Zeke's

What happened after

Restaurant closed in 2012, about a year after owner Darryl sold it to new operators; original episode aired May 13, 2011.

Closure date on record: 2012

What happened on the show

Zeke's had been a beloved Metairie institution built by a charismatic owner named Zeke, who died in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The married couple who took it over, Darryl and Ellen, gutted what made it work almost immediately, cutting staff, shrinking portions, and swapping in inferior products, and the locals Ramsay met out on a boat told him both the food and the feel had collapsed. His tasting confirmed it: oysters Cortello he would not put even an enemy's name on, frozen boiled shrimp, and a chicken fried steak so bland he compared it to a giraffe's tongue. The bread pudding, in a rare bright spot, he genuinely enjoyed. When Darryl defended serving cheap cuts by saying he had no time to buy fresh shrimp and that plenty of customers ate the food happily, Ramsay reminded him that food not sent back is not the same as good food, and asked outright if he was really that stupid.

After the cameras left

Zeke's ending was slow. Darryl eventually sold the restaurant to new operators, and it closed in 2012, about a year later. The 1517 Metairie Road address lost a name that had meant something in the community before its founder died and its new owners stripped it for margins. Ramsay's warning, that cutting every corner had quietly alienated the regulars, played out exactly as he had predicted.