restaurantKitchen Nightmares (US) · Season 5, Episode 2 · Aired September 30, 2011
Leone's
Montclair, NJ
This one survived. It remains in business.
On the show
Season 5, Episode 2 · September 30, 2011 · Italian restaurant
Revisited in S6E6 'Revisited No. 8' (2012-12-14).
What happened after
Italian restaurant still serving customers as of 2022, over a decade after its Sept 30, 2011 episode. Owners Michael Restaino and Rose Leone.
What happened on the show
Rose Leone had built Leone's into a good Montclair Italian restaurant before a medical emergency put her in a coma for two years, and in her absence her son Michael let it slide. Ramsay caught the problem the instant he arrived: Michael was watching a game on the restaurant television. To make the point land, he had Michael walk out and back in, then pretended to be too absorbed in the TV to seat him. Rose, back but in fragile health, hardly recognized the place, joked darkly that without money she would have no choice but to die, and, asked what was wrong, looked at her son and said everything. The decor did not help, dominated by unsettling baby paintings Rose herself had made. Ramsay ordered one of every dish, not realizing how huge the menu was, and worked through a table of bland, over-garlicked food, even getting the cooks to admit their own dishes were bad. Everyone agreed, except Michael.
After the cameras left
Leone's made it, which is no small thing given where it started. As of our latest verification the Montclair restaurant at 19 South Park Street was still serving, more than a decade after the episode, with Michael Restaino and Rose Leone still tied to it. A founder who returned from a coma to find her life's work in decline lived to see it steady again, one of the show's more hopeful epilogues.
Sources
Confidence: high. Last checked 2026-07-19.
What is there now
Street imagery via Google Maps. Location approximate.