In this Kitchen Nightmares episode, Gordon Ramsay visits Casa Roma in Lancaster, California.
Casa Roma is the oldest restaurant in Lancaster.
It was originally opened in 1958 and is nearly 50 years old.
Nylah and her son Jeremy bought Casa Roma while she was looking for business opportunities.
They bought the failing restaurant with the hope of turning it around and making it successful again.
Neither of them has any experience in the restaurant business at all.
Their lack of experience got the better of them.
Only their bar is packed while their dine in restaurant is empty.
Their profit can range from $9 to $175 a night and is $100 on average.
They have had almost 20 chefs in the 2 and a half years they have been open.
They currently have Drew and Eric as their chefs.
Waitress Ashley believes Eric is the reason Casa Roma hasn’t been doing well.
He doesn’t send the food out quick enough and she describes his food as bland.
Eric believes his foods are very good but Drew complains about his lack of productivity.
He says that he is expected to do everything in the kitchen and they do not get along.
Gordon arrives and meets the owners.
The bar has no windows and he finds a busy bar but a completely empty restaurant.
Nylah tells Gordon that prior to starting the restaurant business she worked in a grocery store.
Jeremy was working in carpet cleaning and ironically Gordon notices that the carpet is filthy.
Gordon sits to read the menu and order food.
He notices bits of food and tissue down the back of the broken booth.
He also notices the menu misspells dining, instead spelling it as dinning.
From the menu, Gordon orders stuffed mushrooms, Monte Cristo and a medium Casa Roma deluxe pizza.
It takes a long time for the food to be delivered.
During the wait Gordon notices the blinds are dirty, even though the restaurant has a cleaner.
Eric has a smoke break mid-way through cooking.
No food has not been served 35 minutes since Gordon ordered.
It takes an hour before Gordon’s stuffed mushrooms are served to him.
Gordon tastes the food and he is disappointed in what he has been served.
The stuffed mushrooms are tasteless, full of water and soggy.
The Monte Cristo sandwich and pizza is finally served 75 minutes after Gordon placed his order.
The Monte Cristo sandwich is dripping with fat and the pizza is raw and thick.
Gordon says the only people that can eat that kind of food are the drunk people in the bar.
Chef Eric is defensive of Gordon's criticism of his food.
He blames the poor quality food on him having a bad day.
Gordon says the food was not edible and Eric walks out of the restaurant.
Eric later returns and meets with Gordon and asks him for a second chance.
During the dinner service, Eric ignores sous chef Drew.
They don't work together at all, leading to long wait times.
Gordon notices how often foods were being sent back to the kitchen as undercooked.
He angrily shuts down the restaurant.
Gordon tells Nylah that Eric is incompetent and he is only there for the pay check.
He thinks that she needs to get rid of him and promote Drew to Head Chef.
Nylah takes Gordon's advice, sacks Eric and promotes Drew to Head Chef.
Gordon discovers that he has a talent for making pizza.
The next day Gordon inspects the walk-in.
He finds mouldy food, unidentifiable defrosting meat and 3 month old ribs.
He takes a blue UV light to the bathrooms.
Gordon finds out they are in a disgusting state.
They have bodily fluids on the ceiling, walls and floor!
Gordon has a talk with Nylah about the state of the kitchen and the bathroom.
They throw out all of the bad food and deep clean the kitchen and bathroom.
Gordon sets Drew a challenge of cooking a fresh pizza.
Gordon cooks them a frozen pizza to see if they can tell the difference.
Nylah likes the fresh pizza made by Drew.
She says the cooked frozen pizza tastes like their old pizza.
Gordon then introduced his own signature pizza which Nyla also likes.
A day is spent giving the restaurant a makeover.
Both inside and out is revamped and the filthy carpet is ripped up.
Nyla and the staff were really surprised.
They are happy happy when they see the new beautiful pizzeria, Casa Roma.
Gordon organizes a pizza eating contest to celebrate Casa Roma’s 50th year.
He plans to introduce the place as the new pizzeria in town.
After the contest, Gordon reveals the new menu to the staff.
During relaunch night, Jimmy was in the kitchen assisting Drew in making the calzones and pizzas.
The local fire crew stop in for dinner.
A chicken dish is sent back by them to the kitchen as undercooked.
They send it out again only for it to be returned again.
The calzones Jimmy were making were huge.
Gordon tells him to cut down the size, slow down and focus on the details.
Drew struggles at first as there was too much pressure on him.
Drew finally steps up and the food leaves the kitchen quickly.
The customers are impressed and the relaunch was a success.
What Happened Next at Casa Roma?
Gordon revisits, Drew is gone and Nylah bought out her son from the business.
The fridge and the restaurant was clean.
The biggest surprise is Q from Sebastian's is the Head Chef!
Nylah had recognised him from the Sebastian's episode and hired him to work for her.
After Gordon revisited they abandoned Gordon's new menu.
They returned to their previous menu.
There were rumours that the owners had been writing a number of reviews themselves.
Casa Roma was renamed to The AV Roadhouse Restaurant Bar & Grill, offering a slim lined menu
It appears that Casa Roma was briefly renamed to CR Roadhouse mid 2015.
All of the staff to work here after a local restaurant Nico's closed.
They also changed the menu again.
Yelp reviews are mostly negative on both AV and CR Roadhouse.
The restaurant once again became Casa Roma.
Casa Roma closed for good in July 2017.
Nylah posted the below on Facebook,
As of July 1st Casa Roma will be closing their doors for good.
It is going to be a very sad month. But things have come about that can't help but go this way.
It's the next chapter in my life and I love and appreciate all of you who have stood by me and my family and business. Thank you to all of you.
Casa Roma aired on March 12 2010, the episode was filmed in March 2008 and is Kitchen Nightmares season 3 episode 7.
Read About More Kitchen Nightmares
Previous episode - Le Bistro
Next episode - Mama Rita's
Any word yet on whether Nyla still owns the place and merely changed its name? If not, we might as well call this one CLOSED as well. : ? Anyone?
ReplyDeleteNylah still owns Casa Roma/CR Roadhouse.
DeleteGood lord, Erick is a fool. Why not just expand the bar?
ReplyDeleteBecause most bars in residential areas are NOT profitable, especially when they serve inedible food. And I have a sneaking suspicion that wasn't urine on the ceiling that was exposed by the black light, which makes the whole thought of it even more disgusting. Maybe that's where lazy Chef Eric made his "special sauce."
Deletedirty kitchen dining room restroom is just a sign of the owner not caring anymore
ReplyDeletein GR words... WAKE UP
You can tell there are bogus comments here as well. Check out the Yelp reviews..despite the fake ones most are saying that it is a dirty bar with 1.5 stars to boot. My only guess is Nylah is just as nasty and dirty as the bar was before which is why she's thrown out everything chef has given her and continued with the bar business. Can't wait to see this one go under.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting -- and very cool -- twist to see Q there. I hope he's doing well!
ReplyDeleteWas the waitress saying "Monte CRISCO"? LMAO.
ReplyDeleteYes she was!!! But then again after GR squeezed it, I think she may have been partially correct. . .
DeleteYes lol and with how greasy it was, she was right to call it that!
DeleteWe visited a couple of times shortly after Gordon did his magic and everything was very good. Haven't been there for a couple of years so don't know what it's like now.
ReplyDeleteOften I feel that they just Ramsay spend on makeover the restaurants+advertisings. You can see who respect him, their restaurants still open and other closed!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou can tell when someone is a serious alcoholic and Nylah definitely is an alcoholic.
ReplyDeleteThe history of this place was so weird. Changed the menu back to the original right after the revisited episode for no reason (why? Nylah never claimed to like the original menu), then rebranded and basically recreated the changes Ramsay made without Ramsay's professional changes and menu (then why change in the first place?), then of course when that failed they made a new change and again rebranded to make it seem like a new place? They could have just saved so much time, money, and effort by just staying the same this whole time. The only person I really feel bad for here is Q, he went from one nightmare to another (though he really should have known better he wasn't a negative part of Sebastian's)
ReplyDelete