Yelpers went nuts over the weekend -- and guess who was the topic? Amy Bouzaglo of Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, who apparently cooked up a storm on Saturday.
In fact, I reached out to one diner who was at Saturday night's taping of Kitchen Nightmares at Amy's. He got a very real dose of reality television -- more than he bargained for, actually.
Although he had heard about owner Amy Bouzaglo's reputation, the diner, who wishes to remain anonymous because of a confidentiality agreement he signed for the show's producers, tells me he was more a fan of the FOX reality show -- in which British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay spends a week with a failing restaurant to try and bring it back to life -- and wanted to be a part of it. What he didn't count on was the chaos that happened that evening.
"I couldn't believe it was real," he says.
The scene started almost immediately.
"It was very tense," the diner tells me, "you could hear Amy [Bouzaglo] yelling in the kitchen and Samy [Bouzaglo's husband] was running all over the dining room. Other tables were complaining and people were leaving because they were waiting so long for their food. My partner and I had reservations for 6:45. By 9:30, we still hadn't received our pizza."
Thinking the drama might be part of the show, the diner talked to one of the show's producers, who confirmed that what was happening was real.
Still without pizza, the diner went up to the cash register to talk to Samy, who was arguing with another customer. When Samy saw the diner, he told him his pizza was coming. When the diner answered that Samy had told the diner that an hour ago, Samy responded by saying, "Why don't you go fuck yourself."
And, according to the diner, it wasn't long before Amy came out to see what was happening.
"She was yelling and screaming 'get the fuck out' and saying if we weren't going to pay for our drinks, she was going to call the cops. She called me a 'tough guy' and said, 'You better correct your acting skills if you're trying to get on TV.' The producer said he would pay for our bill and that we should leave."
The diner adds, "The producers told me they had never seen anything like this."
When the diner and his partner walked out, he says the Scottsdale police were already on the scene and tells me they were responding to a 911 hangup call he presumes was made by Amy. He goes on to say he heard Amy tell the police she had been "set up."
To add to the evening's disaster, the diner says he never did get to see Gordon Ramsay.
When I called Samy to ask for his side of the story, he told me couldn't talk to me because "Ramsay was there."
A call to one of the producers of the show has not yet been returned.
The Scottsdale Police Department confirms for Chow Bella they came out to Amy's Baking Company on Saturday evening following a 911 hangup call. They concluded everything was fine and left without making a report.
