What Does Restaurant: Impossible Do With The Discarded Restaurant Pieces?

It's something many viewers have probably wondered while watching "Restaurant: Impossible" — what happens to all the stuff that Chef Robert Irving gets rid of? Almost every episode shows them getting rid of various things like furniture, cooking equipment, entire walls, and decor to recreate something that fits with Irving's vision for the client's store.

According to Food Network Gossip, 225 restaurants have appeared in episodes of the show, so that adds up to a lot of discarded equipment. The show, which has been a Food Network staple since 2011, helps restaurants that are struggling to figure out what they could do better, and many times, Irvine will bring in a team of experts to re-design dining rooms and kitchens that create a better atmosphere and are ultimately more appealing to clientele.

It's not just a TV show to the celebrity chef, he takes the journey of the restauranteurs personally, revealing on Twitter that he often sheds tears of joy at the happy outcome of many of the eateries he's helped. It's that knowledge that Irvine is down-to-earth and can relate to people that seems to make the show just that more appealing. He will often answer random questions from fans and in one Twitter post, someone asked the celebrity chef what happens to the discarded restaurant pieces that are removed during filming and Irvine happily responded.

While the celebrity chef does what he can to turn a failing business around, sometimes it's more than just the cosmetics of the restaurant and the menu that need updating. Many of the businesses Irving has visited have since closed down — including several that went back to their old menu and old way of managing a business. However, reverting to older decor is a more difficult chore. The chef responded to the Twitter query, stating the fixtures "remain the property of the restaurant owner we place them in pods and then it's up to them what they do with it."

The Food Network shows before and after shots of some of the restaurants that Robert Irvine has transformed. Looking at them, it's hard to believe there's only a budget of $10k on the makeovers but you can also see some salvageable material from the "before" photos. By keeping that for the owners to use as they wish, it means they can reuse it (which most of us hope they don't, considering the new looks created), scrap or sell and make some extra cash.