After Gordon Ramsay found success with a reality TV series in which he went from failing restaurant
to failing restaurant, fixing all their problems, getting them to switch from frozen food to
fresh food, and have more efficient table service and treat their customers with respect,
he decided to do it all over again with a different kind of establishment. This time,
he went from failing hotel to failing hotel and fixed their problems. As with all of his
shows, Ramsay has had mixed results – some people are just too stubborn to be helped
– but it is an entertaining and successful series with a lot of fans. Here are 10 things
that you (probably) didn’t know about Gordon Ramsay’s hit show Hotel Hell.
The Vienna Inn closed after appearing on Hotel Hell
About a year after an episode featuring the Vienna Inn aired in the third season of Hotel
Hell in 2016, the hotel was forced to close. This happens with a lot of the restaurants
and hotels that Gordon Ramsay comes in to revitalize and relaunch on his various reality
TV series. But this time, it wasn’t for the reason that you might think. Usually,
it’s because they went back on Gordon’s advice and slipped back into bad habits. The
hotel had been marred with rumors that it was using its hotel business as a front for
being a brothel and that’s why Gordon Ramsay was required to come in and shake things up.
When he left, the hotel was thriving in a typically heartwarming and inspiring end to
the show that brought everybody together. On both Trip Advisor and Yelp, the Vienna
Inn had a very respectable average score of four and a half stars. The problem was that
there was a fire in the hotel and the damage was so bad that the hotel had to shut down
because of it.
Liking this video so far? Then show us some love by hitting that subscribe button and
tapping that notification bell.
Gordon Ramsay knows more about running a hotel than you might think
It might seem unusual that a celebrity chef from TV decided to take it upon himself to
start critiquing hotels. Sure, he can give advice to people who own restaurants or people
who cook food, but what does he know about hotels? Well, as it turns out, he knows a
lot about hotels. He has stayed in a lot of them in his job as a traveling celebrity,
and he knows bad ones from good ones. He has said in interviews that while he has been
on the road to either shoot his TV shows or appear on other people's TV shows or simply
visiting the various restaurants that he owns across the world, he has stayed at "literally
thousands" of hotels, so he’s gotten a pretty good idea of the dos and don'ts. He also owns
his own hotel, a little boutique hotel in London in Regent’s Park. So, not only does
he know how a good hotel should be run, he also knows how they should not be run, which
is equally important. When asked about what is the worst quality of a hotelier, Chef Ramsay
answered that it was simply "laziness" on their part. If you're not lazy, you're off
on the right foot with him.
One hotelier was pretty annoyed by Gordon’s Hotel Hell renovations
While the show might make the hoteliers look as though they are grateful for all the help
that Gordon and his team give them in the renovation stages of the show, that is not
always the case. When New Mexico hotelier Cali was featured on the show, she initially
told Gordon that she was elated with the $150,000 investment that he made into rejuvenating
her establishment. Chef Ramsay said that he had "never been happier" with the upgrades
made to a hotel on the show, and that if he was Cali he would be "over the moon." In the
years since the episode aired, Cali has been a little bit more open and honest with her
true feelings about these renovations, calling them “a major pain in the butt.” She was
mainly unhappy with the extra work that comes along with all of the extra stuff that Ramsay
and his guys brought in. Apparently, all the new food and equipment and utilities that
the famed chef and his producers provided them with have added an extra hour of work
a day that she has decided she can't be bothered with. Talk about ungrateful.
An innkeeper was unhappy with the hotel’s appearance on Hotel Hell
Karan Townsend, the innkeeper at the Town’s Inn, which appeared on the show a couple of
years ago, has opened up about the effect that appearing on the show has actually had
on business. Townsend said in an interview following the airing of the episode that while
the episode makes it seem like Ramsay came in, shook things up, trimmed the fat, and
rejuvenated the whole hotel to make it more successful and run more smoothly, it didn't
stay that way when he left. After coming down for a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Ramsay
did not get the full picture of the problems that the hotel was having. Townsend complained
that he changed the menu, but didn't train the chefs in the art of actually cooking all
the new dishes. Overall, she was unhappy with how the episode made both her hotel and Ramsay's
involvement look. According to Townsend, one of the legal waivers that the hoteliers featured
on the show are required to sign makes them give Ramsay and his producers permission to
“distort things for effect” in the editing of the episode. But this is pretty much a
standard, boilerplate waiver. It's not called reality TV because it’s actually reality.
The Hotel Hell theme song was first released in 1978
You know that weird theme song that comes at the beginning of some episodes? It doesn’t
happen in every episode of the show, but some of them open with a title sequence in which
Gordon Ramsay walks through a burning hotel in slow motion while a cheesy theme song plays.
The lyrics go like, “Hotel Hell / If you think the beer is rotten / You should see
the clientele.” Some stretches are made with the words that rhyme with “Hell.”
For example, the closing lyrics of the track go like this: “Hotel / Hotel Hell / Bad
place to visit and a rotten place to dwell / Hotel / Hotel Hell / Ain’t nothing like
there ain’t no parallel.” It seems like every word that ends with an -el or -ell sound
was used in the lyrics of this song. One might assume that this corny theme song was written
specifically to be used in the show. The song was performed by the band Skyhooks and as
it turns out, the song was first released way back in 1978 on the B side of their fourth
studio album Guilty Until Proven Insane.
Gordon Ramsay remembers one hotel in particular more than the rest
There have been a lot of crummy hotels featured on this show, and not only that, there have
been a lot of stubborn hoteliers who think they're doing everything right and it's the
customers' fault that no one's coming to stay. But of all the hotels that Gordon Ramsay has
visited during the making of the show, there is one that sticks out in his memory more
than the rest, for a multitude of reasons. It was a hotel in San Diego where the owner,
some young guy with more money than he knew what to do with, had gotten an interior designer
who was a big client of Ferrari to do the place. While it sounds great to have a hotel
designed by the same people who design the beautiful sports cars of Ferrari, as Ramsay
himself will tell you, it is ultimately impractical. When he asked the owner why he would get a
company that designs cars to design a hotel, because they are used to the nuances and practicality
of cars and not hotels and you wouldn't sleep in your car, this guy didn't have an answer.
Suffice it to say, Gordon was not his biggest fan.
Ramsay knows exactly what can make or break a hotel
Gordon knows exactly the things to look for when he does this show, and which elements
can make or break a hotel, because he has stayed in a lot of hotels. The customer is
always right, as they say, and Gordon has been a customer a bunch of times, so he knows
what customers of hotels want and he can tell hoteliers where they are going wrong, even
if they are not ready to hear it. For one, he thinks that customers who have been traveling
for a long time and arrive at the hotel with a suitcase full of clothes want a good coat
hanger to hang up their clothes in the wardrobe when they get there. He also likes a towel
that is big and substantial and soft. He also mentioned things like the way that the bed
is made, but his overall point was that it is ultimately attention to detail that can
make or break a hotel. If you don't put in that attention to the little details, then
you might as well give up. He says that hotels also need an identity, because that adds warmth.
Without their own identity, hotels lose that warmth and become "a cold front."
Gordon Ramsay owns his own hotel that’s doing just fine
A lot of people are aware of the TV show in which Gordon Ramsay goes around hotels and
fixes them up and tells their owners what they're doing wrong, but not many people know
that Gordon Ramsay actually owns his own hotel. And on top of that, it won’t be featuring
on his show any time soon, because on top of his TV commitments and all the restaurants
he owns, he works hard to keep it afloat. He practises what he preaches. He has his
staff members send him reports every single day to make sure that everything is running
smoothly and that his businesses are maintaining the quality that he wants them to have. Gordon
claims to spend over $100,000 a year sending mystery shoppers and mystery guests to his
variety of hotels and restaurants. This keeps his employees on their toes and helps him
to ensure that the restaurants and hotels he puts his name on are up to snuff. So, he's
not telling hoteliers to do the impossible. According to Chef Ramsay, customer feedback
is the most important thing. If the customers are happy, then he is happy, and if the customers
are not happy, then as you might imagine, he is furious.
Ramsay thinks that bad hoteliers are worse than bad restauranteurs
It’s fair to say that Gordon Ramsay has had to deal with a lot of terrible and incompetent
and inexperienced business owners in his day – both restauranteurs who don’t know what
they’re doing and hoteliers who don’t know what they’re doing. So, which is worse?
Well, if you ask Ramsay, he’ll tell you that it’s the hoteliers who are the worst.
That’s because there is no governing body that ensures that only people who are capable
of running a hotel are able to do it. If you have enough money to buy a hotel, then you
can just buy one and start running it. That’s why there are so many terrible hotels that
are failing and need Gordon Ramsay to come down with his camera crew and his endless
supply of money to fix the joint up. There is no board that you have to make a case to
in order to become a certified hotelier. There's no such thing. Anyone can run a hotel. Because
of this, Gordon is extra cautious when he helps out a failing hotel and has undercover
camera operators all over the place to capture secret footage as part of the making of any
given episode.
Gordon Ramsay walked out of the hotel in the very first episode
The very first episode of this show took place in Juniper Hill Inn in Windsor, Vermont. Gordon
arrived at the hotel and met the staff and the owners and figured out what they were
doing wrong that was keeping all of their customers out. That was all pretty standard.
But then at the end of the episode, in an unexpected twist, Gordon decided that the
Juniper Hill Inn was a lost cause and walked out. He stormed out of the restaurant, got
into his SUV, and drove away. This is especially surprising, given the fact that this was the
first ever episode of the show. It doesn’t get off to a great start. But he didn’t
give up completely. The end of the episode had a title card that said, “To be continued,”
and Gordon returned in the second episode to give it another try. So, the pilot episode
ended up being the first part of a two parter, as Gordon returned to the Juniper Hill Inn
in the second episode and decided to have another go at solving all of their problems
and fixing their terrible business practises. In the end, he did refurbish and relaunch
the hotel to some success. It just took longer than usual to get there.
It doesn’t take long to get to more great content. Just stay right here and click on
one of other videos. And to find out how to become an official Babbletopper, click on
the Join link in the description below.