Is Verdict Still Open? Kitchen Nightmares Update (New Orleans, LA)

The Verdict Lounge & Restaurant, a Creole- and Southern-style restaurant and lounge in New Orleans East, appeared in season 9, episode 7 of Kitchen Nightmares, "Verdict," which aired February 18, 2025. Owner Melika Honore opened the business in 2022 with a judicial theme, choosing the name to reflect the good and bad decisions in her own life and choosing the New Orleans East location to help revitalize her home neighborhood; her mother, Michiko Honore, serves as head chef, and her sister, Tashika Honore-Holden, manages operations. The three women previously ran a soul-food restaurant, Cast Iron Rose, which has since closed.

As shown in the episode, rising tension between kitchen and front-of-house staff, family disagreements and mounting debt were straining the business. Ramsay struggled to eat much of what was served, describing barbecue chicken wings as oversauced, a burger as undercooked and a steak as too tough to cut; that steak, priced at $34, arrived with plastic cutlery and had to be sent back. The Sun Herald reported in July 2023, before the show's visit, that The Verdict was among restaurants cited by local health inspectors for not holding a current state food safety certificate, one of several issues the family was managing.

Ramsay's team reworked kitchen operations and updated the menu, and pushed the family to rebuild communication between the kitchen and the floor. Following the relaunch, the Honore family kept Michiko in the kitchen and Melika and Tashika running the front of house and business side. Reader reviews on Google and Yelp since the episode have been largely positive, with diners praising the food, live music and cocktails; a small number of critical reviews have also been posted, including one describing a severe allergic reaction to shellfish a diner said was not listed in an egg roll's menu description.

The restaurant continues to host live music and happy-hour service at its Lake Forest Boulevard location. As of research in September 2026, aggregator listings including OpenTable continued to show the restaurant operating at that address with regular hours, though no single 2026-dated news account of its ongoing operation was located.