Wednesday 16 November 2022 11:56 PM Kitchen Nightmares: Restaurant shuts down as owner 'disagreed' with some Colin ... trends now
A restaurant owner has revealed his failing business could not be saved despite a 'makeover' by celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge on his Kitchen Nightmares program.
The revelation followed claims by another cafe owner, Virginia Cheong, that she lost business after her appearance on the show.
Unlike Ms Cheong, Anthony Davies does not blame Kitchen Nightmares for his restaurant failing, but has questioned some of the advice he was given by the Channel 7 show's team.
Mr Davies and his partner Lauren Crisell owned the Araucaria restaurant at Winmalee in the NSW Blue Mountains which featured on Tuesday night's edition of the program, but shut their business very shortly after filming ended.
He said some of the advice he was given by the show 'absolutely failed to deliver' improvements to the restaurant, which shut due to 'financial hardship'.
Lauren Crisell (left) and her partner Anthony Davies (right) shut their restaurant very shortly after filming finished for an episode of Kitchen Nightmares
'We were at the point of closing six weeks before we got to filming – we were just limping along, and we went into the whole process hoping some explosion might help,' Mr Davies told news.com.au.
In an emotional Facebook post after their restaurant shut, Ms Crisell said it was 'with the heaviest of hearts that Anthony and I let our valued customers know that we will no longer be running the bistro out of Winmalee Tavern due to financial hardship.
'We gave it everything, we gave it our all, and we hope that that was evident from our seasonal menus, our customer service, and our energy,' she wrote.
Mr Davies said the five-day makeover done by the Kitchen Nightmares team was not enough to turn around underlying problems and that the show tried to 'cultivate ... tension' with some of its menu changes.
He said the show 'seemed to imply we weren't putting significant effort into the "pub playlist" menu – things like burgers, schnitzels and beer battered fish'.
According to Mr Davies, Araucaria was left with a menu with no garlic bread and no bruschetta and Kitchen Nightmares implied they were 'overreaching' with some of their dishes.
He said the show told him to pay more attention to basics and not to high-end offerings, 'but we were just trying to be different from every other pub in the mountains'.
In her Facebook post, Ms Crisell said 'anyone who saw Anthony and his
