What Happened to Sam's Mediterranean Kabob Room After Kitchen Nightmares?

Sam's Mediterranean Kabob Room was a family-run restaurant in Old Town Monrovia, California, opened in 1997 by Sam Najjar. As the business slowed over the years, Najjar came to rely entirely on his wife and children as unpaid staff, and the Monrovia Patch reported, in a piece published the day after the episode aired, that the family said they worked seven days a week without pay to keep the restaurant open. The Kitchen Nightmares episode, which aired February 15, 2013, showed Ramsay finding overcooked steak, bland boiled-tasting lamb, and a menu with the word "meat" misspelled as "meet"; Najjar's children described feeling trapped in the business, saying their father did not seem to notice how unhappy they were, and family arguments played out in front of customers.

Ramsay redesigned the restaurant's decor and menu, moving away from frozen ingredients toward fresher, Mediterranean-forward dishes, and worked to ease tensions between Najjar and his children; Najjar told the Patch afterward, "Chef Ramsay opened my eyes to cook the right way." What has happened since: Gazette Review reported that Sam's Mediterranean Kabob Room's closure came in 2014, citing continuing family disputes and financial strain the relaunch had not resolved. The Patch's original coverage, filed the weekend the episode aired, cautioned that it remained to be seen whether the redesign would help the restaurant survive, and did not canvass customer reaction to the changes.

Gazette Review's later report noted that as of 2026 the Myrtle Avenue space is occupied by a different restaurant, Copper Still Grill. Sam Najjar's seven children were shown collectively confronting him about the unpaid, unrelenting work schedule, a conversation Ramsay facilitated separately from his sit-down with their father. Gazette Review noted the restaurant sat in Old Town Monrovia, less than a half-hour drive from downtown Los Angeles. A Yelp listing for the address remains marked permanently closed as of a September 2026 update.