Have you seen "The Restaurant" ???
Paul in Cannon Beach
4,703 Posts
Has anyone else watched the reality show "The Restaurant"? I watched the first episode and got hooked. I worked in restaurants and dining rooms for several years so it was fun to remember the pandemonium of the food and beverage life.
The management is stunningly thick headed(at least it is depicted that way). Serious injuries are poo-poohed by supervisors. Waiters are humiliated in front of everyone. Discipline is almost arbitrary. Its total chaos and really fun to watch.
The main star is celebrity cook/bad boy Rocco Despirito. He has a kind of charisma and he loves his mom. I give him credit for taking such a big risk on national TV knowing that 9 out of 10 restaurants fold in the first year.
If you can look past the blatant product placement ("Would you like to pay for your COORS beer on your VISA??") its really kind of a fun show.
Anyone else see it?
Paul in Cannon Beach
The management is stunningly thick headed(at least it is depicted that way). Serious injuries are poo-poohed by supervisors. Waiters are humiliated in front of everyone. Discipline is almost arbitrary. Its total chaos and really fun to watch.
The main star is celebrity cook/bad boy Rocco Despirito. He has a kind of charisma and he loves his mom. I give him credit for taking such a big risk on national TV knowing that 9 out of 10 restaurants fold in the first year.
If you can look past the blatant product placement ("Would you like to pay for your COORS beer on your VISA??") its really kind of a fun show.
Anyone else see it?
Paul in Cannon Beach
Comments
The product placement is so blatant too.
Has anyone in NY been to that restaurant? It seems kinda weird the way they serve food in paper boats but give you really nice utensils. And it seems like the food isn't really that good. But we are still hooked.
Just watched "The Philadelphia Story" with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Great movie and cool clothes!
By the way the reviews for the restaurant are scathing
Rocco really, really needs an HR representative, I was SHOCKED at how they treated the waiter who fell and broke his arm. Is there no Workers' comp in NY?
And last night Rocco gave his bartender a promotion and a Vespa to stay on!!! Man, talk about poor employee relations!
April
For those of you who may have missed last night's episode or do not know how to operate a VCR, here is a brief recap:
1. Rocco has a staff meeting which consists of a bunch of angry staff who are afraid to say anything. Nothing really substantive is discussed. One waiter makes an effort by saying something about "Rocco's dream". It was awkward and non-productive.
2. Rocco senses a general bad vibe in his restaurant so he does what most uof us would probably do in that situation. Rocco has a priest bless the restaurant. I don't know where they got this priest (central casting?) but for some reason he seemed to think God cares about whether Rocco's restaurant gets good reviews in the NY Post.
3. Rocco's inept but stoic French general manager tries to quit. Instead of jumping at the opportunity, Rocco convinces him to stay on by walking around the block with him. This will be the first of three emergency laps around the block with mutinous employees.
4. Rocco's bartender quits after a tough night of wisecracking yuppies making fun of her. Rocco takes her for a ride on a Vespa. She says she will come back if he gives her a Vespa (half joking I think). Unbelievably, Rocco succumbs to his own short-sighted sense of grandiosity and gives her the Vespa AND PROMOTES HER! You can pretty much guess whats gonna happen next. She tells one waiter about her promotion and new Vespa. He tells everybody else and all hell breaks loose. Employee morale sinks to new lows when employees realize that the best way to get a promotion and new ride is to quit.
5. The waiter with the most personality and most heart quits next mumbling something about "Any minute that I am unhappy is a minute I can never have back." Even one of Rocco's famous walks can't get him to change his mind.
6. The episode ends on a positive note when Rocco stops his experiments in employee relations and goes back to something he knows a little about: cooking. He stays in the kitchen and suprise! the restaurant runs better.
NEXT WEEK: Rocco unveils his new "system" to help the restaurant run more smoothly. Lord help us all!
Paul in Cannon Beach
truth to this show, I wouldn't want a waiters job for anything, just too much strees for a job that relies on other peoples generosity.
Anyway, I love the show. It is a very realistic look at this dynamic industry. Hopefully, if nothing else, it will remind people to be good to their servers because they work really hard for the money!
We prefer watching reality shows over the sitcoms, ("Watched the finale of "Who Wants to Marry My Dad" last night) and we love Big Brother 4! I'm glad somebody piped in about that one.
I've never seen The Restaurant. I may have to check it out.
My husband thinks Joe is nuts. He says he would have bribed the kids to pick Miss Whoever and just had some fun. Thanks, honey.
Anne in Ohio
Thanks! Keep me informed! Inquiring minds want to know!
My favorite and daddy of them all is still Survivor. I like shows that my wife can be interested in too. After being married to me for 8 years, she has learned to love observing people's personalities.
Paul in Cannon Beach
And I want to know what Rocco is going to do when someone hits him with a sexual harassment or assault charge - I've never seen someone touch females (particularly customers) so much and get away with it - and on national TV no less!!
You're right - his name is Don Mueller. Because I don't ever watch television any info I get is from the newspaper or other sources. My husband is a couch (recliner) surfer and he watches a bit of everything. The name probably came from the Joe Millionaire adventure a while back
There was an article in the Cincinnati paper yesterday about the show's outcome. Unfortunately, this relationship sounds like it will never go anywhere. Seems like a weird psychosocial experiment devised by the network.
One interesting thing I read is that one of the daughters has been offered a part in the soap opera "Passions".
The link for the Cincy paper is [url]www.enquirer.com[/url]. It has a pretty decent search engine.
Anne in Ohio
Now I'm waiting for Survivor to start, I'm watching the remaining process on Cupid, and Big Brother is something we schedule our nights around. I enjoyed For Love or Money the first time, but this second part is rather sickening. Joe Millionaire was one I enjoyed also! The Bachelor ranks right up there, and I'm trying to catch "The Family" which was pre-empted months ago when the war started. It was pretty good for the first three or four episodes that I saw.
I'm a people watcher when we go ANYWHERE, and I think it is a sign of an HR person, studying how people react to situations. I love the reality shows compared to anything else on tv.
I sound a little addicted, now that I re-read my post. Thank God they're not all on at once. Whew!
Last night was priceless though from the employees - three people calling in sick as one of the three was admitted into the hospital after a brutal beating in a bar that left the other two buddies believing that the beaten buddy was dying, the emotional gal pal of the gang of three coming in with blood on her shirt & the violent tale to tell management & it all turns out to be ...... BALONEY! I couldn't believe it - but I have to say, I'm kind of rooting for the employees right now - so I can't say that management didn't deserve it!
Where to start:
Rocco introduces his new "system" which involves "captains" and "runners" and "squadrons" or something like that. The end result is that no one knows who is waiting on which table. The food and drinks are going to the wrong tables. Its a mess. Probably the number of waiters rolling their eyes when Rocco introduced the "system" was the first sign that it would not go well.
As in past episodes, Rocco has one basic response to any problem in the restaurant: HIMSELF! If there is a problem, more ROCCO should fix it. So, he decides to join the waiters in the dining room and actually "wait" tables. By "waiting" tables, I guess he means schmoozing with C list New York socialites, flirting with anything in a skirt, and generally parading around with a big "look at me, I'm waiting tables like the regular little people" sign.
A couple of celebrity chefs show up and have dinner and discuss the wonderfulness of cooking and restaurants. It all seemed contrived. The ultimate sin of a reality show is scripting a scene or manipulating the drama. "The Restaurant" is shameless.
Three cooks for whatever reason decide to take a short vacation and make up a story as an excuse. The camera shows them all together giggling about not going into work. Eventually they all go in and resign. Then Rocco fires them. Go figure.
Whenever things hit a low, they bring in Momma or at least invoke her name. The poor woman does seem like a dear lady and she loves her little Rocco with a blind intensity usually only exhibited by mothers of serial killers. I must admit that is kind of sweet.
One waiter tries to exploit his new found celebrity status and goes into stand up "comedy". He is literally and deservingly booed off the stage. You are never going anywhere in New York with a joke that starts "You know whats funny about terrorist bombings.."
A young cook gets his big chance and struggles. Everybody yells at him. Only a waitress likes him. She gives him a note with a poem she wrote for him. That part was kind of hard to watch. Even editing couldn't remove the awkwardness of it all.
Next week is the last episode, thankfully. The producers are leaning more upon scripted contrived scenes each week. If the show went any longer it would have all the spontaneity of a professional wrestling match.
I think the restaurant itself will survive and possibly thrive if only for the novelty aspect. Customers will be dissapointed if they don't receive the famous bad service and cold food. How can you go wrong?
Paul
I have also started watching - it is addictive.
If I was Rocco, my main worry would be my balance on my AMEX business credit card. On the last episode, in a very scripted moment, Super Rocco gets fed up with the delay in payroll and charges all of the employee's paychecks to his business credit card.
I think Tylenol and Rolaids would have been good sponsors for this show.
Paul in Cannon Beach