(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 8 | View All Season 8 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: October 9, 2023
In the Drink Address: 209 Totowa Rd, Wayne, NJ 07470
Episode Recap
In the Drink Bar and Restaurant was a Wayne, New Jersey restaurant featured on Season 8 of Kitchen Nightmares.
Though the In the Drink Kitchen Nightmares episode aired on TV in October 2023, the actual visit from Gordon Ramsay happened in from May 30th to June 3rd 2023.
It was Kitchen Nightmares Season 8 Episode 3.
In this episode, Gordon Ramsay heads to In the Drink restaurant in Wayne, NJ – full name In the Drink Bar and Restaurant.
The four-day visit started on May 30th and went until June 3rd, after which In the Drink re-opened on June 4th.
I as able to verify this by finding a notice on the restaurant’s Facebook page saying that the restaurant would be “closed for renovations”.
The restaurant is located in a country club right on a golf course (Preakness Valley Golf Course).
This makes it a big departure from the previous two episodes that featured Bel Aire Diner (in Queens NYC) and Bask 46 (in a New Jersey strip mall).
The golf course is described as “one of New Jersey’s busiest golf courses”.
I don’t know enough about New Jersey golf to know whether that’s true or not, but it seems like it should be a spot that can be successful if they get the formula right.
In the Drink Bar and Restaurant is owned by George.
However, the episode portrays George as a bit of an absentee owner who doesn’t treat his staff well.
He works the staff too hard.
For example, some staff have worked for three weeks straight without a single day off, which is absolutely brutal.
I would totally quit if I were in that situation!
Gordon Ramsay calls George “f**king deluded”, which seems about par for the course based on the preview video.
Of course, it’s pretty rare to find an owner on Kitchen Nightmares who isn’t at least a little bit deluded, so I’m not sure how much of a surprise this is.
That’s pretty much the only bit of teasing that we get from the episode preview video.
However, I will update the episode recap with more detail once the episode actually airs on Fox.
I’m originally posting this update right before the episode airs on TV.
As part of the visit, Gordon Ramsay and the Kitchen Nightmares crew updated some physical details on the restaurant.
The Kitchen Nightmares team modernized the bar and added new wine racks, as well as a large mirrored In the Drink sign.
As is always the case, Gordon Ramsay also upgraded the In the Drink menu with some new dishes and tweaks.
These included an orange and arugula salad, a 1 LB grass-fed Angus New York steak, and a Santa Fe panini.
So – was the Kitchen Nightmares In the Drink restaurant visit a long-term success?
Keep reading to learn what happened next and if this Wayne NJ restaurant is still open in 2024.
In the Drink Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped the In the Drink Kitchen Nightmares episode, let’s talk about what happened to the restaurant after Gordon Ramsay and his crew left Wayne, NJ.
Around the time that the episode aired on TV, the restaurant posted several times on Facebook promoting the episode.
This is usually a good sign that the restaurant feels positive, or at least neutral, about the Kitchen Nightmares experience.
With that being said, let’s get straight to the most important question on your mind…
Is In the Drink still open after Kitchen Nightmares?
As of 2023, In the Drink restaurant is still open and serving customers in Wayne NJ at the Preakness Valley Golf Course.
The restaurant is very active on its Facebook page, regularly posting about events and specials.
They seem to have regular live music, with live entertainment multiple times per week.
For example, here’s a screenshot of the live entertainment schedule from October 2023, which is when the episode originally aired on Fox.
They seem to mostly have events on the outdoor patio area by the golf course, which seems like it would be a very nice place to hang out.
However, some regulars seem to be complaining about the menu changes.
A few Facebook commentators said they miss their favorites, with one person saying they miss the sampler appetizer.
This is a fairly common complaint at restaurants with loyal local patrons, and a big part of why some restaurants go fully or partially back to their old menus.
There’s also an official In the Drink Bar and Restaurant website, which includes the menu and other details.
Here’s a link to the In the Drink menu to give you an idea of what’s on offer and the pricing.
Honestly, it doesn’t seem that expensive given that it’s on a golf course in the New York City area.
Finally, here’s a Google Maps street view shot of the In the Drink restaurant Wayne location so that you can explore the area.
You can see that it’s right up against the Preakness Valley Golf Course.
In the Drink reviews after Kitchen Nightmares
Next, let’s take a look at some reviews of In the Drink Bar and Restaurant from after the episode.
Overall, In the Drink has a 3.3 star rating on Yelp and a 4.2 star rating on Google reviews.
However, those reviews include ratings from both before and after the In the Drink Gordon Ramsay visit.
In fact, at the time that the In the Drink Kitchen Nightmares episode aired on TV, there had not been a single Yelp review written from after Gordon’s visit.
The Gordon Ramsay visit finished up on June 3rd and the most recent Yelp review is from May 30th, right before the Kitchen Nightmares episode was filmed.
There were a number of Google reviews, though, so I’ll choose to focus on those.
In general, the Google reviews from after Gordon’s visit seem to be uniformly positive.
Almost all of them are five or four stars, with just a few three star or one star reviews.
Here’s a sampling of a few reviews that were written from after the Gordon Ramsay In the Drink restaurant visit…
4 star Google review from September 2023:
Beautiful place by the golf course.
Great drinks.
Good food.
Lovely at dusk.
5 star Google review from September 2023:
Went there last Sunday 9/18 to see the band Fully Loaded they were excellent.
The food and drink were very good.
And the staff were great.
4 star Google review from September 2023:
Beautiful place.
Food was good (only had burgers & sandwiches).
They had a band outdoors which was great.
But unfortunately it was extremely loud and we could barely hear the person sitting next to us without screaming.
5 star Google review from July 2023:
Excellent golf course with full bar and pretty good food choices.
The burger was great.
Really fun atmosphere and wait staff (Jordan) was awesome!
Kid-friendliness: My kids had a great time!
As I mentioned, there were a few negative reviews, but not too many.
Here’s a couple of the negative ones…
1 star Google review from July 2023:
Service was absolutely terrible.
Couldn’t get a hold of anyone for anything.
If you have 3 hours to kill then this is the place for you because you’ll be waiting all day for anything, on top of snooty waiters.
Definitely won’t be back.
3 star Google review from July 2023:
The food wasn’t good.
The waitresses weren’t really understanding of gluten free or anything else.
Overall, though, the post-Kitchen Nightmares reviews at In the Drink restaurant seem to be quite good.
Final thoughts on In the Drink restaurant
Overall, In the Drink restaurant seems to be doing well after the visit from Gordon Ramsay so far.
While there haven’t been a ton of reviews from after the episode, the Google reviews that do exist are generally positive.
The restaurant also has a very active live entertainment schedule, which seems like a great way to bring people in.
Hopefully the staff are experiencing better working conditions, though.
All in all, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one stay open, especially because it has such a nice spot in the country club.
That wraps up my In the Drink Kitchen Nightmares update.
If you want to see some other nearby New Jersey Kitchen Nightmares episodes, you can also check out my updates for BASK46 in Woodland Park NJ, Campania in Fair Lawn NJ, Bazzini in Ridgewood NJ, and Leone’s in Montclair NJ.
If you want to see updates for other restaurants from Season 8 of Kitchen Nightmares, you can read my updates for Bel Aire Diner in Queens NYC, and I also linked the BASK46 update in the previous paragraph.
And if you want to share your thoughts on the In the Drink restaurant episode, you can do so using the comments section below.
Thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/in-the-drink-restaurant-and-bar-waynehttps://www.facebook.com/inthedrinkrestaurant/
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Last updated: 2023-10-08 05:18
I’d love to buy that restaurant off of them. These owner’s clearly have no idea what they are doing, and so like many of these restaurants they are bound to go out of business eventually. This place has so much potential and anyone who knows what they are doing could definitely turn a profit here.
Would love to get in touch with someone about buying this place!
Gordon does a lot in Jersey. Maybe it’s near his stateside home?
The new season is all in NYC/NJ area. I think it’s just more convenient for them to film there.
This episode was insanely boring. The owner honestly could care less, and he was obviously not worried about closing down. Ramsay was talking to that guy like he was talking to the wall.
These new episodes are kind of sad. The owners are not desperate people facing real foreclosure and horrifying bankruptcy. They look like they are just there to get the free publicity. The owner in this episode clearly looked bored as hell every time Ramsay was talking to him. Just bad TV.
Whoever is running the new show is doing a terrible job of finding restaurants with really good characters. The old show always managed to find a fun waitress with a great attitude. No such luck in the current series. Everyone is “corporate” characters that just say bland and boring nothing remarks.
This season is terrible. I know not to overthink things when I watch reality tv, but it’s ridiculous how poorly edited and rushed each episode is compared to the old run of KN. It’s such a slapped together mess. None of these people seem to need the help, only the free renovations and publicity. What a joke.