Restaurant owner serves up reasons for failure

By Calvin Palmer

It had been some time since my wife and I dined at the West Inn Cantina in the Avondale district of Jacksonville, Florida.

West Inn is on my list of “approved” restaurants because of its covered smoking section and, besides, it serves an excellent chicken tortilla soup — or rather it did.

We discovered on Saturday night that the restaurant has closed.

I was intrigued as to the reason and, for once, The Florida Times-Union provided the answer in a story it ran on December 17, 2009.

Co-owner Linda Spofford told the newspaper the restaurant was closing because of the downturn in the economy and a roadwork project that lasted seven months. The bar and liquor store will remain open.

“We’re not planning on closing down,” Linda said. “We’re staying here. We’re keeping all our restaurant equipment, too, so if things get better we have the option of reopening that.”

It turns out 20 employees were laid off just two weeks before Christmas.

“It’s been very devastating,” Linda said. “But with the economy and all that road construction — our road was closed for seven months — that just killed us.”

Those sound plausible reasons for closing the restaurant operation but something about them does not quite ring true.

Four other restaurants in close vicinity to the West Inn Cantina have been subjected to the same economic conditions and roadwork project. They are still going strong.

I will wager that a visit from Gordon Ramsay would have revealed the real reasons why the restaurant section of the West Inn Cantina has closed its doors and those home truths, and the manner of their delivery, would not have been particularly palatable for Linda Spofford.

For starters, based on my own experiences, the wait staff had little enthusiasm for either customers or the food on the menu. Welcoming smile, forget it. I gained the distinct impression that, simply by turning up at the door, I represented an imposition on their time.

In fact, the reason why it had been such a long time since our last visit to the West Inn Cantina was down to the uninterested wait staff. They couldn’t have cared less about us as a customers and it showed.

I am no culinary expert but imagine that Gordon Ramsay would have also found the menu to be somewhat lacking, apart from the chicken tortilla soup.

Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares airs regularly on BBC America and shows that many restaurateurs seem to be obvilious to their own faults and inhabit a fantasy land as far as their business is concerned.

It would appear that Linda Spofford shares this unfortunate and unbecoming trait.

Ramsay’s London restaurants voted top for overpriced and disappointing food

By Calvin Palmer

A restaurant guide has dubbed several of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants as “overpriced” and “disappointing”, based on the reports of more than 8,000 diners.

One can imagine the choice expletives from Ramsay, star of BBC America’s Hell’s Kitchen, when he heard the news. His outburst probably lent a new meaning to cordon bleu.

The latest edition of Harden’s London Restaurants found that Ramsay’s flagship restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay on Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, had suffered an “unprecedented” slide in approval.

It had previously been unchallenged as and the top restaurant in London for more than a decade, where the seven course “menu prestige” costs £120 ($193) per head without wine.

Four Ramsay restaurants — the Chelsea restaurant; Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s; The Warrington pub in Maida Vale; and Maze in Mayfair – were included in the top 10 most disappointing for cooking.

The Chelsea restaurant, Claridge’s and Maze – were also among the top 10 which diners in the survey found were most overpriced.

The poor showing in the guide follows a torrid year for the celebrity chef whose image was tarnished by claims of an extramarital affair while his company was accused of serving up centrally prepared “ready meals”.

Last month it emerged that profits in his restaurant empire, Gordon Ramsay Holdings, had fallen by almost 90 percent, forcing Ramsay to inject £5 million ($8 million) of his family’s own money into the business and close a handful of overseas ventures.

The one glimmer of hope for Ramsay was his Italian-influenced Murano in Mayfair being named as the capital’s best new restaurant.

The guide praised Murano’s chef, Angela Hartnett, for “simple Italian dishes, beautifully executed”.

A spokeswoman for Gordon Ramsay Holdings said: “Gordon is aware of the contents of the latest Harden’s guide.”

Hartnett, however, thanked Ramsay for his support.

“Of course everything we have achieved at Murano wouldn’t have been possible without our fantastic team and, of course, Gordon, who has backed me all the way,” she said.

Richard Harden, co-editor of the guide, said the poor showing in the survey suggested Ramsay was suffering from “imperial overreach”.

“He wants to be almost an international film star and be accorded almost David Beckham levels of international fame and yet he wants to run this internationally recognized group of restaurants,” he said.

“There is a deep unwillingness to accept that you can’t have it all.”

[Based on reports by The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.]

TV chef Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants show 90 percent fall in profits

By Calvin Palmer

TV chef Gordon Ramsay, famed for his use of expletives, probably mouthed a few more as he learned that the profits of his restaurant company  fell by almost 90 percent.

The latest accounts for Gordon Ramsay Holdings, filed at Companies House, show profits fell from £3.05 million ($4.99 million) to £383,000 ($627,135) as turnover dropped by 14 percent from £41.59 million ($68.14 million) to £35.6 million ($58.3 million).

Net debt at the group jumped from £4 million ($6.5 million )to £9.5 million ($15.6 million), sending its interest payments soaring from almost £280,000 ($458,833) to £545,000 ($892,610).

Ramsay and his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson, who is also his business partner, put £5 million ($8.2 million) of their own money into the business in an attempt to avoid it going into administration.

The company also hived off its operations in Paris, Los Angeles and Prague, reducing the number of covers in other restaurants and sacking a quarter of the staff at their London head office.

Ramsay earns up to £10 million ($16.4 million) a year from his TV programs, books and live shows.

The group’s rapid expansion – it opened 10 new restaurants in 10 months – is being blamed for the poor results.

Ramsay admitted earlier this year that he had considered selling his £6 million ($9.8 million) home in Wandsworth, London, adding: “ambition overtook me, we thought we could do anything, that we could not fail”.

“It’s been very painful. It’s taken several million pounds of my own money but I’m still standing,” Ramsay said.

As well as the slump in profits, Gordon Ramsay Holdings had to deal with an unpaid backlog of VAT, corporation tax and PAYE, which totaled almost £8 million ($13.1 million), a sum only being repaid this month.

The celebrity chef saw four of his London restaurants close between December 2007 and January 2009 – the Savoy Grill, the Connaught, Petrus and La Noisette. Both the Savoy Grill and Petrus are due to reopen however while profits this year have been described as “robust”.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and The Times.]