What Happened to Classic American After Kitchen Nightmares?

What happened after Kitchen Nightmares?

Classic American, a diner-style restaurant on Route 109 in West Babylon, New York, was the subject of Kitchen Nightmares' second episode of Season 4, which aired January 28, 2011 after Ramsay's visit the previous November. Co-owners Colleen and Naomi, both former waitresses, had bought the business in 2000 and by the time of filming were struggling under a heavy debt load with a nearly empty dining room. The restaurant was chronically short on basic supplies, at points running out of ground beef, plates, and even menus during service, while a boyfriend of one owner served as an ineffective floor manager. Ramsay found the menu bloated with more than a hundred items, a problem he said made it impossible for the kitchen to keep ingredients fresh; he was unimpressed by frozen calamari, a boxed-looking mac and cheese, and an unseasoned signature burger, and objected to the restaurant's "just like mom made" slogan as an insult to actual home cooking. Behind the scenes, he found waitstaff distracted by their phones and a general breakdown of communication between the owners.

Ramsay's fixes centered on discipline and focus: he cut the menu roughly in half to make inventory manageable, retrained the kitchen on a new slider special, redesigned the dining room, and pushed Colleen and Naomi to take a firmer hand with staff and with each other. The relaunch service went more smoothly, with the two owners describing themselves as more confident running the floor and kitchen together.

Kitchen Nightmares revisited Classic American in a Season 5 follow-up segment, the same episode that checked back in on Boston's Davide and Providence's DownCity. Colleen and Naomi kept the restaurant running for roughly two and a half more years. A Lindenhurst Patch article dated August 28, 2013 quotes co-owner Colleen Gaertner's own Facebook post confirming the restaurant's closure, thanking customers and staff for "the last 13 years" and noting the pair intended to continue offering catering. The Route 109 building was later put up for sale.