Well, it finally happened: Chef Gordon Ramsay found some restaurant owners for his Fox TV reality show 'Kitchen Nightmares' that could not or would not be helped. Of course the Bouzaglos were not really looking for Ramsay's help, just affirmation of what they felt was Amy Bouzaglo's culinary genius. From their unique perspective the online world of food bloggers had turned against them and joined together with nasty foodies and haters to try and destroy their million dollar eatery in a Scottsdale, Arizona, strip mall. And according to Amy it was all about 'jealousy'. So is Amy a misunderstood maiden, brilliant culinary entrepreneur or manipulative monster? Those are the questions being asked by everyone in the wake of the airing of her K.N. episode and the subsequent meltdown she and her husband Samy had as they posted responses to all the 'haters' online afterward.

As someone who has owned businesses and consulted for them I am both amazed and amused by this unique situation. Most people who believe their 'dream' business is one that the world will flock to as soon as they open their doors will probably fail. That's normally because they choose the wrong product to sell, the wrong location for their store, improperly price what they sell, are under funded, or simply have no idea what it takes to start and run a successful business. Samy and Amy's situation is different: They chose a decent location, an almost recession proof product in the form of a bakery restaurant with fair menu prices, and apparently have the cash reserves to keep their restaurant going. From all the outward appearances everything looks great: The place is clean and yummy bakery goods are well displayed therefore attracting the attention of hungry people. However, an ugly truth lurks under the surface of this eatery.

From what I have observed on their Kitchen Nightmares episode the problems begin when you place an order at Amy's Baking Company. You are made to wait because it appears that Amy likes to fulfill one ticket at a time. If you complain enough you are likely to incur the wrath of the owners and may be asked to leave or get pushed out the door. If you choose to leave before your order is ready and have not paid for it, the police may be called and you are accused of being a deadbeat or rip off artist. If you leave a tip it goes to the owners, not your server. The servers at Amy's are called Food Runners and are paid an hourly wage, but as far as I know it is illegal in most places to withhold tips from employees unless a NO TIPPING policy is in place and that is apparently not the case at Amy's. On top of all this Chef Ramsay claims that some items listed as fresh made like a ravioli dish on the menu is prepared with frozen pasta. Another case in point about the issue of Truth at Amy's concerns their baked goods.

On his first day at their restaurant Samy and Amy Bouzaglo told Gordon Ramsay that their lovely assortment of baked goods were baked on the premises by Amy. That boast now appears to be false and Amy has said that her restaurant reselling bakery products made elsewhere is no different from Walmart reselling electronics. Despite obvious food quality issues common to most supermarket and big box stores, at least Walmart bakes most of what they sell in their bakery department display cases on premises. Making false claims about the ravioli and baked goods at Amy's is a symptom of a larger problem. For whatever unimaginable reason Samy and Amy operate their restaurant in a bizarre manner which defies explanation.

Samy runs the front of the house and insists on entering every ticket into their POS (point of sale) system himself. He receives a hand written ticket from the server, ah, I mean food runner, and takes over from there. In their Kitchen Nightmares episode he made a mistake and tried to blame an employee for it. Amy runs the kitchen and when food runner Katy Cipriano had the nerve to ask Amy if she was sure a certain order was for a particular table, she was fired for asking. Amy later said that Katy was being disrespectful and called her former employee 'a poisonous little viper'. Ramsay came to the food runner's defense having witnessed the incident, but Amy would have none of it. After a short argument between all the parties involved Katy quit and left the restaurant in tears.

As far as the quality of food cooked and served at the Bouzaglo's restaurant goes, that remains a matter of debate despite the many bad service reviews posted by customers online. Katy Cipriano, who worked at Amy's for about three weeks before she was fired, recently took to Yelp for a Q&A session. She claims that during filming for the Kitchen Nightmares episode it was possible that some diners may have said the food they received was substandard or bad just to get on TV. However, it's important to note that she and other employees at Amy's were not allowed to taste or eat the food unless they paid for it. Katy says she never bothered paying for any so she could not comment on how it tasted. She did admit that the place was always very clean because the lack of customers left lots of time for cleaning. I visited Yelp myself and discovered that Amy's had a overall rating of two out of five stars. Most of the negative comments had more to do with service and it is only fair to say that both the Arizona Republic Newspaper and Phoenix Magazine once gave the eatery high marks for its food.

I think that Chef Ramsay's overall assessment of Amy's menu and food preparation was fair, but everyone has different tastes in food and Ramsay runs fine dining restaurants. A quick look at their menu reveals that Amy's Baking Company is not fine dining. While they may not have been entirely honest about serving food prepared elsewhere, most of their menu items received good reviews prior to the airing of the Kitchen Nightmares episode. Another problem is that customers report their bakery items are really tasty and that may cause some confusion. People order something cooked at the restaurant, do not have to pay much for it, and find it satisfying enough to give their meal a thumbs up. Then they order a delicious dessert prepared elsewhere that really knocks their socks off and they end up giving the place more credit than it might deserve. Regardless of what is or is not written about Amy's food online, the fact that the place has trouble attracting regular customers speaks volumes about systematic problems the eatery needs to address.

The only thing more important than having all your ducks in order when it comes to running any retail business and keeping up with all the paperwork is establishing and maintaining a reputation for customer satisfaction and good service. In this economy things like customer loyalty and developing a following of satisfied diners are not a luxury, but a necessity. You cannot build good will with your customers by keeping them waiting for their food because only one ticket at a time is cooked or the boss is the only person who can input orders on the restaurant's POS system. Not allowing food runners to taste free samples of their food or regularly firing hard working employees because they refuse to submit to some Machiavellian code of conduct based solely on whatever mood the owners are in will not help to promote customer confidence in a restaurant.

Like cooks and chefs, servers have followings. When I go out to eat I tend to ask or look for a favorite server just as often as I would visit a favorite restaurant or order a favorite dish, and I am not alone. Restaurants depend on servers to help bring their customers back time and again by providing friendly service and making menu suggestions that mean faster ordering and more profits. Most first time customers have no idea what to order and the longer they look at a menu, the longer that table will be occupied and unavailable for the next group of diners. Servers that have tasted their restaurant's food and know the menu can suggest dishes based on the customer's tastes speeding the entire ordering, cooking and serving process along nicely. Many regular customers trust favorite servers to suggest a special or menu dish diners are likely to enjoy and that enhances the dining experience making a return visit in the future a certainty.

According to former employees who tell tales of a constant turnover when it comes to workers and Samy Bouzaglo's own statement to Gordon Ramsay during the Kitchen Nightmares episode, Amy's Baking Company has managed to go through at least one hundred employees in the last year. You cannot build customer loyalty with a steady flow of changing faces among the ranks of the servers. As if determined to make a bad situation worse, the Bouzaglos told Chef Ramsay that they could not find employees who were willing to perform their work properly where their restaurant is located. Well I am sure that really endeared them to the up scale town of Scottsdale where things like civic pride and tourism are serious issues. According to RadarOnline.com the eatery has already garnered the unwanted attention of the local health department which Radar claims has issued violations for everything from the use of expired sauces to employees not washing their hands in the proper way.

After making so many other business mistakes the Bouzaglos made their biggest one by answering online critics with a steady stream of over the top comments and even some threats of legal action. Regardless of how they felt about what people were saying about them or whether their eatery was fairly portrayed on TV, keeping a low profile after the Kitchen Nightmares episode would have been the best thing to do. Instead, they posted a bunch of bizarre responses and then claimed the comments were not theirs. They say that hackers high jacked their twitter and other social network accounts just to make them look bad. Now the two against the world couple have a new plan to make sure people know how good their food and service really are: Last week they closed their restaurant for a few days and plan a grand reopening under the careful watch of a Public Relations company on May 23, 2013. During the reopening only pre-screened customers who have been approved by the PR company will be welcome which makes this a highly suspect event.

According to the Bouzaglos the special service is designed to allow the public a chance to decide for themselves whether Gordon Ramsay is right or wrong about their food. I doubt Chef Ramsay will show up and even if he did he might not be allowed in. However, both the Bouzaglos and Ramsay are missing out on an incredible opportunity amidst this entire debacle. Imagine if Ramsay did show up and the grand reopening was filmed for a future Kitchen Nightmares episode. Who would not watch? More importantly for Amy's Baking Company, who would not go there to eat just to watch the owners act out? Someone should make a tee shirt for people ejected from Amy's that says something like 'I got thrown out of Amy's Baking Company!' Amy could even make a few extra bucks by selling those tee shirts herself and having Samy physically expell a few more people from the eatery than he usually does! Hey, even if the food is lousy there (and I'm NOT saying it is), I am the kind of person that would go to Amy's to watch all the nonsense that allegedly takes place just for the experience.

***Amy’s Baking Company Debacle UPDATE

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Scottsdale and try to have a nice meal at the now notorious Amy’s Baking Company some new twists make that less and less a possibility as the days go by. The grand re-opening of the seemingly troubled eatery has hit a few bumps in the road beginning with the cancellation of that big press conference we were all waiting for on May 23, 2013. That event was inexplicably canceled, but the cancellation may have had something to do with the fact that the Public Relations company hired by Amy and Samy dropped them as clients, the Fox Network threatened to sue the Bouzaglos, and since their infamous Kitchen Nightmares episode aired some troubling facts have arisen about Amy and Samy that might prove too embarrassing for them to address in public.

After hearing about the Bouzaglo’s planned press event scheduled for 5/23/2013, Fox sent a letter to them which (according to a report by CBS News online) stated in part:

“If you speak about the show without Upper Ground's and Fox's prior approval, and if you disparage the show, its host, or its producers, you will breach your obligations under Paragraph 10 of your Personal Release and Paragraph 14 of your Participant Agreement.”

Background checks, anyone? International Business Times stated that Amy spent 14 months in jail while paying $36,294.95 in restitution for bank fraud involving some sort of identity theft which took place in 2001 before she was married. Samy also has a sorted background as he may have alluded to when he told Chef Ramsay that he was a “gangster” during their Kitchen Nightmares episode. According to Erik Sherman writing for CBS Money Watch online: “Samy is allegedly facing potential deportation after a two-year-old case.” When Samy Bouzaglo emigrated here he may have failed to tell U.S. Immigration Authorities that he was banned from entering France and Germany because of drug and extortion charges. Samy served time elsewhere about thirteen years ago before coming to the USA.

On top of all this the big 5/23/2013 Grand Re-Opening did not go as well as the Bouzaglos hoped. Although they claimed there were over 1000 approved reservations (the event was only open to pre-approved diners), the few people who showed up reported seeing a lot of empty tables. Security guards that hovered around outside of the eatery to keep away reporters and photographers may have scared off some of the invited customers, but the few that showed up were not disappointed if they were looking for drama. Hayley Ringle writing for Phoenix Business Blog said that her party of four got an unwelcome surprise when they visited Amy’s Baking Company on 5/24/2013 (Friday night). She was accompanied by Adam Kress (her Digital Editor) and two other people.

Kress ordered “a vodka martini on the rocks (ice) with a twist of lemon.” It took their server two tries to get his drink order verbally correct and she still did not get it right. When his drink finally arrived at the table it came without ice and with something Adam did not order. In addition to the pieces of lemon, the drink had a dead fly floating around in the glass. After Kress showed the dead fly to Samy on a spoon, Bouzaglo had another drink delivered to their table which had...you guessed it...another fly in it. Three times the charm? Not at Amy’s Baking Company! The third drink sent to Kress had three flies in it. After Adam showed the critters to Samy, the front of the house boss became defensive and said he would pay for the drinks. He then sternly ordered the party of four to leave the restaurant. Guess Samy never heard about covering ice in a place know for lots of flies and other bugs?

Can Amy’s Baking Company survive all this drama? Well, I am a bit surprised that the restaurant was not packed with people for their Grand Re-Opening. If I lived in that area I would have been there just to watch and see what crazy stuff Samy and Amy were up to? The fact that people’s curiosity may have been overwhelmed by their good taste or desire to show empathy for all the employees and customers who claimed abuse and mistreatment at the hands of the Bouzaglos is not a good sign for that business. Add to that the fact that Hayley Ringle’s party was served by an obviously inexperienced employee who appeared to be poorly trained and unable to take a simple drink order and you have a recipe for restaurant closure. If Amy’s Baking Company cannot hire good help and manage to keep them on the job for more than a couple of weeks, the place is probably doomed. The good news if that the eatery plans to hire some thirty new employees from a job fair they have scheduled for Sunday 5/26/2013 from 2pm to 5pm. I am guessing that only people who enjoy being abused should apply.

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