(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 1 | View All Season 1 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: August 13, 2012
Juniper Hill Inn Address: 153 Pembroke Rd Windsor, VT 05089
Episode Recap
Juniper Hill Inn was a Windsor, Vermont hotel featured on Season 1 of Hotel Hell. It was the first hotel that Gordon Ramsay ever visited.
Though the Juniper Hill Inn Hotel Hell episode aired in August 2012, the actual filming and visit from Gordon Ramsay took place much earlier in February 2012.
It was Season 1 Episode 1 of Hotel Hell.
Juniper Hill Inn is a 100-year-old hotel located in Windsor, VT.
It’s owned by Robert Dean II and his boyfriend, Ari Nikki, who purchased the hotel in 2005 for $1.6 million.
That means they’ve owned the Juniper Hill Inn Vermont location for around 7 years at the time of the visit from Gordon Ramsay.
The inn itself is 15,000 square feet and it’s surrounded by 14 acres of beautiful property.
As a result of the steep purchase price, they are deep in debt. However, Robert still lives a life of luxury.
His friends stay at the hotel and eat there for free, which isn’t a good plan for a serious business.
When Gordon Ramsay arrives at the hotel, he loves the beauty of the exterior but is surprised to find the front door locked.
Gordon goes to his room, but it smells terrible.
To avoid the problem, he asks the front desk to move him to another room.
He is told the restaurant is only open for breakfast and dinner when he goes to eat lunch.
You have to request a meal during the day, which is a bit odd.
Gordon meets with staff member Barbara who says she is rarely paid on time.
This is kind of a slap in the face given the life that Robert and Ari are living.
There are no prices on the menu because they have a Price-fixed dinner menu for $59 a person.
The food Gordon orders is smelly and foul tasting.
Let’s be honest, that’s pretty much par for the course for a Hotel Hell episode.
Robert Dean II tells Gordon Ramsay that locals do not visit the restaurant.
Gordon enjoys his dessert but finds out that it is bought somewhere else, so the one thing he likes doesn’t even come from Juniper Hill Inn. Lol!
Gordon leaves to visit the former chef, Ida. She said Robert had stopped answering the phone.
She was never paid on time and had to purchase items for the hotel on her credit card.
Gordon asks if she wants to return after the renovations, but she declines.
Ari Nikki meets with Gordon and confesses he poured his life savings into the hotel, and Robert spends all of his money on antiques.
With a $1.6 million purchase price, it’s no wonder that there’s a lot of stress.
Gordon watches a dinner service, and it is complete chaos. Gordon confronts Robert about his friends not tipping, but Robert takes the tips they left for the servers.
The antiques are not worth much money because they are in poor condition.
Gordon tells Robert he should sell the Juniper Hill Inn if he isn’t going to take his advice.
Gordon asks the chef to make three dishes for a new menu, and Robert is impressed.
The owners apologize to the employees for not tipping them on time.
Gordon updates the hotel.
It is now warm and welcoming.
He also improved the dining room.
He left the rooms alone because they were in good condition, but he did turn the second dining room into a bar named the Blue Bar.
During the relaunch, they do a Sunday dinner service.
Everything is going great until a staff member asks Ari and Robert to remove their poodle.
Then there is a fight.
Gordon makes Robert apologize for yelling.
The kitchen struggles, but they get back on track after a quick pep talk.
The locals and a hotel inspector love the changes made to the hotel.
So was the Juniper Hill Inn Hotel Hell episode a success?
Keep reading my update to learn what happened next and how the Windsor, Vermont hotel is doing today.
Juniper Hill Inn Update - What Happened Next?
So – was Gordon’s rescue of the Juniper Hill Inn a long-term success?
Let’s talk about what happened after Gordon Ramsay left Windsor, Vermont.
Unfortunately, there were a lot of problems.
There was a lot of staff turnover that happened between the Hotel Hell visit and the actual airing on TV, which means that a lot of the staff you saw on the episode (including the chef) weren’t there anymore.
Additionally, the reviews were still generally poor even after the changes made by Gordon Ramsay.
As you’d expect, Ari and Robert were not really happy with how they were portrayed in the show.
At first, they seemed somewhat appreciative, posting the following message on Facebook around the time that the episode aired on TV:
However, when I was browsing around for this update, I found a response to a Yelp review from Robert Dean that shows how that first post was a bit “PR”, so to speak.
Here’s a snippet of the most relevant part, but I’ll post the full screenshot below:
I also wish to point out that the Gordon Ramsay show “Hotel Hell” in NO WAY reflects on what or who we are as people or as a business.
It is easy to create a show out of 300 plus hours of filming and edit it to death to insure that the host and network make great money and top ratings.
We certainly are not perfect and had things that we needed to work on in addition to facing many personal issues that certainly affected our business including two catastrophic illnesses in our family, aging family members for whom we care and the loss of my partners job.
We CARE a great deal about our guests and the historic mansion in which the inn is housed and we invite you to see for yourself what Juniper Hill Inn is all about.
We have also recently brought on new Innkeeper’s who share our passion for this place and all of us hope that you will try again to reach us.
Juniper Hill Inn has won MANY awards and our personal issues are, God willing, mostly behind us.
We look forward to a bright future and regaining what we were and hope that everyone reading this will realize that “reality” television often is not about “reality” but ratings and profits for the hosts and the networks.
As you can see in that screenshot above, the Juniper Hill Inn was having a lot of issues with falling behind on payments, which makes sense given what you’ll learn next…
Is Juniper Hill Inn from Hotel Hell still open?
Juniper Hill Inn closed for good in April 2013, just a year after the Juniper Hill Inn Hotel Hell episode aired on TV.
The hotel closed because it was foreclosed on by the bank due to the large debt incurred by Robert and Ari.
At the time of the closure, the Juniper Hill Inn owners were six months behind on their mortgage and owed the bank a whopping $1,163,355.
Beyond the debt to the bank, they also owed the city of Windsor $80,000-$85,000 in back taxes.
The bar was sold to new owners in 2014 at a foreclosure auction for just $405,000 after initially starting the bidding at $1 million.
As of 2024, the hotel is doing business at the same location under new ownership and a new name.
It’s now called the Windsor Mansion Inn.
Reviews for Windsor Mansion Inn seem very good as it has a perfect 5-star rating on TripAdvisor.
Room rates for the Windsor Mansion Inn start at around $150 per night.
Here’s the Windsor Mansion Inn TripAdvisor page, but keep reading to learn what happened to the Juniper Hill Inn owners.
In an interesting note, the owner of the new Windsor Mansion Inn also seems like an interesting character.
In November 2016, the Windsor Mansion Inn owner was charged with firing a bullet through his ex-employee’s truck (the employee was not shot).
Here’s a short article from the local press about this.
What happened to the owners of Juniper Hill Inn?
In addition to the debt that the Juniper Hill Inn owners incurred (which led to the closure of the hotel, as I detailed above), the owners had a number of other issues, including legal problems.
Ari Nikki, one of the co-owners, was arrested in 2015 and charged with an alleged assault on a law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County, FL.
However, the charges were eventually dropped, though Ari did end up spending some time in jail before that happened.
You can see the arrest report here.
So I’m not totally sure what happened here. It doesn’t seem that serious if they eventually dropped the charges.
Robert Dean was the one who posted the bond for Ari in that arrest, so it appears that they’re still together.
As of 2022, Ari Nikki seems to be living in Palm Beach, Florida.
I don’t know much beyond that, though, as Robert and Ari don’t seem to have much of an online presence.
Are Ari Nikki and Robert Dean II still a couple?
As far as I can tell, Ari and Robert are still together.
Ari’s Facebook profile lists him as in a relationship since 2004, which would be his relationship with Robert Dean II.
As I mentioned above, they moved down to Florida together.
Fun fact – Gordon Ramsay didn’t actually stay at Juniper Hill Inn during filming
Thank you to the commenter below who alerted me to this story…
While Gordon spent a lot of time working at Juniper Hill Inn during the Juniper Hill Inn Hotel Hell episode, Gordon didn’t actually sleep there.
Instead, he stayed at a nearby hotel named Snapdragon Inn.
I guess the Juniper Hill Inn Vermont location wasn’t up to Gordon’s standards?
At least not before Gordon got to work his magic on the inn.
If you want to learn more and see some behind-the-scenes pictures and videos, you can check out this blog post on the Snapdragon Inn website.
Update – the Snapdragon Inn website is expired now.
However, I’ve added a screenshot of the blog post below:
You can also find it on archive.org.
Final thoughts on Juniper Hill Inn
To recap everything above, Juniper Hill Inn closed in 2013 because of major debt, owing the bank $1.1 million and the city of Windsor, VT $80,000.
The hotel was sold to new owners.
As of 2024, the old Juniper Hill Vermont location is occupied by a new hotel called the Windsor Mansion Inn.
Robert Dean and Ari Nikki, the Juniper Hill Inn owners, seem to have moved to Florida after selling the hotel in 2014.
Though Ari seems to have had a run-in with the police in 2015, the charges were dropped so it doesn’t seem that serious.
If you know anything else, please let me know in the comments.
And if you still have any questions that you want me to research, please let me know that, too.
👉 Read other Season 1 updates:
- Next episode – Cambridge Hotel update
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/juniper-hill-inn-windsor-2https://www.facebook.com/Juniper-Hill-Inn-73588686180/
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And don't forget to check out the full Hotel Hell open and closed list.
Last updated: 2024-03-09 05:20
What happened to the basement pigs?
first things first telling his staff ‘THEY DONT HAVE TO WORK HERE’ shows me that he better be damn lucky i wasnt working for him i would have said ‘ know something? your right i dont have to work here’ and i would have walked!
bacon….they ended up as bacon
The owners were the basement pigs!!
I knew ARI would go off the rails and attack somebody, he harassed the Hotel staff constantly, ” I am the Boss” the other owner was a pure dipshit keeping the Hotel staff’s tips while trying to impress some rich folks. How low can you sink, because of their shady dealings with the Staff they wind up losing the Hotel. I have no sympathy for these guys
Agree 100%
The saying is true, you reap what you sow. Unfortunately their uppity attitude and sense of privilege went on for so long there was no recovery. Robert hoarded a bunch of junk and in the end it didn’t amount to much. Live within your means.
Was the junk worth anything, they claimed it was all valuable antiques. Thick owners could have sold it to pay staff.
Gordon had an auctioneer come and crunch some numbers. She said $25,000 at most. The shit Robert hoarded was a bunch of cheap knockoffs. That scene reminded me of all these guys that try to buy Yeezy’s, Air Jordans or whatever kind of ugly shoes without knowing the difference between a knockoff and the real thing. This dude just has no common sense.
Never in my entire life have I had so much hate towards two complete strangers…
I’m glad they lost everything and I just hope the staff got paid before this happened.
What stuck with me after watching the episode was that the staff seemed a little bit “too” loyal… anyone in their right mind, when their paycheck is late and tips are stolen would just leave, but they all stayed there like something else was keeping them there.
This episode feels like the reenactment of the “manual from hell” that was featured in Gislaine Maxwell’s trial. And the staff’s testimonies sound a lot like the testimonies of the staff who worked at Epstein’s manor.
They had to appear filthy rich and classy, and pamper the rich guests, while barely getting paid or even fed and being mistreated.
Something else I found was him commenting on a BBC article about a member of the Rockefeller family kidnapping his daughter.
His quote there is so out of place that it feels like he’s a fixer, or the sone of fixers, or something, which would explain why he kept threatening the employees, saying “you don’t want to talk to me like that, trust me”.
what a bunch of losers!!!
I’m glad they lost everything and I pray they will never be in a position to own anything ever again.
So true. I don’t usually condone violence, but I wanted to throat punch Robert. I would have driven from Florida to Vermont to do so. He is a whiny, spoiled, entitled loser. What an absolutely horrible human being. I think Ari had a ton of anger issues that were exasperated by the way Robert “ran” the business. I mean he sunk a million dollars into it that he worked for all his life- and with these two at the helm there was no way they would ever see that money again, much less any profits.
Now that they live in Florida you don’t have to drive to Vermont to do it
I’m in Scotland and if anyone had treated the staff the way he did he would have been laid out in the floor..never seen a more disgusting person than him running the Juniper Inn..Hope the staff went on to better things
I think what kept them there was that they had free housing (I’m assuming). Remember the one lady left and went to her room? So it’s hard to quit without having other housing lined up. And it’s hard to get housing without a steady paycheck.
That’s my guess
Who was commenting on a BBC article, and whose daughter was kidnapped?
I just watched the episode on HULU. I was surprised they had any staff. Who works for a business when the owners are so dismissive and rude, steals their tips
and the paychecks are as much as five weeks late?
When Gordon left, they had a chance but Ari, in particular, seemed to have learned nothing. Dogs don’t belong in the dining room and Ari’s “I am the boss” routine would have had me walking out to look for another job. That he had plowed a 1M retirement package into a business that wasn’t working showed that he couldn’t make good decisions.
Exactly! He was making decisions with his wrong head. At least he kept his real hoarding out of focus of what few clients they had. It doesn’t matter how much you want to charge, it has to palatable to the payers. They’re expecting the paying clients to cover the cost of their non-paying clients. No thank you. I can’t believe he was going put Gordon Ramsay in a room that smells like poop. The best people can’t fix stupid!
Just watched season 1 episodes 1 and 2. All I gotta say is “are these people real”? Employees working for a fraction of their worth, not getting paid on time – or at all – Robert stealing tips and then lying about it – Ari totally out of control. The former chef left this sh*tshow after 5 years? I would have left after 1 day under these clowns. Ari sinks a million dollars into this enterprise, and Robert’s petulance and narcissistic ways destroy it. After Gordon’s “makeover”, it was apparent that neither Ari or Robert truly bought into the changes they were required to make to be successful. And the pointless use of “fuck” in every other sentence during the episodes was absolutely frustrating, and didn’t add anything – and is one of the deciding factors as to why I’m done with this series.
The Hotel Hell producers definitely seek out certain personalities in the hotel owners. It’s kind of like watching a slow-moving train wreck.
I agree I guess it makes good TV. It reminds me the BBC show Faulty towers.
Oh my, that’s hysterical! I forgot about that show. At least that was fun to watch. This is the only show I had seen with Hotel Hill, I had never even heard of it before but I figured if Gordon Ramsay was in it it must be interesting. This shows stressed me out beyond belief. My empathic spirit was very uncomfortable with every bit of the show.
Fuck is a normal everyday word used that often in the UK. Every sentence is filled. I lived in Ireland and Fuck and the C word were used constantly. Took me awhile to get used to it but it’s their language. Big deal.
This is nonsense. The use of “fuck” in every sentence is Gordon Ramsay’s hallmark; it is not normal in the UK or Ireland except among very undesirable people that you should not be mixing with.
Oh, please with the pearl clutchers and the swearing. It’s bleeped out anyway. But, yeah that asshole Robert is a narcissist and Ari is a sociopath.
That makes them the perfect team lol
Well fuck Bob
Sometimes when your in s tough spot you don’t know what to do. I worked for people like this before and it was tough. I’ve even worked at a college and been told to our entire staff that if we didn’t like it there we could work somewhere else. By the head director and they also threatened us because our complaints weren’t following the chain of command because they didn’t listen to us. So I really feel for the workers you don’t know if you haven’t been in that kinda position.
I just hope that bosses stop treating staff like crap.
First time watching Ramsey after Hulu recommended this show to me. I had no interest in his restaurant series. But I enjoy hotels and inns, especially older ones. I was at first taken aback by the frequent f-bombs but by the end of the show I was convinced everyone of them was deserved. The way the Inn owners treated their staff was appalling. They obviously don’t know enough about the industry to be successful. Although I am not surprised, I was sad to see they closed. (Who else googled this place to see if they were still open/successful after Ramsey left?) It looks like the new place has better rates and reviews. I wish them the best. Maybe I will have to visit there sometime.
A lot of Hulu watchers seem to be having this episode as their first taste. I wouldn’t say this level of craziness is normal for the series. I mean, there’s always some drama and swearing, but this one is just totally over the top because of Ari and Robert. Most other episodes aren’t quite as wild.
Lol! Yes I was fast to Google an update. I had a feeling things would not turn around. Some people do not have what it takes to run or own a business. These two are both. No such thing as a boss, more like you need to be a coach and earn respect of your team. And yes the F- bombs. I wanted to watch it again and count, I’m sure Gordon is well over 50 F-bombs just in the first episode.
HA. I googled, too. Then I just quit watching. No point. Bye, Robert.
Keep watching! It gets better.
no need to keep watching. this is a 10 year old episode. not gona be life changing
So fucking what? Gordon Ramsay uses “fuck” MUCH less than the average person. I take it that you are a native English speaker – I reckon “fuck” & derivatives are in the top ten (five even?) most commonly used words. They also happen to be two of the oldest words in the English language still in common use. Where in the fuck were you brought up? Applies to all other contributors who raised this fucking ridiculous and irrelevant issue!
The copious use of “fuck” in the UK and Ireland is closely tied to the lower classes, the uneducated and the military. As you have just demonstrated.
You sound like Robert with your pompous reply.
I think I know your friend named Hugh Jass!
What an arrogant reply.
Thank you! Sometimes fuck is the only word that works, especially when talking to these entitled, clueless idiots that call themselves a boss. I think it’s just ridiculous that peeps are so taken back by that word. Personally, I love how Gordon puts them in their place and makes them feel as bad as they make the staff and guests feel.
Owner … go live with your dog in your rv… the name of the show is hotel hell for reason ..
Owner .. good by .. dum and dumber should be horse whip
I spent significant time at the inn right before Gordon got there. They actually had some grand redesigning that went on and they had a beautiful event with Cloris Leachman I got to go to. Hence why Gordon says the guest rooms are the key to the inn and didn’t need changing, they were literally just redone. The pigs were cute but really smelly. I know a few employees lived at the inn, which is why they stayed. They hid the fact that Ari was a raging drunk. I hated them so much. Watching Gordon tell them off is just so enjoyable.
Thanks for sharing the inside scoop!
I’m a big fan of Gordon James Ramsay’a. When the recommendation popped up on my Hulu home page I was pleased to see that there were three seasons. But reading the synopsis kind of had me cringing though. I immediately skipped to episode 2 hoping for a happy ending. When Gordon turned around to see if he could get an auctioneer to help sell that crap, I wanted to scream at my TV. From that point producers appear to feel sorry for us viewers and lead us through the haunted house maze of a plot with a sense that Robert suddenly had an “epiphany”. Had to Google the Inn immediately “CLOSED” and sold of course. Can’t watch another episode.
You should give it another shot! Not all of the episodes are like this one.
I feel you. After seeing the Inn was closed, I had a feeling of not wanting to watch again either. They are doing these places a disservice if they can’t keep them open. These two, Ari and Robert should have been convinced to turn things around temporarily with the hopes of selling the place. Much easier to sell a business when things are looking up than when it’s doing bad
The success rate for Hotel Hell is actually pretty good as far as these shows go. It’s currently at 65% – you can check out the full list here:
https://realitytvupdates.com/hotel-hell-updates/
This is way better than Bar Rescue and Kitchen Nightmares, which are both under 50%.
Really? So what should Gordon have done in your opinion? Stay there indefinitely and hold their hands to keep them open?
The whole point to these shows are for them to get a bit of help with updating old outdated areas, getting much needed repairs done, and getting the “bump” from being featured on tv. They are also given a great deal of good advice bee given the tools they need to succeed. What they do with that advice and those tools after the help has left, is up to them. You can’t fix stupid. If they can’t help themselves after getting all that help, then that’s not the fault of the person (in this case Gordon Ramsay) who tried to help them.
I guarantee you would be one of those ungrateful people who think that the help your given is not good enough and you would blame your stupidity and your failure on someone else.
Hotel Hell is my favorite Gordon Ramsay show . I’ve seen every one. Great show. So glad these two lost everything ! You have to watch how you treat people, it all comes back to you .
funny enough, Gordon didn’t actually stay at the Juniper Hill inn during filming. He stayed at the other local inn, the Snapdragon Inn. My wife was in charge of housekeeping at Snapdragon at the time. Gordon is quite a nice person behind the cameras. Their website blog has, or at least did have, a post about Gordon staying there.
Interesting – I didn’t know that. Thanks for sharing!
Here’s the blog post if anyone is interested:
http://www.snapdragoninn.com/snapdragoninnblog/2012/02/our-week-with-gordonramsay.html
The Snapdragon Inn’s website is expired. Just clicked on the link and the website doesn’t work.
Fred, whilst your comments were amusing, they were so laughably ignorant and incorrect that you come across as having a mild learning disability (and zero self awareness.) It’s not a good look… I’d suggest you don’t talk about things you know nothing about – especially the use of English in the UK. Yanks really have no idea how they come across to everyone else in the world at all. So embarassing!
I’m sorry to break it to you but Fred is from the UK!
I’ve never seen the show, but was married at the Juniper Inn a long time ago when it was owned by another two very unpleasant people who were wise to get out of there when they could. The description of the two owners during Gordon’s ‘visit’ sound like ones I had met who owned an Inn in Savannah, GA. Guests thought the place was haunted until one guest caught an owner visiting unannounced and unwelcome. Maybe, Gordon will head south for an episode or two.
Thanks for sharing!
Gordon Ramsay did head south for Hotel Hell, but never to Georgia unfortunately. Here are the two closest episodes:
Hotel Chester in Mississippi:
https://realitytvupdates.com/hotel-hell/hotel-chester/
Beachfront Inn and Inlet in Florida:
https://realitytvupdates.com/hotel-hell/beachfront-inn-inlet/
I watched the Gordon Ramsey episode in the UK with astonishment.
I couldn’t believe the arrogance of the owners who only seemed to pay lip-service to Ramsey’s recommendations.
Also, their lack of concern and humanity to their dedicated but frustrated staff who weren’t even allowed to keep their tips. It came as no surprise to me to learn that the place closed down
It was actually Ari who yelled at the employee who was removing the dog from the bar. This was after Gordon had wanted Ari to remain behind the scenes. Gordon was actually quite fair to everyone.
People in comments bitch whining about how frequently people say fuck was almost as entertaining as the show
honestly would have knocked them “straight”. what a poor excuse for humans
Robert was Ari’s playtoy, that’s the only reason he was there and in charge of the Hotel. He ran the hotel into the ground with his arrogant, pompous attitude thus it led to being foreclosed by the back owing over a million in back mortgage payments and back taxes. Good job Robert. If I was employee of your’s you would have gotten a punch right in the mouth and a kick in the balls.
You cannot change people like Robert and Ari at their age. They are two idiots like Meghan and Harry who chose to live beyond their means and buy their way into what they think is the upper upper class. They are self-centered and vacuous and unwilling to do the hard work. Note that when Ramsay first appeared no-one was answering the phones and when they went bankrupt a year later no-one was answering the phones. You cannot put lipstick on a pig. By the way what happened to the pigs?
Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck. If you have problems with the word “fuck,” then maybe get off the internet. Respectfully you do have a right to be angry over the usage of that word, but at the same time you must understand people have the right to ridicule you for your control problems over people saying words you don’t like.
Ummmm, ‘them.’ Who’s surprised?
And the F bomb should be used a sparingly as possible, no?
I just read this update, and don’t know when I’ve laughed so hard! Never have I ever been so happy to read that a business failed. It couldn’t have happened to two more deserving guys. Ari was straight out of Central Casting as a stereotypical Nazi from any World War II movie – I AM THE BOSS!! The only thing missing was “Achtung!!” Richard took the staff’s tips, and there’s no excuse in the world for that. I get the impression that Richard really thought all that crap was worth a lot of money, and thought that painting was real, instead of a cheap reproduction. Ari was arrested for assaulting a police officer?? This just gets better and better – those two jerks deserve each other.
Sorry, I meant Robert, and didn’t see a way to edit.
I just started watching this on Hulu, not having seen it when it was first on television. Admittedly, I didn’t realize Gordon Ramsey was this entertaining, thus didn’t watch anything of his for a long time.
My first LOL moment was when he looked at Robert after his first, “Excuuuuse me?” for Gordon to say, with not a bit of irony, “Go ahead then, you arrogant fuck.” (or something like that…)
Then to see just how deflated Robert was when the woman from the auction house said, “I’d say about $25,000.” OMG, talk about someone getting hit with a dose of reality WAY too big for him to swallow! That moment was SUCH a pivotal moment for Robert to realize he’s simply NOT the antique/art dealer he imagined himself to be, to be the owner of so much FAKE art and antiques. Even the silver he thought was worth so much, to point it out to the auction house woman and have her say, “Oh, it’s plated.” GAWD, how the mighty have fallen!
It’s not often you get to see a moron realize just what a moron he actually is? Priceless! The woman from the auction house scanned the room for mere seconds and knew everything was (badly done) reproduction or a poorly made fake while the self-proclaimed SME, Robert, had no idea at all.
But let’s talk about Arri, who is pretty much the epitome of a throwback to Nazi Germany during WWII, “I AM THE BOSS!”
Hey, Arri, if you have to remind people you’re the boss? Guess what? You’re not the boss! And then to learn the show hid that Arri was a raging alcoholic? That’s a little nugget that should have been told to the viewing audience.
I think I felt the worst for the chef, Guilian, who seems to have the ability to be a great chef for the inn, if Robert would just get out of his way. That chicken with Brussel sprouts looked SO delicious! However, I think he was more than a little shell-shocked after working in such a toxic environment for so long. Gordon had to work so hard to get him to even talk in the kitchen.
I’m used to seeing working kitchens happening with the chef being a bit of a ringmaster, calling out what he needed, asking for the sous chef to do the mains while someone else does the sides, etc. To see him just standing there, staring at the meal tickets, wheels turning on how he would do it all himself while Gordon yelled at him to TALK was painful. He was just so used to being short staffed (no sous chef) and having to depend on just himself while chaos reigned around him… He didn’t know how to do it any other way it’d been going on for so long.
And all I could think when I heard he wasn’t paying his staff AND stealing their tips? Why had no one called the Depart of Labor before that day? How had they not been notified more than a few times already over wage theft?
The best part of the show? Seeing Gordon’s sweet looking heinie as he climbed into the tub.
When I read the follow-up here, I couldn’t help but feel it couldn’t have happened to a better two people in my life. These two morons couldn’t manage themselves out of a wet paper bag, they were so hung up on being “in charge” of it all, lording over the manor. That $100,000 RV either should never have been bought or sold the moment they couldn’t make that first pay cycle so they could pay their employees.
Never have I wanted to harm someone as much as I wanted to do physical harm to Robert and Arri while watching these two shows. They’re both such incredible narcissists, this was pretty much a fait accompli from the moment they bought the inn. Their narcissism got the better of them by not making their mortgage or tax payments at all, thinking the rules don’t apply to them.