What Happened to South Brooklyn After Kitchen Nightmares? (Brooklyn, NY)

South Brooklyn Foundry, on lower Third Avenue in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge neighborhood, was opened in 2017 by Kelly Agnes together with Sam Dabbas and Rey Martinez; Dabbas was bought out of his stake within about five years, while Martinez remained as head chef, according to an on-record interview Agnes gave to Brooklyn Paper. The restaurant, known for a New American menu spanning breakfast, brunch, and dinner and for hosting community events such as jazz nights, drag shows, and paint-and-sip evenings, was featured in Kitchen Nightmares Season 8, Episode 8, filmed in 2023 and airing November 27, 2023. Agnes told Brooklyn Paper that she and Martinez applied for what they understood to be a general kitchen-renovation program aimed at helping pandemic-strained businesses, without realizing they had signed up for the high-drama "Kitchen Nightmares" format; she told the paper she came to regret the decision to apply more than any other business choice she had made.

Agnes said mounting debt from the COVID-19 period, including a federal EIDL pandemic-relief loan and liquor-license renewal fees for a period when the license went unused, had pushed her to seek help. The episode's central focus was the working relationship between Agnes and Martinez rather than food-safety problems; Agnes told Brooklyn Paper that inspectors "didn't come into the kitchen" and that the restaurant had six consecutive A health ratings from the city at the time. During the episode, Ramsay told the two that their business is going nowhere, and Martinez walked off the production; the show states he returned as head chef about two months later, though Agnes and Martinez told Brooklyn Paper their working partnership actually ended for good the day production wrapped.

Production renovated the restaurant's front-of-house only, in a style Agnes said did not suit the space. Brooklyn Paper reported that South Brooklyn Foundry's closure came shortly before what would have been its ninth anniversary on September 1, with Agnes calling the run a success story despite early doubts from others that the Bay Ridge location, situated below the neighborhood's main commercial strip, would survive its second year. Agnes told the paper that separate reports the restaurant was relocating, rather than closing, were incorrect, and said she hoped to open a new restaurant in Bay Ridge.