Snooty Fox

What happened after

English-style pub closed months after filming despite a menu revamp; short sales boost did not last

Closure date on record: 2011-10

What happened on the show

An English pub twenty-eight years into its run, the Snooty Fox in Indianapolis was living on an aging clientele and drawing no new faces when Robert Irvine walked in unimpressed by the British theme. He found filth in both the kitchen and dining room along with serious food hazards, and did not hesitate to shut the place down, a move that prompted the head chef to walk out for good. From there Irvine overhauled the menu, refreshed the decor, and staged a cook-off between two candidates for the vacant head-chef role, having them prepare British fare including traditional fish and chips to prove who deserved the kitchen. The whole sequence ran on the series two day timeframe and about ten thousand dollars in renovation money. Finding the pub a capable new leader was as central to the fix as any renovation.

After the cameras left

The revamp bought only a short reprieve. The Snooty Fox closed within months of filming, around October 2011, its brief sales boost fading fast despite the menu work. Two secondary retrospectives agree on the outcome, but with no primary or local-news source to anchor it we hold the closure at medium confidence. An aging English-style pub that could not convert Irvine's fixes into new regulars ran out of road quickly.