Kitchen Nightmares’ Sebastian’s closed in 2008, a year after Gordon Ramsay and his team attempted to save the failing restaurant owned by Sebastian and Nichole Di Modica.
Kitchen Nightmares was the popular FOX Network reality-format cooking show that first aired in 2007. The show was fronted, and executively produced by Gordon Ramsay.
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In this show, he attempted to turn around failing restaurants through his interventions and know-how, considering his extensive knowledge and success rate running his own chain of restaurants.
The first season of the series saw a total of nine restaurants profiled. Of the restaurants that were profiled during the first season, none have since survived closure, including Sebastian’s, which was profiled during the sixth episode.
What was Kitchen Nightmares?
Kitchen Nightmares was the second cooking reality show from the FOX Network which was fronted, and executively produced by Gordon Ramsay following the success of his first show, Hell’s Kitchen.
With Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay focused on restaurateurs rather than aspiring professional chefs looking to propel their careers through working with him.
Therefore, the premise of the series was, “Gordon Ramsay visits struggling restaurants across America and spends one week trying to help them become successful.”
The series first aired in 2007 and ran for seven years until 2014, when Ramsay decided to end the series during season seven, which had a total of six episodes.
Is Sebastian’s from Kitchen Nightmares still open?
In November 2007, Kitchen Nightmares aired the sixth episode of the first season. The episode profiled Sebastian’s, a restaurant with a unique menu that allowed customers to choose from a range of gourmet toppings for their meals.
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However, owner Sebastian Di Modica was known for his volatile temper and domineering personality.
Moreover, not only was the food allegedly not good, but it was not fresh as most of the ingredients used for the pizza dough, sauces and toppings were mostly store-bought and frozen until needed.
Ramsay, in his attempt to turn around the business, had pivoted the business model to a fresh oven-baked pizza joint.
Sebastian, however, initially tried to revert back to his complicated menu soon after Ramsay left, but later stuck to the changes that Ramsay had introduced.
The closure of the business was allegedly due to Sebastian and his wife, Nichole, deciding to move to Boston for “family reasons” in 2008.
Sebastian Di Modica on Sebastian’s closure
Sebastian Di Modica, in light of the closure of Sebastian’s restaurant in 2008, which was a year after his restaurant was profiled on Kitchen Nightmares, confirmed the closure of the restaurant in an email to his subscribers.
The email did not suggest that the closure of the business was a result of the intervention by Kitchen Nightmares, instead he wrote:
“As of January 20th Sebastian’s will be closing the doors. We are moving back to Boston for family reasons. We are grateful and appreciative of all of you for not only your business support but the lifetime friendships we have made with a lot of you.”
What is Sebastian Di Modica doing now?
Following the closure of Sebastian’s, and the relocation of Sebastian and Nichole Di Modica to Boston, the married couple opened two new businesses.
The first was a landscaping and tree removal company called New England Tree, and the second was a business and financial consulting agency.
Read more : Do any of the Hell’s Kitchen winners still work for Ramsay?
Sebastian further went on to land an acting role in 2013 as Detective Jenkins on the film Angels Around Me.
Since then, he has not had an acting role which he has been credited for, suggesting that his focus remained on his growing business interests.
Most recently, Sebastian announced the launch of DiModica Property Development.
How many businesses closed from Kitchen Nightmares season one?
A big critique of Kitchen Nightmares’ seven-season run is that the show failed at its initial premise, which was to help failing restaurants turn around their businesses within the week of Gordon Ramsay’s intervention.
However, the show had a mere 22 percent success rate after seven seasons. Moreover, all the restaurants from season one closed.
These restaurants included:
Closed restaurants from Kitchen Nightmares season 1
Peter’s Italian Restaurant Purnima/ Dillons The Mixing Bowl Seascape Inn Sebastian’s Finn McCool’s Lela’s Campania The Secret Garden
Final thoughts
Kitchen Nightmares, as a series, seemed to have provided more quality reality television than results.
This is because the series set out to help failing restaurants become a success, however, fans were more hooked on the dysfunctionality of the personalities profiled, than actually seeing the businesses succeed. As a result, most of the restaurants that were profiled have since closed.
One of the seasons with the worst track record was season one, as all the restaurants profiled during the 2007/2008 season have now closed. This includes Sebastian and Nichole Di Modica’s restaurant, Sebastian’s.
Source: https://gardencourte.com
Categories: Kitchens
