How Business At The Capri Is Doing After Kitchen Nightmares

Though the premise of "Kitchen Nightmares" is Gordon Ramsay helping restaurants get back on their feet, some businesses have unfortunately dug themselves too deep a hole. Such was the case for The Capri, located in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. 

The Capri was featured on "Kitchen Nightmares" back in 2011, and Ramsay criticized the restaurant's filthy kitchen equipment, a dining room furnished with dusty light coverings, and tables "littered with stale, disgusting gum." He also encountered vegetables that had gone bad and expired chicken, forcing the restaurant to cancel all chicken-based orders.

At the time, the eatery served frozen food that got reheated in a microwave, and both the staff and the budget were being stretched impossibly thin. 

Ramsay helped get the restaurant cleaned up, while also making some serious edits to The Capri's menu. He even taught the staff a homemade meatball recipe so they could get away from using frozen, premade food. 

Within a few months of the restaurant being featured on TV, its sales had increased by 20%, and customer reviews were improving. Sadly, as we've seen happen with countless restaurants from "Kitchen Nightmares," the success was short-lived.

Despite Gordon Ramsay giving The Capri his best effort, perhaps he couldn't have anticipated the extent of the owners' financial struggles. On a GoFundMe page, brothers Jeff and Jim Thiel explained that they had poured every penny they had into The Capri, and weren't making enough money to even pay rent.

The duo announced on September 8, 2019, that they were retiring and closing The Capri. They thanked Ramsay for helping them out and giving the restaurant a few more years of life. Fans were understandably devastated, with one Facebook user commenting, "You were my favorite neighborhood pizza place," and many others wishing the brothers well.

That being said, new owners reopened The Capri as Capri Club in 2020, hoping to carry on the restaurant's old-school Italian diner legacy. As of 2022, the restaurant had hired a beverage director and an Italian chef to refine its menus. It serves up dishes like fried squash blossoms and a reportedly killer eggplant parmesan recipe.