What Happened to Lela's After Kitchen Nightmares? (Pomona, CA)

Lela's was a Pomona, California restaurant only eight months old at the time of the episode but already deep in debt, with a dining room and kitchen that, as shown on air, were openly at odds with each other. A prep cook nicknamed Buzzard was quietly stealing food and wine from the restaurant during service, a fact Ramsay caught firsthand. Ramsay arrived to a nearly empty dining room and a menu missing roughly half its listed items; what he could order included canned tomato-basil soup passed off as homemade, stale nacho chips, and a lamb portion smaller than his own knife that was clearly cooked from frozen.

A brownie he tried to order never arrived because Buzzard had already eaten it. During service, chef Ricky and manager Tabitha blamed each other for the chaos while Ramsay watched Buzzard carry armfuls of food and bottles of wine out of the building. To settle who should lead the kitchen, Ramsay staged a blind taste test between Ricky and sous chef Lex, which Lex won decisively; Ramsay installed Lex as head chef, promoted Tabitha to manager, sent owner Lela for a personal makeover, and set the reworked kitchen the task of building a burger strong enough to give the town something it lacked.

The relaunch was framed on air as an early step toward stabilizing a restaurant that had never found its footing. It did not last. Newsweek's February 18, 2026 report on Kitchen Nightmares restaurants lists Lela's among the Season 1 businesses reported to have closed. A fan site, rescueshowguide.com, places the closure not long after the November 2007 broadcast, in 2007 itself, though it could not identify an exact date. The restaurant operated at 296 West Second Street in Pomona. No later reporting on Lela, Ricky, Tabitha, or Lex was found.