restaurantKitchen Nightmares (US) · Season 4, Episode 1 · Aired January 21, 2011
Spanish Pavilion
Harrison, NJ
This one survived. It remains in business.
On the show
Season 4, Episode 1 · January 21, 2011 · Spanish restaurant
Revisited in S5E11 'Revisited No. 7' (2012-01-27).
What happened after
Spanish restaurant still open and serving customers as of 2022, per source; Ramsay reportedly revisited a second time and found it clean and well-run. Owners Jerry and Michael.
What happened on the show
Spanish Pavilion had a real claim to fame as the first Spanish restaurant in New Jersey, founded in Harrison in 1963, but by the time Ramsay visited it was run by the founder's grandsons and losing money fast. Michael, the chef, had grown so lazy he barely cooked anymore, while his brother Jerry poured himself into a town-council career and admitted Michael was dragging the place down; their mother Balbina, the founder's daughter, co-owned it. Ramsay found the waiters in tuxedos and the lobster bisque suspiciously creamy, so he checked the tank and found dead lobsters contaminating the live ones. The paella was overcooked, the garlic chicken swimming in oil. During service Michael, who admitted he had cooked nothing, hovered at the bar while dishes came back and a cook named Al erupted in cursing. The next morning's fridge inspection turned up more dead lobsters, filth, and, improbably, a live pigeon.
After the cameras left
Spanish Pavilion pulled through. Ramsay reportedly returned for a second look and found it clean and well run, and as of our latest verification it was still open and serving at 31 Harrison Avenue in Harrison, with Jerry and Michael still involved. A restaurant with six decades of history and a founding claim to preserve had more reason than most to fight for itself, and unlike so many on this show, it did.
Sources
Confidence: high. Last checked 2026-07-19.
What is there now
Street imagery via Google Maps. Location approximate.