With news of the Kitchen Nightmares series coming to an end, we're looking back -- and it's certainly been a long and bumpy ride for Gordon Ramsay and every restaurant owner on the show. It's safe to say that some of those featured restaurants faired better than others. In fact, over 60 percent of the restaurants featured on the show are no longer operating.
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According to Grub Street, 47 out of 77 restaurants featured in the American series have closed since Ramsay visited their restaurants. That's not to place the blame on Ramsay, since it'd be fair to argue that almost all of them would've closed regardless of if they were on the show.
However, it is interesting to note that nearly 30 percent of those restaurants didn't even make it a year after their episodes aired. It's also odd that all of the restaurants on season two have since closed. One of the most recent episodes featured Bella Luna, a mother-son owned Italian joint that seemed almost destined for failure do to a combined lack of any restaurant experience and just general bad choices. That restaurant closed less than four months after filming.
Overall, restaurants are a pretty big risk. According to a 2007 Bloomberg Businessweek report, about 25% of restaurants close or change ownership in the first year and about 60% close within three, showing Ramsay's success/failure rate is on par with the industry. All that pretty much means is that Gordon Ramsay isn't a restaurant miracle cure.
