Every episode
Hello Gordon, we're the petite bourgeois restaurant owners. We're deluded and running our company into the ground by our denial and constant alienation of our employees.
Hi Gordon, we're the employees. Here's an annotated list of all the things wrong with the restaurant and how to fix it.
Gordon: "Ok owners, get out of the way of your employees."
Owners: "No. You're stupid and we, the small business owner, are right."
Gordon implements fixes that the employees have been clamoring for.
The restaurant immediately succeeds.
Owners: "Well dang, I guess Gordon had a point. What employees?"
The restaurant then either succeeds or fails due to market conditions, or the owners immediately revert back to their old ways and the restaurant instantly nosedives again
Every episode is the same story. Gordon asks the employees what's wrong with the business and they always go "The owner is a fucking moron and is running it into the ground and getting in the way of everyone doing actual good work." and then Gordon forces through the changes that the employees say need doing.
Why do the employees, the larger class, not simply devour the business owners?
I love Kitchen Nightmares soley because it's the only content I've found where a core part of the entertainment is small business owners who normally act like they're God's gift to the world being forced to just take it while someone just screams in their faces about what incompetent fools they are while their long suffering employees smugly watch.