I wonder how much just being on his show is a factor. I'm sure at first they become wildly popular out of curiosity, then I wonder if when the curiosity wears off, if it becomes kind of like, "That's the place that was all fucked up on TV...we should eat somewhere else..."?

This was one of my favorite feel good episodes. I may be a sucker, but I genuinely believe he is trying to help these places out.

I have no doubt that he's trying to help, and maybe even present some cautionary tales so restauranteurs worldwide can see what they might be doing wrong.

But restaurants are so damn tricky, there can be any number of things that can cause a restaurant to thrive or fail. Location is probably even a bigger determiner than the food you serve; ever notice how there are some buildings that house one failed restaurant after another? If people have a sense that it's a hassle to get there for whatever reason -- parking, snarled traffic, presence or absence of a stoplight, too off the beaten path -- they'll go somewhere else.

you guys have really insightful comments as usual.... But this show has poisoned my mind because i tend to work for small businesses. I imagine myself pulling a gordon ramsey basically all day.

Bort: Location is definitely a huge deal. With a number of these places on his shows I notice they're in such bad locations, either too inconspicuous or in the middle of better restaurants around them. Even if their food got better, everything around them didn't change much.

I used to help out in a restaurant years ago, and the reason that place went under was because they tore down the housing projects in the area, so we lost a lot of our customers. Being in the restaurant business is fickle and so many things can kill your business if you aren't on top of things constantly, even stuff out of your control.

Complicated menus seem to be the mark of the unsuccessful restauranteur. They all have absurdly huge menus, no real special to be remembered for, and lots of waste. Every time my mom goes to a restaurant, it's one with a 15 page menu. She's not the customer who want to rely on.

Bad location can only be overcome by food that is good enough that people are willing to go out of their way for it.