Gordon Ramsay recently shut the doors on his hit Fox show "Kitchen Nightmares." Unfortunately, 60 percent of the restaurants he tried to save have since shut down, especially most of the ones from his first three seasons.
Is that really Ramsay's fault? It's impossible to say because many of the restaurants might have been so financially strapped, even the added publicity and (hopefully positive) changes may not have made enough of a difference. All of the restaurants from season two (2008-09) are gone now, according to Grub Street New York, which tracked all 77 restaurants Ramsay tried to fix over seven seasons.
He visited two Atlanta restaurants in 2011 for the fifth season: Michon's in College Park and Park's Edge in Inman Park. I wrote about Ramsay's arrival in 2011. The episodes aired in early 2012. Both closed two years later in 2013, according to Grub Street New York.
But Grub Street got Michon's wrong. The restaurant actually moved to downtown. I don't think that counts as a "closing."
The barbecue restaurant left College Park after more than 20 years in December. Manager Derek Alexander said downtown "has been pretty good. This is not a sit-down spot. It's more lunch hour to go. There are no servers. Older customers have to get used to that." But he said the food is the same. He didn't know why the owners chose to move. The restaurant is now at Peachtree Center.
I'm also not clear why Park's Edge closed though Eater Atlanta reported that Victory Sandwich Bar secured the lease in 2013. The story said Park's Edge would relocate but I don't see any sign of the restaurant under that old name anywhere else. (Victory ultimately never took the space, my colleague John Kessler said. They have a restaurant in Decatur.)
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Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
With Carol Costello and Brooke Baldwin leaving Atlanta for New York in August, as previously reported, CNN will no longer have any domestic weekday anchors based in Atlanta. So HLN will be taking over CNN's Studio 7, which was redesigned three years ago.
It's significantly larger than the HLN studios, which CNN will soon be using.
As TVNewser noted, Studio 7 was where CNN's 2012 election coverage, including primary nights. The studio utilized a slew of technologies, including John King's "Magic Wall."
Since Jeff Zucker took over last year, the movement of CNN movers and shakers from Atlanta to New York has only accelerated.
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CBS's "Big Brother" opened this week with ratings that are slightly stronger than last year. Last night's episode drew 6.6 million viewers and a 2.3 18-49 rating, which are good numbers in this day and age for any broadcast show. This season's cast features a one Lovejoy resident Jocasta Odom, who brings up Jesus and God a lot while trying to win $500,000.
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
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