(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 6 | View All Season 6 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: March 1, 2013
Mill Street Bistro Address: 21 Mill St, Norwalk, Ohio 44857
Episode Recap
Mill Street Bistro was a Norwalk, Ohio restaurant featured on Season 6 of Kitchen Nightmares.
Though the Mill Street Bistro Kitchen Nightmares episode aired on TV in March 2013, the actual visit from Gordon Ramsay happened almost 9 months earlier in mid-2012.
It was Season 6 Episode 10 and 11 (a two-part episode).
Mill Street Bistro was so explosive that it earned a coveted two-part Kitchen Nightmares.
It’s definitely one of the most iconic Kitchen Nightmares episodes because of the conflict between Gordon Ramsay and Joe Nagy of Mill Street Bistro.
Gordon Ramsay even called it “one of the most frustrating episodes of Kitchen Nightmares ever”.
The Mill Street Bistro Kitchen Nightmares episodes originally aired in Season 6 of Kitchen Nightmares, with back-to-back airings in March 2013.
In the episode, things started off on a good foot with proprietor Joe Nagy showing Gordon around his farm.
Mill Street Bistro was supposed to be a high-quality, farm to table restaurant.
But, as Gordon would soon discover, Joe Nagy’s claims didn’t always match with reality.
For example, Joe Nagy claimed that the food is always fresh and made from scratch.
However, during the episode, Chef Tom of Mill Street Bistro admitted to Gordon that the food is actually frozen and comes from the freezer to the table.
Not exactly farm to table, right?
What’s more, the restaurant’s servers, Rebecca and Amy, aren’t happy about the way Joe treats them and they aren’t very proud of the food that they’re serving.
Despite all of these issues, Joe is pretty much oblivious and keeps believing that his restaurant is a kitchen paradise instead of a kitchen nightmare.
Joe is also just generally delusional.
For example, he thinks he’s a trained chef who was trained by the European masters, but he’s pretty mediocre in terms of cooking quality.
One thing that Gordon really can’t wrap is head around is how expensive all of the food is given its low quality.
When Gordon was testing the food, he was just generally unhappy with the quality and kept sending a lot of dishes back, such as the rubbery scallops and raw pastry.
Gordon also just doesn’t understand why there’s such a thing as an elk quesadilla.
Who the heck puts elk in a quesadilla, right?
The food is so bad that Gordon eventually leaves Mill Street Bistro to go eat at another restaurant.
This is where things start getting really bad between Gordon Ramsay and Joe Nagy.
They really start letting each other have it and Joe refuses to admit that there are any problems.
To get a better idea of what’s happening, Gordon connects with Theresa, a former employee who quit over her frustrations.
She had a pretty much endless list of tasks along with just generally being Joe’s blame victim whenever something went wrong.
She showed Gordon pictures of old and frozen food that she believes wasn’t good enough to be served by the restaurant.
On part two of the Mill Street Bistro Kitchen Nightmares episode, Gordon has a meeting with the staff while Joe Nagy observes from another room on the security camera.
As you’d expect, the staff have some definite issues with Joe and his management style.
They were confident to be open about their issues because they didn’t know that Joe was watching (Gordon is being a bit sneaky here!).
When the staff find out that Joe has been listening in, they’re initially scared.
But they eventually come around when Joe seems legitimately apologetic.
Gordon brings in truly fresh ingredients and the staff love how the dishes taste.
They do a new tasting test and people like the food, though the service time started to slow down which was causing some issues.
In the end, Gordon doesn’t bother to do a remodel of the Mill Street Bistro restaurant because the interior was fine.
What he did do is give them a new menu and processes, along with trying to soften Joe Nagy and make him a better owner.
With plenty of fireworks, this was one of my favorite Kitchen Nightmares episodes ever.
So – was the Mill Street Bistro Kitchen Nightmares episode a success? Keep reading our update to learn what happened next and if it’s open or closed in 2024 and beyond.
Mill Street Bistro Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped the Mill Street Bistro Kitchen Nightmares episode, let’s talk about what happened to the restaurant after Gordon Ramsay and his crew left Norwalk, Ohio.
After Gordon left, Mill Street Bistro continued its poor run.
Though they kept most of the menu, there was a huge staff turnover.
Three wait staff members, Jen, Kayleigh, and Rebecca left the restaurant, as well as Chef Tommy.
That meant Joe Nagy jumped back into the head chef position. As Gordon told us, not a great sign.
At the end of 2013, Joe renamed the restaurant to Maple City Tavern.
However, according to Yelp, things had not gotten any better with the relaunch and the reviews were still very poor.
The restaurant closed less than two years later in June, 2015.
As of now, both Mill Street Bistro and Maple City Tavern are dead.
In 2016, the building that used to house the Mill Street Bistro Ohio restaurant was sold for $140,000 according to the Norwalk Reflector.
However, Zillow says that the sale didn’t go through until January 2019, so I’m not sure about the exact date of the property sale.
Is Mill Street Bistro still open after Kitchen Nightmares?
No, Mill Street Bistro is not open anymore.
Mill Street Bistro was renamed to Maple City Tavern in 2013 and then eventually closed for good in 2015.
In 2016, the owner, Joe Nagy, sold the old Mill Street Bistro location for $140,000 to end things for good.
As of 2023, the old Mill Street Bistro Norwalk, Ohio location is occupied by a new steakhouse restaurant named The Press Box.
However, reviews for the new restaurant don’t seem that good as it only has a 3.5 star rating on Yelp and a 3.9 star rating on Google Reviews.
If you want to learn more about the new restaurant, you can check out the Press Box website.
And then here’s what the old Mill Street Bistro Ohio location looks like in the most recent picture from Google Maps street view:
Why did Mill Street Bistro close?
Mill Street Bistro seems to have closed because of poor reviews and bad business.
It had already tried renaming itself to Maple City Tavern, but that wasn’t enough to salvage the restaurant’s poor reputation.
Honestly, if you watched the episode, I don’t think you should have any doubts about why Mill Street Bistro closed.
What happened with the Mill Street Bistro Kitchen Nightmares lawsuit?
In a fun bit of trivia, there was also a Mill Street Bistro lawsuit…because of course there was!
Joe Nagy of Mill Street Bistro sued Gordon Ramsay’s production company for missing items and damages to the restaurant.
In Jan. 2014, the lawsuit was settled, with Gordon’s production team paying £900 to Joe for items which went “missing” after filming.
This is just about the pettiest thing I’ve ever heard haha. But good for Joe Nagy on getting his just dues, I guess.
Sadly, the Mill Street Bistro Kitchen Nightmares lawsuit was not the only lawsuit that the show had to deal with.
Oceana Grill in New Orleans from Season 4 also sued the Kitchen Nightmares producers – twice!
What happened to Joe Nagy from Kitchen Nightmares?
Because of how explosive this episode of Kitchen Nightmares was, a lot of people are wondering what happened to Joe Nagy after the episode.
It’s hard to tell because he doesn’t have a big internet presence, but someone did post about meeting Joe Nagy at a food festival in 2018, so he seems to still be cooking and working in the food industry.
You can see a Reddit thread from Real-EstateNovelist, which includes a picture of them meeting Joe Nagy.
There’s also a parody Facebook page called The Joe Nagy’s Bistro, but I don’t believe this is a real page unless Joe’s cooking has really fallen off haha.
Is Joe Nagy from Mill Street Bistro dead?
No, Joe Nagy from Mill Street Bistro is not dead. I’m not sure why people think this, but people seem to search it a lot.
He’s been seen around in the last few years and there’s no obituary indicating that anything has changed.
I think he just keeps a somewhat low profile because of the infamy from the Kitchen Nightmares Mill Street Bistro episode.
Final Thoughts on Mill Street Bistro
The Mill Street Bistro episode was one of the craziest episodes from Kitchen Nightmares.
As you’d expect, Mill Street Bistro ended up closing just a few years after the visit from Gordon Ramsay.
I don’t think there’s anything Gordon Ramsay could have done here with an owner like Joe Nagy.
But at least he didn’t have to walk out on the restaurant like he did to Amy’s Baking Company.
Joe Nagy originally rebranded the restaurant to Maple City Tavern, but it closed just a couple years later.
As of 2023, the old Mill Street Bistro Norwalk Ohio location is occupied by a new restaurant named The Press Box.
Joe Nagy seems to still be active in the food space, as he’s been recently sighted at a food festival.
While Mill Street Bistro was the only Kitchen Nightmares Ohio episode, Gordon Ramsay did visit some other nearby restaurants.
If you want to see updates for other nearby restaurants from Kitchen Nightmares, you can also check out these posts:
- Jack’s Waterfront update (Saint Clair Shores, Michigan)
- Giuseppi’s Trattoria update (Macomb Township, Michigan)
- Levanti’s American Bistro update (Beaver, Pennsylvania)
- Ms. Jean’s Southern Cuisine update (Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania)
Thanks for reading!
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/maple-city-tavern-norwalk-2What 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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Last updated: 2023-01-15 05:56
Heard he settled with Ramsey over missing meat, a pot and damaged ceiling. Funny people there who worked with him said Joe damaged a couple ceiling and walls on purpose and took a couple boxes of meat and a few pots to blame Ramsey so Joe would look good. Good cover up to try to make yourself look good Joe after an ass you made on TV. LOL
Chef Ramsay definitely does NOT need to steal! These people ask for his help and then whine and complain because Chef tells it like it is! If you can’t handle the kitchen get the eff out! Joe’s restaurant failed because he had a dream and jumped into action not knowing wtf he was doing!
Ramsay doesn’t have to steal but there are a lot of production crew running around and all groups of people can have a bad apple in them. It is possible that someone grabbed some exotic meat along the way. Possible, but not accusing.
Yeah because taking frozen exotic meat from a freezer into a duffel bag, into a car, back into a fridge and THEN on an airplane through baggage check is just so worth it that sweet sweet “exotic” meat.
Omg your comment made me chuckle but you did state some facts.
Production staff living in a hotel for a few days/weeks aren’t stealing boxes of meat or ceiling tiles or any other crap. Equipment weight is known and luggage is limited… And what the hell would you do with a box of meat in a hotel room??
Joe was a pitiful figure trying to prove he lived “excellence” when it was clear his sub par efforts could never produce anything good. I felt sorry for him in a way because it was clear his big visions would never become reality because he himself was the block. Only Skinny liked or believed in him by 15” into the first episode. Gordon’s efforts were doomed from the moment he had the nerve to insult Joe by asking him to take “micro” veggies back to the kitchen. How dare he expect Joe to do something so menial!! Lol! My hubby and I had a bakery. There was NOTHING too menial for either one of us! When you own the place every detail is vital. Pride went before, after, and all through that man’s efforts but it was false pride. Failure was inevitable.
Well if anyone know Norwalk, ohio then they know that an upscale restaurant is doomed to fail. A good sports pub style place or family restaurant is what succeeds in this town.
Here!here!
My favorite family restaurant chain is Donner Party All You Can Eat Family Restaurants.
Stop, your comments make me pee! LOL!!!
I’m glad they make you laugh cause they just make me cringe. I’m sorry but he’s nowhere near as funny as he thinks he is. Reading through this site, most of his comments are mean or inappropriate. Everyone has a right to their opinion but I just want to block him. Sorry.
Hey holeshit bistro!
No mmmmway did Gordan stolen anything he don’t need to
Anyone knows how to get in touch with Jen the waitress? I fell in love with her…
I know that it’s 7 years later but i still find this one of the most amusing/frustrating episodes ever!
Just watched it a few times over! The only 10 I saw was Joe’s asinine delusional mind! How dare he think that My Favorite Chef Gordon Ramsey is going to come into his menial kitchen and start cooking-(working) for him! Oh my God! Norwalk is a very quaint town. I have visited a few times over the years, and I enjoyed the old town feel!
Absolutely agree!! And not way Gordon Ramsay will steal or damage. Seriously?!? I was discussed and shocked to watch this frustrating episode of kitchen nightmares! I’ve had the enormous pleasure of knowing /working ( briefly) with this guy at Oxford University UK few years back and he is no way near the word ” jerk” as so called’ ‘ Nagy’ ‘ the’ ‘ best chef’ ‘ lol
What Happened To Jen ?
I thought she was gorgeous.
Joshua who posted above about Jen found her, married her, and now they have seven children.
You’re blind
Chef Ramsey is awesome. He knows his stuff and is if not one of the best chefs in the world.
Joe is just a dip shit, so sad that all his employees lost their jobs when things closed simply because Joe wouldn’t listen. L
Its also sad that joe sued and won. How in the world does our justice system not see through that BS. This is in part why people like Joe continue with their BS stealing raping pillaging and belittling people.
Joe is a fake!!
Joe didn’t really “win”. They settled out of court for a little over 1100.00 U.S.Dollars. How petty Joe was. Glad he failed. Had a boss like him in the office. Nothing ever his fault, everyone was against him, etc etc. But just let HIM tell you how great he is. Phew Boy. He was SO awesome in his mind. And Joe reminded me of my boss. Totally trying to gaslight Gordon by denying he said things. I went through that for 2 1/2 years with my boss. Quit. UGH
If the KNM production settled out of court, that means they must have done some wrong. Otherwise, they could’e gone to court and proven Joe wrong.
Same with Oceana claiming that KN staged scenes. They steeled then to, which just leads people to believe that KN are guilty of staging scenes.
Tiny man syndrome. Arrogant – Narcissistic.
Very well put
It’s not arrogance or narcissism in people like Joe. It’s quite the opposite. It’s zero internal self-esteem, probably from early life. The man had zero genuine self-confidence; just delusions and false bravado. I bet he had a dad or mother, maybe both, who were possibly alcoholic and continually dumped on him in every possible way, until he developed a 25 Ft. thick *fake* arrogance just to survive. Which turned him into Joe the Kitchen Nightmare…
Yes, Nagy was definitely not a ‘people person’ Nor was he a natural leader at that point in his life. But he could aspire to be if he could humble himself, and be honest enough with himself, to do the deep emotional & spiritual work and behavioral therapy to get ‘a new leaf’. I felt 50% sorry for him, concurrent with 50% enraged by him (the false bragging and outright lies!) at the same time. But it’s insecurity that drives that kind of self-defeating arrogance.
I disagree – he shows textbook signs of Narcissism, which, while there’s an environmental component, is like BPD in the sense that the disorder’s symptoms make it hard for those who suffer from it to even realize they need help. I guess, to a certain degree, we could feel pity that he has a personality disorder; but we rarely extend that courtesy to people with ASPD we consider ‘sociopaths’ or ‘psychopaths’. When a personality disorder causes a person to permanently damage and traumatize other people without remorse, we reasonably need to turn our attentions to the victims.
I’m not trying to argue with you, just share opinions, so if it comes across as that it’s my bad. But to reduce such a damaging and dangerous mental state to insecurity and false confidence is at risk of inspiring people -possibly in precarious positions- to see vulnerability and compassion where there is none.
Beautifully put!
I hear Nagy married Skinny and they’re living in an abandoned barn. ;))
Nicely said, in Robin’s November 14th 2017 comment reply on Joe Nagy! Yes Robin I agree completely so, Pride is a real killer & his outrageously poor attitude problems definitely were abrasive as overbearing! The sad part of this entire process his wounderful restaurant, crew & staff suffered! Next is degrees of communication but Joe Nagy didn’t seemingly lack for this because the man could talk, talk, talk, & talk & talk! Chief Rammsey is the best in the Biz !
He deserves to be closed & any future businesses he opens or runs deserve to be DOA. Such a lying arrogant delusional self centered human being.
Makes me burst into song:
Joe, Joe you had to close your door
Coz we couldn’t eat your crap any more
You said were taught by “the finest”
But your cooking is poor compared to the rest!
You lyrical genius you! 😊
I can’t believe Joe accused Chef Ramsay of stealing Joe is a joke are rude employer he don’t need to run a business
I looked up the address and found this:
https://www.pressboxnorwalk.com/
Yeah that’s the new restaurant that’s in the old Mill Street Bistro Norwalk building. I’ll add it to the update this weekend.
Thanks for sharing!
Joe makes Sebastian De Modica (Sebastian’s, Season 1) look like a culinary genius. Joe, IMHO, is a narcissist and egomaniac who has no business whatsoever running a restaurant. He’s lucky he didn’t get inundated with lawsuits claiming fraud – farm to table my rear end. How did he ever think he was going to get away with that without Chef Ramsay finding out? Absolutely unbelievable. I hope his staff survived and are now doing well – they looked like good people who deserved better than to work for that jackass.
I propose the introduction of The Culinary Darwin Awards and nominate Joe to be the first recipient.
I Second This!
To be fair, Gordon’s criticism of Joe calling the restaurant “farm to table” was unfair. The food was grown on a farm and ended up being served on a table at the restaurant. So it may have been frozen in the meantime, big deal!
Yeah and he was charging $35 for his frozen feature entrees. He was pulling the wool over his customers eyes who he viewed as being dumb hicks. Joe said at the beginning of the episode that people found him to be pretentious and arrogant. Joe Nagy nagged and belittled his employees. From farm to fork, lol. Joe thought his customers were there to feed his ego. The best part is when the employees got to laugh at Joe when Ramsay yelled at him.
Farm to table means it comes from the farm to the table, though. Otherwise it would be farm to freezer to table. Whether or not freezing (some) foods in the meantime is bad, it’s the false damn advertising and pathological lying that he was being lampooned for. And yeah if you’re charging 35 bucks it goddamn better be fresh. Otherwise you should be paying Applebee’s prices.
Also, if that was sarcasm my bad, I’m not very good at picking it up through text.
No it wasn’t! Packages of food from stores were found by Gordon in the freezer… or did you miss that part?
The items on the Joe’s Bistro page look like real winners! Especially the mayonnaise cocktail — perfect for Ohio!
Are you Joe? Ahahhahaa
How can someone be so dense?
Punch his face into the pavement is what Ramsay should have done to improve that restaurant.
I’d like to know what happened to Skinny. Joe didn’t end up with goat quesadillas on the menu, did he?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joanna-nagy/
He may have changed genders in order to avoid the humiliation of his KN exposure.
Joe N Nagy
(Joseph Emery Nagy)
BIRTHDATE
1/28/1958 (65yrs)
LOCATION
Cleveland, OH
He sold the building for $140K which seems very cheap considering it was pretty big.
The only cooking this douchebag knows how to do is recipes of torture. That so called “onion soup” looked like a bowl of used motor oil. I was sitting there wondering why there wasn’t a gasoline glaze or some kind of ani-freeze dip. And the vegetarian ravioli looked like a cyst being popped with all that puss coming out. Who wants to eat that?! I have never wanted to give the customers bigger hugs out of sympathy for being served that shit.
Goes without saying, but Joe is one pretentious dickhead. I have nothing else to say other than that. Just wow!
Staff he fired was Right, they knew he was not going to change.!! I Don’t feel bad for Joe, But He Needs Jesus sure thats the only one that can change him
I wish the Facebook page was real!
Joe was such a jackass & I can’t believe he sued Gordon for crap basically. For all we know Joe was the one who hid things just to get a couple hundreds of dollars. Like wow, talk about Amy 2.0 & he didn’t deserve to own a restaurant to begin with. I can’t believe he even thought of owning one & thinking that it would be such a huge success. Gordon really did try, he tried & you can see it. His menu was just vile, the weird quesadillas, the elk & his gross French onion soup. Gordon should’ve left when he had the chance but I guess he didn’t want another Amy’s baking company fiasco aftermath. Why ask for help when you can’t even help yourself or even appreciate it. I’m sorry he deserved to lose & I don’t feel sorry for him even now years later. Just sad, the employees had so much patience because I would’ve destroyed him. He did so much flaunting in the beginning showing him his farm & him working with world class chefs & whatnot. He was so unprofessional, he ranted to customers about the argument he had with Gordon & I could see the women’s faces how mortified they were to hear such crap from a stranger who is the owner. He continues outside of his restaurant to be unprofessional & rant with another customer. Like wtf, I wouldn’t have entertained him & left. In end, Joe’s business was bound to close & now his employees are free from the curse of Joe nagy which his last name goes with him since all he did was nag.
I’ve been binge watching KN for about a month now, and I have to say this is one of the few restaurants that I’m glad closed down. What an arrogant jerk the owner Joe was. Also completely random, I really like this site! I read up on the restaurants while I watch the show. You do a great job and this site is super informative!
Thanks for the kind words! Agree that Joe is the WORST.
The new menu that Gordan came up was wonderful. What happened besides Joe losing employees and returning to the kitchen? He lost his passion and burned out? I’m shocked that Joe would sue Gordon after all the help he provided.
The most debilitating is the escalation of demeaning yelling between Gordan and Joe. I wonder about their blood pressure! I couldn’t work under those conditions. Bravo for Gordon who always does amazing work!!! I hope Joe finds peace within himself. I believe there is a soft side to Joe which shows his love for ‘Skinny’. If only he would have followed Gordon’s instructions.
The Joe Nagy’s Bistro Facebook page is gone .