What Happened to Nino's Italian Restaurant After Kitchen Nightmares?

Nino's Italian Restaurant was founded in Long Beach, California, in 1958 by immigrants Vincenzo and Inge Cristiano, with their children Nino, Michael, and Carina growing up working front-of-house roles. After Vincenzo was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and stepped back from the kitchen, Inge and eldest son Nino took over day-to-day operations, and the restaurant's fortunes declined -- some family members attributed the slide to Nino's approach to running the business. The Kitchen Nightmares episode, which aired February 22, 2013, gave the interior a makeover and updated the menu; while Inge, Michael, and Carina were receptive to Ramsay's changes, Nino was markedly less so, and the episode became known for the resulting family disputes.

What has happened since: Mashed reported that the family soon returned to the restaurant's earlier decor after regular customers complained about the redesign, citing Reality TV Updates for that detail, and dropped Ramsay's menu changes entirely. Vincenzo Cristiano died in 2014, two years after the episode. Nino's continued operating for another two years before Mashed reported, on September 3, 2023, that the restaurant's closure came in August 2016 after 58 years in business; in an extensive Facebook post, Carina Cristiano said she and her family were stepping back from the business to spend more time together.

In 2017, the building that had housed Nino's was sold for more than $2 million, and a Reddit user identifying himself as Nino Cristiano posted, without independent verification, that the restaurant's closure followed the show's involvement. The 58-year run made Nino's one of the longer-established restaurants to appear on the series, having opened decades before Ramsay's first season aired, with staff at the time of filming spanning two generations of the Cristiano family. The restaurant's longevity across three generations of ownership decisions was itself a recurring theme in the coverage that followed its appearance on the show. A Yelp listing for the Atlantic Avenue address remains marked permanently closed as of a September 2026 update.