(keep reading to learn what happened)
Season: 2 | View All Season 2 Episodes
Original Episode Air Date: September 21, 2011
The Trails Eatery Address: 7389 Jackson Dr San Diego, CA 92119
Episode Recap
The Trails Eatery was a San Diego, California restaurant featured on Season 2 of Restaurant Impossible.
Though the Trails Restaurant Impossible episode aired in September 2011, the actual filming and visit from Robert Irvine took place before that.
It was Season 2 Episode 10.
The Trails Eatery is in sunny San Diego, CA.
Stacey Poon-Kinney owns and runs the restaurant alongside her father, Larry.
You might know Stacey from the cooking competition show Food Network Star, but I’m getting ahead of myself because that show happened after the Trails Restaurant Impossible episode.
After eight years, Stacey purchased the restaurant with her father after leaving the corporate world.
Larry discouraged Stacey from buying The Trails Eatery, but she thought it would be the perfect opportunity to spend more time at home with her family.
Initially, The Trails Eatery was successful, and Larry and Stacey decided to expand.
To cover the expansion costs, Larry took out a second mortgage on his home. That’s obviously a huge risk, because Larry could lose his home if things go bad.
Because of the renovations to the restaurant, Stacey is now in mounting debt.
She is afraid of losing the restaurant and never repaying her father.
Robert Irvine arrives and talks to Stacey, who informs him that she does not own the building.
Stacey also tells Robert she is stressed because her father is funding the restaurant with his retirement fund, and she desperately wants to pay him back.
The Trails Eatery only serves lunch and breakfast. The owners tried opening for dinner service, but it was not worth it.
The dishes on the menu are low priced, so the restaurant is not profitable.
The kitchen is inefficient, but the food is tasty, and Robert enjoys his meal, which isn’t usually the case on Restaurant Impossible.
Stacey tells Robert she does not pay herself, and the restaurant is expected to close within a month.
To increase profits, Robert thinks the restaurant needs to open for dinner.
Taniya and her design team arrived and worked with Robert to develop a theme.
Robert works with cook Lisa to create an improved menu.
She tells Robert she learned a lot from him during the training.
Before Robert leaves, Stacey and Lisa confront him about opening for dinner.
They do not think it is a good idea since they had tried before and failed.
The ladies are told to go home and think about it.
The following day, Robert arrives and is impressed with the design team’s progress.
As a compromise, Stacey and Robert decide to open for dinner twice a week instead of every day.
Robert then goes to the local radio station to advertise The Trails Eatery’s relaunch.
When he returns, he trains the kitchen staff.
The new renovations are revealed to Stacey and Larry, who are happy with the subtle changes.
The customers arrive and are also pleased with the changes Taniya and the design team made.
So was the Trails Eatery Restaurant Impossible episode a success? Keep reading our update to learn what happened to the restaurant and how it and Stacey Poon-Kinney are doing in 2024 and beyond.
The Trails Eatery Update - What Happened Next?
Now that we’ve recapped the Trails Eatery Restaurant Impossible episode, let’s talk about what happened to the restaurant after Robert Irvine and his crew left San Diego, CA.
First off, Restaurant Impossible had a huge positive effect on the restaurant’s revenue, with sales close to doubling after the episode aired on TV.
Things kept going up even after that, so it wasn’t a one-time thing.
Is The Trails Eatery from Restaurant Impossible still open?
As of 2022, The Trails Eatery is still open and serving customers in San Diego, CA.
Reviews for the restaurant generally seem quite good, as it has a 4 star rating on the Trails Eatery Yelp page, 4.5 stars on Google reviews, and 4.5 stars on TripAdvisor.
However, the restaurant has moved back to focusing exclusively on breakfast and lunch (and brunch of course!).
As of 2022, the restaurant is only open from 7 am to 2 pm every day.
It no longer has any dinner service, which probably isn’t surprising if you watched the episode.
If you’re in the San Diego, CA area and you want to check it out, you can learn more and see the Trails Eatery menu at the official The Trails Eatery website.
What happened to Stacey Poon-Kinney after Restaurant Impossible?
Stacey has done very well for herself after the Trails Eatery Restaurant Impossible experience.
In addition to the success of the restaurant, she also was featured on the ninth season of Food Network Star, which aired in 2013 (around two years after the Restaurant Impossible episode).
She made it to the top four out of 12 finalists, but she was eliminated in fourth place on August 4, 2013.
A lot of fans were angry by her elimination and didn’t think it was fair.
If you want to connect with Stacey Poon-Kinney, you can check out her Instagram page, where she’s pretty active.
If you want to learn more about Stacey’s experience on the Restaurant Impossible episode, she did a 53-minute Facebook Live Stream on the six-year anniversary of the Trails Restaurant Impossible episode. You can check that out here.
Overall, the Trails Restaurant Impossible episode seems to have been a huge success for both the restaurant and Stacey as an individual.
Congrats to everyone involved!
To see another California Restaurant Impossible episode, you can read our Off Street Cafe update, which was the previous episode of Season 2.
More Information
https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-trails-eatery-san-diegohttps://www.facebook.com/TheTrailsEatery/
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Last updated: 2022-06-11 05:31