This Was The Worst Customer Service In Kitchen Nightmares History
"Kitchen Nightmares" has aired so many outrageous incidents, it's hard to say exactly which scandal tops the charts. From Rishi Brown of Prohibition Grille who broke out into a belly dance for customers mid-service, to Amy Bouzaglo of Amy's Baking Company who was so unwilling to take advice that even Gordon Ramsay gave up, the series has shown host Ramsay interact with many memorable characters through its course.
One restaurant owner, however, stands out for poor customer service: Sabatiello "Sammy" Settembre from Italian spot Sabatiello's. In Episode 8 of Season 2, which is available in full on YouTube, Ramsay walks into the Stamford, Connecticut restaurant to find that Settembre has racked up a debt of $1 million and is only a month away from having to close up shop. Upon speaking to staff and reading a customer's review of the restaurant that calls Settembre "the most obnoxious owner" they have ever met, Ramsay finds out that the cause of the problem is, well, Settembre himself. Ramsay doesn't have to wait too long to see the issues for himself.
In the first half of the episode, Ramsay puts on his chef's whites to observe Sabatiello's dinner service. During the evening, one customer finds her rack of lamb less cooked than the medium-rare she had ordered, so she asks the waiter to send it back to the kitchen to be re-seared. And so ensues perhaps the worst demonstration of customer service in "Kitchen Nightmares" history.
Settembre gaslit a customer about her undercooked lamb
Instead of further cooking the lamb in a pan as the customer requested, Settembre tells his chef to "put it in the microwave for a minute and a half" before returning it to the customer (via YouTube). Not so sly: The woman catches on because the plate feels warm from the microwave, so she politely sends it back to the kitchen once more to be properly cooked. Infuriated and cursing, Settembre confronts the customer himself and asks her if she is willing to wait for a new plate. She approves — as long as her food is not cooked in the microwave.
"Do you work for a microwave company? You know so much about microwaves. Unbelievable," Settembre says sarcastically, denying that the lamb was ever microwaved in the first place and storming away. The customer, Ramsay, and the entire restaurant, of course, are appalled by his behavior. That's not all: When Settembre finally brings out the lamb for the third time, he waits by the table and tells the customer that he wants to watch her cut into the meat to see if it's still too rare. Fed up, she returns the plate to the kitchen.
Settembre tells the camera, "I kept my composure. I wanted to kill her, and I didn't." It's really no surprise, then, that Sabatiello's closed its doors in October of 2008, a month before the episode aired (via Reality Tv Revisited).