Amy's Baking Company

"Amy's Baking Company" is the sixteenth episode of the fifth season of Kitchen Nightmares, and the 82nd episode of the series overall. The episode first aired on May 10, 2013 and centered on Gordon Ramsay attempting to help Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, owners of Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The episode marked the first time in the series that conflict with the owners prevented Ramsay from completing the restaurant's transformation. The owners' actions received negative attention in social media. Their online responses were then further spread in social media in a manner which Forbes called an example of how a business should not react to comments posted on social media.

A follow-up episode, titled "Return to Amy's Baking Company", aired as the season 7 premiere on April 11, 2014.

Synopsis

Set up

Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, the wife and husband owners, explain the history of their restaurant: Samy invested over a million dollars to build the restaurant in 2006 in order to fulfill Amy's dream. About two years prior to the episode's filming, bloggers began writing negative reviews of the restaurant's food. Amy says the reviews are "lies" and states that they cost the restaurant a "tremendous amount of business". Staff members explain that Amy does not see the problems with the food that many customers see, and that Samy will lash out at any customer who expresses dissatisfaction. The narrator also explains that only Samy is allowed to operate the POS system and handle money, which leads to many ordering errors; meanwhile, Amy only makes the food for one ticket at a time, which leads to long waits for customers.

Kitchen Nightmares

Kitchen Nightmares is an American reality television series formerly broadcast on the Fox network, in which chef Gordon Ramsay is invited by the owners to spend a week with a failing restaurant in an attempt to revive the business. It is based on the British show Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

The show premiered Wednesday September 19, 2007. On June 23, 2014, Ramsay announced he was ending the series.

Production

The show was produced by ITV Studios America and Optomen, in association with A. Smith & Co. Productions, with Arthur Smith, Kent Weed and Patricia Llewellyn serving as executive producers.

In the UK, the series is broadcast under the name Kitchen Nightmares USA and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA on Channel 4, which also produced the original UK version. Reruns, along with the British series, are frequently shown on BBC America.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1: 2007

The first season focused on restaurants in the southern California and New York City areas.

Season 2: 2008–09

Buddy Montgomery

Charles "Buddy" Montgomery (January 30, 1930, Indianapolis, Indiana – May 14, 2009) was an American jazz vibraphonist and pianist. He was the younger brother of Wes and Monk Montgomery. He and brother Monk formed The Mastersounds in the late 1950s and produced ten recordings. When The Mastersounds disbanded, Monk and Buddy joined their brother Wes on a number of Montgomery Brothers recordings, which were arranged by Buddy. They toured together in 1968, and it was in the middle of that tour that Wes died. Buddy continued to compose, arrange, perform, produce, teach and record, producing nine recordings as a leader.

Biography

Buddy first played professionally in 1948; in 1949 he played with Big Joe Turner and soon afterwards with Slide Hampton. After a period in the Army, where he had his own quartet, he joined The Mastersounds as a vibraphonist with his brother Monk, pianist Richie Crabtree and drummer Benny Barth in 1957. He led the "Montgomery-Johnson Quintet" with saxophonist Alonzo "Pookie" Johnson from 1955 to 1957. His earliest sessions as a leader are from the late 1950s. He played briefly with Miles Davis in 1960. After Wes Montgomery’s death in 1968, Buddy became active as a jazz educator and advocate. He founded organizations in Milwaukee, where he lived from 1969 to 1982; and Oakland, California, where he lived for most of the 1980s, that offered jazz classes and presented free concerts.

Amy's Kitchen

Amy's Kitchen is a family-owned, privately held company that manufactures organic and non-GMO convenience and frozen foods. Founded in 1987 by CEO Andy Berliner and Rachel Berliner, and incorporated since 1988, Amy's Kitchen took its name from their then-newborn daughter, Amy. All of Amy's 250+ products are vegetarian and made with organic ingredients. The company makes over 130 gluten-free options.

Company

The company employs over 1,900 people and operates processing plants in Santa Rosa, California and White City, Oregon. A new processing plant is being built in Goshen, New York, and the company is opening a plant in Pocatello, Idaho, in 2014. The corporate headquarters is in Petaluma, California.

Both of the company's co-founders, Andy and Rachel Berliner, had prior experience in the organic food business. Rachel's family had grown and advocated organic vegetables and fruits since the 1950s. Andy was formerly the president and majority shareholder of the Magic Mountain Herb Tea company.