Downcity Kitchen Nightmares Update – Open or Closed?

Episode Recap

Downcity was a Providence, Rhode Island restaurant featured on season 4 of Kitchen Nightmares. The Downcity Kitchen Nightmares episode aired on March 11, 2011, but the actual filming and Gordon Ramsay visit took place in December 2010. It was episode 6 of season 4.

Gordon Ramsay’s visit to Downcity restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, bought by Abby and best friend Rico in 2005, was one the most electrifying episodes of Kitchen Nightmares.

Rico had a full-time job in finance and Abby had been working in restaurants for over 30 years, and as such, Rico provides the capital while Abby manages the restaurant.

Chef Ramsay was greeted by Abby, who proceeded to rate the food a 10/10.

Their encounter did not start well, as Ramsay reveals the food provided by his hotel’s room service was disgusting, which offended Abby.

After awkwardly navigating past that interaction Gordon orders is lunch. The calamari arrived, with Chef Ramsay pointing out its sogginess and chewiness.

He also described the inaptly named Party-in-your-Mouth nachos as “more like a funeral in his mouth” and the meatloaf is lukewarm.

As the Michelin star chef converses with the staff he discovers Abby is responsible for the menu and leaves after some initial bickering.

While she attempts to get the staff on her side, saying Ramsay is wrong, they admit the food is “below par”.

When Rico arrived for dinner service, Gordon sat down with him, while the restaurant owner admitted he had $1million invested in the venture and can’t risk going bankrupt given his career in finance.

In the meantime, the kitchen pantry is revealed to have moldy food, causing Gordon Ramsay to summon the owners, with all hell breaking loose as Abby lashes off at him, accusing him of being the culprit behind the mess, calling him a disgrace to the business and expelling him from the premises in an incredibly heated argument.

After conferring with Rico, Chef Ramsay explains to Abby he’s made mistakes with failed businesses in the past, and only by admitting those mistakes and learning from them has gotten him to where he is now.

When the staff get Abby to admit the menu is unbearably large, she begrudgingly admits to changing it.

Gordon introduces a simpler new menu with considerably fewer items after witnessing a dinner service to relieve pressure on Jimmy and the kitchen.

The standard of the food is improved, but the kitchen gets swamped again, while customers are left waiting for food and start making for the door.

When Abby reveals a lack of faith in Jimmy, Chef Ramsay calls in one of his chefs to help get the kitchen staff in order.

For the re-launch night, Chef Ramsay introduces a new comfort food menu featuring a goat’s cheese truffle dip, meatball sliders, lobster Mac & Cheese and a new improved meatloaf.

He also invites Stacy Place, a local food blogger who had written a brutal review of Downcity previously.

As the night gets underway, the food is being sent out quickly, the customers love the new menu and the new food.

Just when it seemed the kitchen couldn’t cope with the pressure, the whole team rallies and the food starts leaving the kitchen, and everyone is revealed to be enjoying the food, blogger included.

Want to know more about the blogger from the Downcity episode of Kitchen Nightmares? Her name is Stacy Place and she actually shared a bit about the show and how her “10,000+ followers” might have been a bit overblown:

People assumed since Gordon was reading my Twitter feed that the show was referring to me having 10,000 Twitter followers. I don’t. The producers had asked me how many people had read my blog and I replied about 250 per week. Multiplying that by 52 weeks, they rounded down to 10,000. Of course, 3,000 people have read it just since the episode aired!

So maybe the stakes were not quite as high as the producers of Kitchen Nightmares made it seem!