El Greco

What happened after

Greek restaurant closed December 2011, ONE MONTH BEFORE its January 2012 episode even aired. Owners Jake and Athina Konstantinidis had opened it in 2007. The original space (3016 Guadalupe St) is now occupied by Cheba Hut and Via313 Pizzeria.

Closure date on record: 2011-12

What happened on the show

El Greco, a Greek restaurant near the University of Texas in Austin, was really a mother-son war with a menu attached. Athina had put 800,000 dollars into the place with her son Jake, who had grown so lazy the staff lost respect for him; the kitchen manager said Jake showed up for maybe three hours a day and was addicted to video games, while his mother and aunt did the prep from six in the morning. When Ramsay asked what Jake actually did, he could not really answer. Athina, spiraling, told him she would rather be dead than have a son like the one he had become, and Jake told her to shut up and cursed at her in front of Ramsay. The food was an afterthought to all this: stuffed zucchini Ramsay likened to two grenades about to explode, a microwaved and salty lamb shank, and a drab moussaka. A family this broken had little left to cook with.

After the cameras left

El Greco did not survive to see itself on television. The Austin restaurant closed in December 2011, a full month before its January episode aired, one of several Kitchen Nightmares businesses that folded before broadcast. The original space at 3016 Guadalupe Street has since been split between a Cheba Hut and a Via313 Pizzeria, unrelated tenants. A restaurant torn apart by a mother and son who could barely share a room was gone before the country ever met them.