Amy’s Baking Company Update – Kitchen Nightmares – Open or Closed?

Episode Recap

The Amy’s Baking Company Kitchen Nightmares is one of the most iconic episodes of Gordon’s show because of the incredible conflict and behavior of the restaurants owners.

The restaurant appeared on season six of Kitchen Nightmares, which is the same season that featured the Mill Street Bistro episode (probably the other most iconic Kitchen Nightmares episode).

Amy’s Baking Company is a restaurant in the upscale Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona, run by Samy and Amy Bouzaglo.

Opened in 2006 after Samy and Amy got married, it was funded entirely by Samy who invested over a million dollars in it, while Amy is the head chef and runs the kitchen on her own.

The duo invited Kitchen Nightmares over to their restaurant after a few food bloggers and critics gave them some really bad reviews online, which they claim cost them a huge amount of revenue.

Even before Chef Gordon Ramsay makes his appearance at the restaurant, it is shown that Miranda and Katy, who work with Amy’s Baking Company as Server and Food Runner, respectively, are themselves aware of the problems the restaurant is facing, and they both think it is the Bouzaglos’ attitude which has brought them all the trouble for their restaurant.

Amy is absolutely defiant and refuses to take any kind of criticism about her food or the long waiting time from the customers, while Samy is hot headed and terribly disorganized and often mixes the orders up, and when confronted about them, he shouts at his customers, much to their bewilderment and shock. He doesn’t even seem to care that he is running a huge risk to his own restaurant by driving them out and earning their increasing disrespect.

It is no different when Chef Ramsay shows up. Although he is initially impressed by Amy’s Baking Company’s pretty interiors and décor, her chocolate mousse cake and how the restaurant has one of the cleanest kitchens in Kitchen Nightmares’ history, he soon begins to get a sense of some glaring problems.

While sitting down with them for a talk, he gets to know that Samy and Amy operate the restaurant on their own without keeping any assistance since they have major trust issues and think people are “lazy and dirty”; they have fired over a hundred staff members from their restaurant over the years.

They are married for 10 years and 3 cats for kids, which is okay except that Amy apparently talks cat language and demonstrates the meows too.

For whoever has given them bad reviews, at their restaurant or online, Amy retaliates at them calling them “bullies” and “liars” and declares they have no idea what food should taste like and that her food can never be bad.

When Ramsay himself decides to try a few of their dishes and finds them undercooked, bland and not fresh and returns them, he is shocked to discover that Samy doesn’t pass on these details to his wife who is strangely content in her little world with the kind of food she makes and would not take no for an answer.

He is appalled to know from Miranda that she is never given any tip and is only paid her hourly fee, and every tip given to her by her customers is taken over by Samy. Katy is also fired subsequently just because she dared to ask Amy a question about an order.

Although Ramsay tries his best to help them out, make them realize where their problem lies and takes feedback from their customers in front of them, Samy and Amy are unfettered and refuse to make any changes about their behavior or attitude, which leaves him helpless and frustrated.

He tells them he can only help those who help themselves, and in this case they clearly aren’t open for any, and he gives up and leaves the restaurant unable to make any intervention, for the first time in Kitchen nightmares’ history.