What Happened to Finn McCool's After Kitchen Nightmares?

Finn McCool's was an Irish pub in the Westhampton area of Long Island, bought by retired police detective Buddy using his savings, with his son Brian installed as chef despite cooking skills that, as shown on air, did not match his confidence. Buddy told Ramsay he hoped the visit would humble his son. The food mostly did that on its own: Ramsay disliked the spring roll, rejected a salmon dish that did not taste like salmon, and left mid-meal to be sick after tasting a greasy shepherd's pie.

During a service stacked with local firefighters as guests, sous chef Francis dropped a chicken wing on the floor and moved to refry it, reasoning aloud that the fryer's heat would sterilize anything that touched it, a claim Ramsay repeated back to a visibly unsettled Buddy. Ramsay also found frozen vegetables and clams that were not fresh, despite the restaurant's Long Island, seaside location. For the relaunch, Ramsay taught Brian his own version of shepherd's pie, which the dining room preferred to Brian's original, an outcome the young chef found embarrassing on camera.

Buddy, for his part, admitted he could not afford to pay himself a salary. Ramsay's changes focused on tightening the menu around dishes the kitchen could reliably execute and forcing a frank conversation between father and son about the pub's finances. Newsweek's February 18, 2026 report on Kitchen Nightmares restaurants lists Finn McCool's among the Season 1 businesses reported to have closed. A fan site, rescueshowguide.com, reports that the pub, located on County Road 31 (known locally as Old Riverhead Road) in Westhampton Beach, was sold and shut down in 2009, about two years after the November 2007 broadcast, with no successor business named. No later reporting on Buddy or Brian was found.