Possibly because no one ever got in his face and told him how to stand up and be a man, Gordon Ramsay has quit Kitchen Nightmares, leaving the show through a back alley right in the middle of the yelling-about-dinner rush. “It’s been a blast, but it’s time to call it a day,” Ramsay said in bidding farewell to the series in which he toured the world’s finest restaurants run by delusional people, then showed them handfuls of mold and maggots. To date, Ramsay says he’s visited more than 100 of these kitchens, the fatal flaw in almost every single one of them a chef or manager who no longer believes in themselves. Also, mold and maggots.
Possibly implicitly explaining Kitchen Nightmares’ retirement, Ramsay’s statement specifically mentions lowlights like Bonapartes—the Yorkshire-area restaurant from his original UK series, where he gagged on a rotten scallop, then successfully won a libel lawsuit against them—and Amy’s Baking Company, the Arizona restaurant whose owners’ awfulness spilled out onto the Internet, resulting in a huge increase in business (if Yelp is to be believed). Ramsay also offers up a rundown of various stats from the show’s 10 years, estimating a “swear count” of 10,197 and some “234 Zantacs consumed,” among other things. Strangely not mentioned is the more than 1,000 times he sneered that he wouldn’t even feed some putrid, likely poisonous entrée to a dog, somehow without ever sparking an investigation from the ASPCA.
Ramsay has assured that his other two shows about shame-based cuisine, Hell’s Kitchen and Master Chef, will be continuing as planned.