Though the owners at Amy's Baking Company might not have the slightest clue as to how to handle social media, their (former) staff sure does. Katy Cipriano, an Amy's waitress who was fired on an episode of "Kitchen Nightmares," described what happened behind the scenes on an AMA with the folks over at Reddit, and some of her commentary is golden.
The thread is quite long, but some of the highlights include the fact that the servers were never allowed to touch the POS system and weren't given the opportunity to so much as try any of the restaurant's food. (Standard practice is to either give a steep discount so servers can get to know the menu and can make recommendations, or to offer it to them for free as part of their training.) Says Cipriano:
"they never let me try their food and i never felt like paying for it out of my own pocket so i have actually never tasted anything from there...the restaurant i work at now feeds me daily and lets me try just about all of their dishes. that way, i feel i am able to better connect to my customers when talking about the food. not sure why Amy's didn't let me try their food [without paying.]"
Cipriano didn't even last a month at the restaurant and ended up getting fired during the filming of the episode. She was fired for asking Amy three words after the chef (or, uh, "chef") told her which order was ready: "Are you sure?" It sounds like Cipriano was happy to leave: Why would you want to stick around if the owners were taking away your tips, especially if you're only being paid $8/hour at a bakery (where by the way, she never saw anything being baked)?Cipriano gave some insight into how the production went down:
"they cut it off short but the first night, after samy brutally yelled at and laid his hands on that one customer, the cops did end up being called and everyone had to leave the restaurant and the producers had to pay for everyone's meals. crazzzyyy."
Seems like a pretty toxic work environment. That's not to say that the owners were always whackadoodles, as they appeared to be on their recent local news interview:
"i think the show just brought out Amy's inner demonic soul. and i never really had the chance to talk to gordon after i left. honestly i just dont get how or why they still have a business."
Cipriano was fired not long after the 24:45-minute mark on the episode. And you can watch Ramsay confront the owners of the restaurant over the way that they treat their staff—including Cipriano—at the 34:30-minute mark of the full "Kitchen Nightmares" episode:
