Momma Cherri's Soul Food Shack

What happened after

Traded (after relocating to larger premises as Momma Cherri's Big House) until administrators shut it down in mid-2009 over unsustainable costs following a December 2007 administration.

Closure date on record: 2009-07

What happened on the show

Momma Cherri's broke the usual pattern before Ramsay finished his plate: the soul food, he said, was the best he had eaten on the show to that point. The trouble at the Brighton restaurant was everything around the cooking. Owner-chef Charita Jones ran her staff far too loosely, tolerating lateness and letting them treat the place as their own off-shift, leaned heavily on freezing dishes that killed the flavour, and had barely marketed the restaurant at all. Ramsay got her cooking to order and pulling in more custom. The kitchen strained under the sudden rush at first, then found its feet as the week went on. On the revisit two months later the restaurant was still busy, with Charita having stepped back to run front of house and already weighing a move to bigger premises so she could grow the business.

After the cameras left

The expansion Charita was contemplating did happen, and it is also what eventually undid her. She relocated to larger premises as Momma Cherri's Big House and traded there until administrators closed the business in mid-2009, following a spell in administration that began in late 2007, with unsustainable costs cited. We hold this at high confidence: the trade press quotes Charita directly on the closure, and company records show the original soul food company dissolved in 2011. The brand outlived the restaurant only as occasional media and pop-up activity in Brighton and beyond, not as a place you could book a table.