Robert Irvine's Biggest Annoyance During The First Restaurant: Impossible Episode
As a celebrity chef and television personality, Robert Irvine has helped scores of struggling businesses through his Food Network show "Restaurant: Impossible." He told Fan Sided in an interview that he looks at the show as a medium to reach out to those in the food industry who need help and teach them practical ways to overcome their issues.
However, the goals set by "Restaurant: Impossible" are far from easy. Irvine has a limited time period and budget — two days and $10,000 — to rescue a restaurant from collapse and come up with an effective strategy for its makeover. Recently, Irvine spoke about his "Restaurant: Impossible" journey in a Food Network interview, looking fondly at the time gone by (posted on Twitter). He even shared some interesting nuggets of information on his experiences while filming episodes for the show.
The first episode was especially difficult to pull off, according to the chef. They ended up renovating a family establishment, Villari's in Palmyra, New Jersey. While it was difficult, Irvine thought that they were doing all right when the restaurant was re-launched. Things were pretty chaotic on opening night, but they were keeping up with orders.
Irvine had to cope with a lot
Robert Irvine mentioned in the interview that things spiraled out of control when a couple of guests got accidentally hit by paint. Irvine was afraid that something like this could happen and wanted to avoid using oil paint on the chairs at the eatery because he was sure they wouldn't be dry on time. His fears became reality when the team realized it didn't have enough rental chairs and had to use those that had been freshly painted. To Irvine's great dismay, the paint wreaked havoc and the "Restaurant: Impossible" crew had to buy a brand new dress for a customer whose outfit was completely ruined by her chair.
Furthermore, Irvine had appointed someone as an executive chef who decided to quit right in the middle of filming, leaving Irvine to work frantically to keep up with the orders. That experience combined with the paint disaster was incredibly frustrating for Irvine, who had to step up and do some damage control. Truly a story of a stressful ordeal, even for a seasoned professional like Irvine.