Nino's Italian Restaurant

What happened after

Family restaurant (since 1958, founded by Inge and Vincenzo Cristiano) closed for good in 2016, three years after its 2013 episode.

Closure date on record: 2016

What happened on the show

The owner of Jack in the Box is not named Jack, Vincenzo used to remind his son, but Nino still acted as if sharing the restaurant's name made Nino's his by right. Founded in Long Beach in 1958 by Inge, from Germany, and Vincenzo, from Italy, the family restaurant had passed to Nino after his father developed Alzheimer's, and by his siblings' account he was a 60-year-old man behaving like he was twelve, hot-headed, argumentative with customers, and prone to sitting in the office watching TV. Nino rated the food a ten while his siblings said seven or eight; their mother Inge was draining her retirement to keep it running, having promised Vincenzo she would. Nino gave Ramsay a long speech about arriving early to clean the place top to bottom every day, a story his family flatly contradicted. The decor, Ramsay noted, made him feel he had stepped back into 1958.

After the cameras left

Nino's, a fixture since 1958, closed for good in 2016, three years after the episode, ending nearly six decades under the founding family. Inge Cristiano's promise to her husband to keep his restaurant alive could only hold out so long against a son who treated the family legacy as his personal entitlement. The episode found a much wider audience years later when a clip from it became an internet meme, but the restaurant itself was already gone.