Did DownCity Survive After Kitchen Nightmares?
With its interesting name, vibrant decor, and appearance on two "Kitchen Nightmares" episodes, DownCity had its shot at survival. The restaurant was featured in Season 3, Episode 7, and then again in a "Revisited" episode in Season 4, Episode 5. The initial taping stands out as particularly interesting due to the foul mouth and abrasive nature of one of the owners. Indeed, Abby Cabral, who was also the general manager, gave Gordon Ramsay a run for his money with her rage-induced verbal lashings.
DownCity was an established restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, when Cabral and her business partner Rico Conforti took over. While Conforti worked in finance and was unfamiliar with what it took to run a restaurant, Cabral was a restaurant industry veteran with 33 years under her belt. Still, as the original episode laid out, the restaurant suffered from poor management due to her aggressive style. Conforti was rightfully concerned about the state of his investment and called on Ramsay for help.
With such terrible management, you might be surprised that DownCity was able to turn things around — at least for a while. Unfortunately, the restaurant closed in December 2011 due to financial reasons. "We had been struggling. Like everyone else, we were hit with the bad economy and didn't know how to break out of the slump we were in," Cabral explained in Providence Monthly.
Bad management at the helm
From the start, "Kitchen Nightmares" portrayed a restaurant quickly digging its own grave with an overly extensive menu and poor management. Truly, Abby Cabral should have known better than to yell and cuss at her staff — it's not like she didn't have the experience to draw on, after all. Yet the way she treated people in the first episode was so severe that one of the servers compared her to Cruella De Vil. Another referred to her with some pretty strong words that can't be repeated here. In fact, staff consistently blamed Cabral as they relayed everything wrong with the restaurant to "Kitchen Nightmares." Unsurprisingly, Gordon Ramsay called her a profanity-laced epithet as well.
Not only was Cabral rude and demeaning to her staff in the episode, but she was in complete denial about the food quality. She appeared to take it personally when any of the 50 separate menu items didn't meet customers' — or Ramsay's — expectations. Worse, she refused to do anything about it at first.
Cabral even tried to kick Ramsay out instead of accepting his help. But after coming to terms with what needed to be done, things at the restaurant appeared to change for the better. Ramsay organized a successful relaunch featuring a shorter, more manageable menu, and the staff held it together despite the stress involved in the busy night.
A positive turnaround
For the most part, everything looked good during the revisit. The food had improved, and sales were up. And although Abby Cabral had shifted some of her lashing out from the staff to Rico Conforti, it appears as though she was able to turn over a new leaf — at least as long as the cameras were rolling.
Both of DownCity's owners expressed gratitude for the changes that came out of appearing on "Kitchen Nightmares." Cabral even went so far as to expressly thank Gordon Ramsay's intervention during an appearance on "The Rhode Show." However, many locals seemed less than convinced, with Providence Monthly reporting that some of the restaurant's regulars had complained that the restaurant had instead been "ruined."
The restaurant business can certainly be fickle. What might be an improvement for some can very well be a step backward for others. Ultimately, try as it might, DownCity wasn't able to weather the economic storm that it was caught up in — regardless of its experience with the celebrity chef.