Kitchen Nightmares - Anna Vincenzo's - CLOSED

Anna Vincenzo's Kitchen Nightmares

In this Kitchen Nightmares episode, Chef Gordon Ramsay visits Anna Vincenzo's in Boca Raton, Florida.

Anna Vincenzo's is an Italian restaurant owned by CeCe,a self taught cook.

Cece opened the restaurant in 2001 with help from her father.

Her father Angelo lent her $300,000 after being in the restaurant business for years with a successful pizzeria.

She often has mood swings from crying hysterically to screaming at everyone and threatening to close the restaurant.

She is on the edge of bankruptcy and about to lose her house, with debt of $190,000 owed to her father after the restaurant started losing business 2 years ago.

Gordon arrives and is impressed with the decor of the restaurant.

He is greeted by CeCe and meets her father and head server Michael, who is also her husband and Gordon jokes that he looks like a gangster.

Gordon meets waitress Ashton and after jokingly asks for one of everything before he has seen the menu.

From the huge 181 item menu, he orders the salmon divino salad, snapper Anna and a pizza.

The salmon is dry and overcooked, tastes like cardboard and the Snapper Anna looks like a dogs dinner and tastes of mush.

Michael tastes it and says that it is soggy but CeCe refuses to taste it.

The Pizza Del Nonna is soggy in the middle and crispy on the outside and generally bland.

CeCe says that as he is British he knows nothing about pizza.

Gordon asks Michael to tell CeCe his opinion about the snapper and he now backtracks and says that was tender.

Cece reacts badly to Gordon's criticism of her food.

Gordon returns to watch a dinner service, he begins by inspecting the kitchen.

The gnocchi is frozen and there are overcooked meatballs.

The food goes out quickly and is sent back just as fast and a tasteless veal dish pushes her over the edge.

CeCe continues to be defensive of the food, refuses to recook dishes and eventually walks out the kitchen, telling the staff to send the customers home.

Michael steps in and attempts to get food out whilst many customers walk out.

CeCe breaks down into tears outside and admits that she is scared of failure and Gordon tells her that he has failed and closed 3 restaurants.

Gordon comes in early to meet the chefs and asks them to cook the entire 181 dish menu.

Next he asks the servers to put stickers on the items that are fresh or frozen and it is discovered that 80% are frozen!

Gordon works with CeCe to reduce the menu and introduces a family style lasagne special and a soup.

Overnight the restaurant has a makeover with all new tableware, a caricature of CeCe and a new family style menu.

Gordon brings in a restaurant consultant Daniel for a month and reveals his marketing plan of a pizza making contest.

Local sportsmen and radio stations are invited to take part and the Miami Dolphins are declared the winner.

On relaunch night, the service starts with the food going out quickly and enjoyed by the customers.

The special sells out very quickly but CeCe abandons the quality control, attempting to send out poor quality and a burnt pork chop.

Gordon steps in and stops the dishes reaching the customers, Cece reluctantly recooks the dishes.

The customers continually compliment the dishes and the relaunch is a success.

What Happened Next at Anna Vincenzo's?

Gordon revisits in a revisited episode and Anna Vincenzo's is closed.

Gordon talks to server Ashton who reports that she went back to her old ways.

Cece raised the prices and made the portions smaller.

Gordon visits CeCe at home and she says it was time to sell Anna Vincezo's to focus on her family.

Gordon comments on how different she looks and Cece shows off her weight loss, that she puts down to stress.

She sold the restaurant and Anna Vincenzo's now closed so that she could spend more time with her children.

Cece and Michael had separated and were living separately.

The few Yelp reviews after the filming are mostly positive.

In Anna Vincenzo's place Nino's of Boca II has opened, the East Side restaurant of Ninas on the West Side and Yelp reviews are average.

Anna Vincenzo's aired on March 26 2010, the episode was filmed in July 2009 and is Kitchen Nightmares season 3 episode 9.

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Previous episode - Mama Rita's

Next episode - Fleming

This post was last updated in August 2019.

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  1. It closed. It was a terrible restaurant and the food was the worst I ever had.

  2. Stopped by after show first aired. She had already gone back to old ways. Best thing to happen to Boca ever was her failure.

  3. Before anyone passes any further judgement, these points need to be made...

    Have worked in television production for some time. First and foremost, these shows are EDITED down to only show scenes that will make people watch. Second, the shows producers/director tell the restaurant owners to "push the envelope", meaning start up something with Ramsay. If every owner was going to just go along with whatever Ramsay said, it wouldn't get a rating point.

    In the case of Anna Vincenzo's, was told by someone who's "in the know" the restaurant owner (CeCe?) was given 1 time slot when they were filming which was less than 2 months from her giving birth. The restaurant was struggling and the owner decided to allow filming to try to bring some attention in the hopes that business would improve.

    What was shown was a typical quasi reality program the only difference being there were no actors but plenty of direction from the shows staff. Some of the scenes are actually shot over multiple takes to get the desired result.

    Shouldn't take it seriously...

    1. I'm with these guys. I hate the gimmicks and TV-fakery, but the fact is that she was doing a lot of stuff wrong, Ramsay told her to change that stuff, and she was too lazy to do it.

      It's not hard to judge plain facts. Of course you can't get local produce in Jersey in February. Of course some of the shouting and tantrums on the show were encouraged for ratings. I'd like to think not, but I accept it's pretty doubtless.

      But this stuff is irrelevant to clearly shown and admittedly poor business practices. This stuff is irrelevant to the good advice Ramsay, an extremely successful man, offers them. And this stuff is irrelevant to people lazily ignoring his advice and failing.

    2. Two months after giving birth? That kid is at least 10 months old. I suspect the "in the know" source was CeCe making excuses

    3. Alternatively, she could be 7 months pregnant with her 2nd at the time of filming? When GR asked her what had happened, she had this little smile that to me said, "oh, you know, lost the babyweight, but the producers doesn't want me to say that."

  4. I know that all shows are edited but if you count the number of times she made a snarky comment or the number of times she cries, no amount of editing can manipulate us into thinking that the producers faked all of that.

    1. Exactly. The way she wouldn't open her mouth to talk, the way she stuck out her lower lip, the way she went nuts over the smallest bit of criticism. She is a giant toddler. A spoiled brat. Even if they only used the worst of the worst, there is no excuse for behaving like that. Ever.

  5. I especially liked how - in addition to all the smack talk that the restaurant owners try to give Gordon for being a meaniehead - she constantly went on about him being a brit.

    Stay classy.

  6. Personally, I can't stand her voice. It is grating. I wouldn't be able to work with her on the quality of her voice alone. I could barely watch the episode, she sounded so painful on my ears.

  7. Sad to see the restaurant close down, especially after all the work Ramsay put in for her.

  8. Throw on some mozzarella and some a basil and a call it a Italiano no.

  9. As someone who has worked in production I think the poster of the explanation for how it is produced is off. If you look at the show the general idea is Ramsay going in and turning a fail into a success. This often means changing almost everything and as such most owners/chefs aren't fond of that at all. It's not hard to pull 43 minutes of drama out of a week of some outside force telling you this and that sucks.

    It also doesn't make sense for all these failures to sit there and be like "oh yeah, I'll look like a complete bitch on national TV, and ruin any reputation I might have." In interviews, of course they have several takes and they have leading questions but at the end of the day if they say something ignorant and stupid, that is all them.

    Now they might stretch the truth with diners and make it look like they are saying the food is terrible when they are talking about something else. I also would take anybody "in the know" with a grain of salt. Looking at several interviews(outside the show) they are extremely mixed. Generally some of the bitchiest owners/chefs tend to say it's all staged, while others involved say it is an accurate portrayal of the owners/chefs. That was the case with ABC, where the owners were all about how fake it was yet the server they fired AND their online posts revealed that it was very accurate and wasn't staged.

    You can see it through most owners that slam Ramsay online after the show that the way they behave is just like what they are portrayed in the show. David from the black pearl is a good example of that. While they may not act like that all the time, I highly doubt they need to direct the owners like you say to get 43 minutes out of a week. There are also several owners who do not really fight with Ramsay in the show. So for the most part the owners are most likely portrayed fairly close to how they really are compared to other non-fiction shows.

  10. Either GR has a single busy production team that thinks alike and works on every single show he has ever done, I count 10 different series thus far (UK and US), with multiple seasons of each, or we can take some of LYoung's advice as well as a serious dose of common sense and believe what we are being shown in terms of character, i.e., GR is most genuine, really cares, and I doubt that he would willingly be set people up for drama's sake. There are enough crappy leaders and owners out there to go around, why invent any of them for the sake of a show!!! The only thing that might play into this from a production standpoint (that would pan out in favor of drama creation) is the selection process... out of the dozens upon dozens of submissions looking for "help", do you think the marketeers aren't gonna be able to find some good "natural drama"? They most certainly are. Until I learn otherwise, places like Anna Vincenzo's will have closed for reasons that are fairly self-evident... like a majority of the posters have already mentioned.

  11. Ummmm people, it's TV....why take it so serious? REALLY, none of you know these people and none of you should put this much time into being so negetive...maybe that is what is wrong with our country :(

    1. You know... skepticism, like everything else, needs to be kept in moderation. Just like our political beliefs (reference your comment about what is wrong with our country). If you believe everything, you are a fool; if you believe nothing, then you wear blinders and are therefore also a fool. Also, when you call a spade a spade, thats not being negative... thats called an opinion, as well as honesty. There are a number of folks who comment on here that have obvious business experience, or leadership and management experience... listen and learn. Not everyone is some star-gazing GR worshiper, though if GR is respected for his professional and business character, why question it because he is on TV. Do you know the President personally? Nothing but from TV I'd bet. Do you have opinion about his policies and practices? Hmmm, No? So, I'll stop there and get back to kitchens, broken businesses, and pathetic owners. Thank you.

    2. One of the best written comments I've ever read on one of these forums. Keep up the good work.

    3. There are only two options. You can either believe there are people who act like that and learn from their mistakes and improve OR you can say it is fake and that they are acting. Thus making excuses for how they act and most likely the similar way you act and learn nothing because you live in excuses.

  12. This is an interesting episode. In spite of all the friction and anger in the first third, I feel badly for CeCe in a way that I often don't for other owners. Maybe it's that her vulnerability and anxiety rush to the surface more clearly than in other episodes. That isn't to offer any judgment on why the restaurant didn't succeed or on her as a person, just to say that this episode - despite the real nastiness off the bat - is strangely moving. I'm glad GR gave her the chance and I was glad to see her happiness - however else I may have felt at other points.

  13. My question: Is there a financial commitment made with the show/GR? As in, in exchange for coming we will pay you X% for the next 24 months etc. I know restaurant industry is not easy, especially in some of these locations but it seems like following many of these episodes I find *Closed* after a quick google search. True where there is smoke (struggling business) there will be fire (failure). The couple splitting is no surprise, he seemed like a terrified pushover to her. It's disheartening to read she started cutting corners instantly after the show but we all saw in the episode how *the following night* she was already attempting to send out burned food. How ignorant can you be? You are on National television stating "I don't care". Shocking stuff. And I agree with CC representing a large percentage of the current day American anchor, sinking the society as a whole. I was surprised how much crap GR took in this episode.

  14. Unfortunately for her father, she lost his money. Her emotional instability appears to be clinical and she really should consider professional help. She is extremely insecure. That is obvious from her need to attack others and from her need for attention through her clothing choices. The restaurant closing is a hard lesson learned. She needed to listen to her staff and customers. Her customers were the ones that buttered her bread.

  15. I don't get it. Her reaction and many other restaurant owners' reaction to Gordon Ramsey. Have they NEVER seen an episode of his? They did apply for him to come there, and then they are shocked at his reaction and yelling. Why is this always a surprise and unexpected. I think a lot of them want a new makeover for their restaurants so they can sell them.

  16. I knew she would NEVER make it, way too hard headed, rude, arrogant! She NEVER deserved anything Ramsey did for her, too disrespectful and ignorant.

  17. I think she tried her best. Not easy when you are so alone. Best wishes for the future, my love. Tom B A, Norway

  18. Lack of leadership and maturity on CeCe's behalf. I certainly wouldn't want to work for her.



