbs – are suing the city of Pipestone about the closure.
They filed the lawsuit in November 2022 – here’s an article about it.
As of February 2023, the lawsuit is moving towards a trial according to this article, so there might be changes soon.
For now, I’m marking Calumet Inn closed.
If they’re able to reopen, I will mark it open again.
Here’s what the Calumet Inn Minnesota location looks like in the most recent picture from Google Maps street view.
The most recent picture is from October 2021, which is before the city forced Calumet Inn to close.
If you’re in the Pipestone, MN area and you want to stay a night at the Calumet Inn, you can book a room via the official Calumet Inn website or popular third-party booking platforms like Booking.com.
The prices are generally pretty affordable. For example, I was looking at the rates on Booking.com and the cheapest room costs just $72.
Calumet Inn reviews after Hotel Hell
Before the city condemned the building, reviews for the hotel were generally good as it had a 4 star rating on TripAdvisor and a 7.1 star rating (out of 10) on Booking.com.
Here’s a sampling of a few Calumet Inn reviews from after the visit from Gordon Ramsay…
Example review #1:
Example review #2:
Example review #3:
While the overall reviews are more positive than negative, there are definitely some negative reviews, such as this one from October 2019.
What happened to Mandy from Calumet Inn?
Mandy Thompson was the hotel general manager in the Calumet Inn episode.
She no longer works at Calumet Inn.
Instead, she’s working at another business called Pipestone System.
Final thoughts on Calumet Inn
Overall, Calumet Inn is closed, but it’s definitely not Gordon’s fault because the city is forcing the hotel to close.
As of 2023, the Calumet Inn Minnesota location seems to still be occupied by the closed hotel.
If anything changes, I’ll be sure to edit this post.
That wraps up my Calumet Inn Hotel Hell update.
Calumet Inn was the only Minnesota Hotel Hell episode from the show.
If you want to see some other nearby hotels that Gordon Ramsay visited, you can check out my updates for Angler’s Lodge in Island Park ID, The Roosevelt Inn in Coeur d’Alene, ID, and Landoll’s Mohican Castle in Loudonville, OH.
Thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g60937-d143325-Reviews-Historic_Calumet_Inn-Pipestone_Minnesota.htmlhttps://www.facebook.com/historiccalumet.inn/
What did you think about the episode? I'd love it if you shared your thoughts on the episode in the comments below!
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And don't forget to check out the full Hotel Hell open and closed list.
Last updated: 2023-05-10 07:20
I wonder what Vanda and Rita are doing now?
Probably sitting around, I’m thinking they’re not very motivated about working.
Too lazy to do anything, I’m thinking.
What I want to know is how long those goldfish survived for
Lol same
Yes! I have been looking for that answer, lol.
Who cares …probably acting ridiculous and entitled as usual….Vanda wasn’t as bad as Rita, but damn, I’ve never seen such immature entitlement in my life !
Agreed! What wrecks! These girls are a perfect cautionary tale of young adults gone wrong.
Vanda may not have been too bad on camera but behind the scenes she comes off the worst. Have you seen her blogs about it? Claiming Gordon was a fuckup and all the hotel’s issues were made up and that the conflicts were an act put on for the camera. http://web.archive.org/web/20170722183509/http://www.vandalizedsmirks.com/blog/life-lessons-and-confessions-part-3
Considering the hotel showed up on another rescue show (Resort Rescue) the next year, they’re either starved for attention or more incompetent than expected.
That link goes to a blank page.
The truth about the hotel is that it’s incredibly boring and in the middle of nowhere.
I lived in that town most of my life. It’ll never be a highly successful business simply because the little town doesn’t really need it as a hotel ( there are more modern hotels) and the town doesn’t need it as a restaurant. (The locals there eat burgers and steaks, not Gordan Ramsay food) Ramsay’s menu was very expensive, and was mostly Thai food… not at all sustainable in a local market of pig farmers. (That’s what pipestone does. They’re pretty great at it too…)
Mandy Thompson played a role on that TV show just to make something interesting out of an otherwise incredibly boring business. She wasn’t bad per se, just not what the show presented her as.
Vanda, the owner, took a bullet and made an ass of herself and her sister in the interest of sparking a little publicity. The fact that people believed everything they saw on TV is ridiculous.
Makes sense, thanks.
Visiting their goldfish burial site weekly.
Luckily visiting hours are after naptime.
I’m sorry but there is no way in hell that anybody is going to illegally force close a place I’ve never heard of such a stupid thing.
To begin with why in God’s name would someone do that, I think they’re lying frankly. I have a feeling the new owners cut corners and the repairs fell through.
Suing the town is a huge waste of everyone’s time and their money because I seriously doubt that they have enough evidence to show that there was a corrupt official.
I hope the owners loose they have a very crappy outlook on the town, the people and to single out a person like that is bullying and it’s childish and very Petty and that does not make them look good in my eyes and many other eyes I’m sure
You’re dead wrong.
The new Owner, Tammy Grubbs, was shut down several times by a local zoning coordinator named Jeff Fortune. The business was struggling, and Fortune tried to litigate them into failure in a thinly veiled attempt to bankrupt the business that his family member was interested in buying. That sort of crooked politics actually DOES HAPPEN in tiny little pounk towns. Self-important old men think THEY ARE the law and manipulate circumstances to their advantage.
Vanda is listed in the suit simply because she still maintains some degree of ownership… but the real owner is Tammy Grubbs.
That woman has fought tooth and nail for that place, and the entire town is impressed by her tenacity.
This is the first episode I’ve really ever wanted to comment on. I truly hope these two sisters are penniless and broke. They deserve nothing but scorn. Simply horrible human beings.
Nothing is my guess… or fake crying
I wonder if the GM is still the GM. I hope because I was rooting for her!
That one sister was horrible. She needed to be on medication. I’ve never seen anyone so incapable and emotionally weak in my whole life.
She was extremely spoiled that’s why she was very weak-willed
If you look at the hotel’s facebook page, it has been forced closed by the city of Pipestone again.
Thanks for letting me know! I will mark it as closed for now. If they’re able to get the building to be un-condemned again then I will update the status. But for now, it’s not looking good for Calumet Inn. Can’t really blame Gordon Ramsay for this though.
Yeah because obviously they cut corners and didn’t fix the place up right there is no reason why anybody would illegally close the place down there’d be no way to cover that up
Mandy was the one with talent and grit. Damn, I hope someone with resources recognizes her attributes and gives her an opportunity.
Great update, except for the goldfish, they didn’t make it out of the taxi alive ..! How sad that people have to work for other people who do not care ..!
Wow what unpleasant people they were. When NONE of your staff like you that should tell you something.
Mandy Thompson was a dynamo of energy. I am surprised Ramsay did not hire her. He seemed to like her a lot!!
But hire her for what?
Okay so if you read the article about the hotel being closed by the city, it says Rina is the owner of the property and that other lady Grubbs purchased the deed to the hotel in 2018.
Meaning Rina is probably a real estate investor or more realistically a slumlord… slumlady…
The Tripadviser review posted here said fire and smoking started coming out of the radiator when they turned it on, and the front desk said that happens all the time, so they checked out in the middle of the night fearing it might burn down.
Well, the city closed it down for being a fire hazard among other things…. nuff said..
Is Vanda trans? I found tweets by Rina from around 2010 (years before Hotel Hell, so unlikely to be an impersonator) that refers to an @vsmirk (since deleted, taken over by a different account since 2014) as a “brother” and a “he”. https://twitter.com/RinaSmrkovski/status/9350312866 There was no other mention of other Smrkovski siblings on the show.
No, they had a brother called Vania, so that tweet was referring to him. You can find his obituary too. Note that the obit does mention sisters Vanda and Rina. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/knoxnews/name/vania-smrkovski-obituary?id=12364276
apparently no one read the whole thing, they don’t own it any more! and the issues are on a new owner every one is still commenting on the episode ONLY!
When I was reading the articles about the pending lawsuit the current owners filed against the city, I noticed something interesting: both articles reference Vanda (from the episode) by name as a co-owner.
Which is weird, because her father sold the hotel. (Twice, technically.)
Since they’ve filed a legal action, the docket is public record and super easy to look up: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/minnesota/mndce/0:2022cv02881/204328 …And, lo and behold, yeah, Vanda is one of the co-owners filing to keep it open.
This can’t be, can it? The spoiled younger sister? The smug micro-manager? The one that they literally referred to as “the sociopath” up top?
Ahh, there are LLCs listed on that docket! One of them have to be her father, right? Well, turns out LLCs are very public information too…and after a quick peek at the state’s website, it turns out that, yeah, one of those LLCs is run by Vanda. Not her father, not her mother, but sleep-til-3-then-nap-at-the-desk Vanda.
Seems the younger sister grew up a little (or got enough distance from the show, depending on how much creative license you think the producers take) and has actually helped to successfully run that hotel for years, up until the city shut it down… and has been fighting to keep it open ever since. Total opposite of what we saw in the episode. (Yeah, it’s still possible that she’s a completely silent partner and just helped with financing. But even then, it means she’s likely had the reins for years and hasn’t steered it into a wall. Plus, it means she still has the drive to fight for it. So yeah, even then, big growth, bully for her.)
Either way, with how she comes off in that episode, I could definitely understand why Vanda might want to keep her name out of the spotlight. Still, I think it’s noteworthy that, years later, Vanda is one of the current owners, and is fighting to save it.
You got me curious as to whether or not Rina was involved in the second show that featured the hotel, so I just watched that episode of Resort Rescue (ep 9), which aired in 2015. Rina is not on it in person. They do refer to her and show pics of her, explaining how Vanda came to be the owner of the hotel. It turns out Vanda had been traveling the world for a year and a half and was ready to apply to the Peace Corps when her parents called and told her they were buying the hotel. She came home to help out. I can definitely see why she would have some attitude about it because her parents put their entire retirement into the hotel. There was also some sort of rumor that helped drive her sister away for those 3 months.
It seems that since Hotel Hell, Vanda is the only person in the family running and working at the hotel. Resort Rescue made it seem like she was also the GM. I don’t think any of the staff featured were on Hotel Hell. Vanda was much more pleasant and did not blame any of her staff for the hotel’s shortcomings.
I actually wish her luck with her issues with the city. She seems to really care that her parents have some sort of retirement savings so I hope she does whatever she needs to do to be successful. No idea what Rina’s up to but she’s lucky to have a sister that stepped up to clean up her mess.
Seriously? I have to wonder if you’re her, because those two creatures were the WORST!!! lazy, lazy, spoiled brats with absolutely no concerns for others; sociopaths.
Lol.
You realize reality TV is more TV than it is reality, right
Hopefully Mandy is doing well. To be frank, it looked like working for those two had driven her to serious self-medication.