In this Restaurant Impossible episode, Robert Irvine visits Whiskey Creek Steakhouse in Keyport, Washington.
Whiskey Creek Streakhouse is owned by Pat Ziarnik and his wife Karan.
They bought Whiskey Creek 27 years ago because they want to own their own restaurant.
They believed they had experience, success and dedication.
The experience with other companies was the motivation for starting out on their own.
For the first 20 or so years they were highly successful.
Four years ago Whiskey Creek Steakhouse started to struggle.
Two years ago, it went from bad to worse.
They don't know how much longer they can stay open.
They are struggling to keep afloat with the business costs.
They are $15,000 behind with the landlord for rent.
They are also $30,000 behind to taxes and other vendors.
The finances are so bad that they lost their house.
The business has also cost them their cars, life insurance and savings.
Pat is in ill health, having been diagnosed with a congested paraphilia.
She also has diabetes type 2, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
Karan thinks the most challenging thing is to see Pat's health deteriorate.
The business is also having a big effect on his health.
Pat can also see that Karan is stressed.
She is trying her best to make the restaurant work as best she can.
Robert arrives at Whiskey Creek restaurant and thinks it is dated.
The wood is too dark and overbearing and there is a smell.
Robert meets with the owners who tell him about the restaurant.
In the glory days there were making $1.5 million a year in revenue.
This declined in 2008 and with high food costs at 48%.
They are currently losing an average of $4,500 a month.
The owners are at the restaurant as often as they can be.
They are there around 3 to 4 hours every day.
When they are not around the staff run the restaurant in their absence.
Robert wants to observe a dinner service and he meets Joan.
She steps up as manager when the owners aren’t there.
Joan is also a server so when they aren’t there she juggles both roles at the same time.
As a result she can’t fully fulfil either role.
There are issues with service.
This includes servers touching the food on the plates as they are served.
The customers aren’t impressed with the décor of the restaurant.
They it is dated, the chairs are uncomfortable and the artwork is awful.
Along with the poor decor, the service is also poor too.
They all just do what they want as there is no leadership.
Robert summons the owners and tells him about the service he witnessed.
He asks Karan to talk to the customers for their feedback and it is negative.
He next wants to talk to the servers and cooks.
They tell him the issues with the service and the lack of management.
Robert asks to sample some dishes from the menu.
He is disappointed with what he is served.
After the disappointing food, Robert meets with designers Taniya and Tom.
They discuss how they can modernize the restaurant.
They get to work on the renovations.
The staff remove all of the tables and chairs and furniture so they can get to work.
Robert meets with the owners.
They admit they are blind to what is happening at the restaurant.
They have become complacent, but they promise to step up.
The designers are making good progress in the dining room.
Robert decides to tackle the high food costs.
To do this Robert takes a look over their books.
He is shocked to discover there are discrepancies between spend and takings.
Robert is unsure at this stage whether this is due to mismanagement.
The other optios is that someone has been stealing from the restaurant.
He promises the owners to get to the bottom of it.
The next day, Robert checks in with the designers.
He is impressed with their progress but urges them to work faster to meet the deadline.
Robert talks to Pat and Karan after spending the evening going over the books.
They should have made $400,000 after selling 18,000 steaks at $24 a piece.
However, they made less than $300,000.
There is $100,000 missing from sales of food and drink that needs to be accounted for.
Robert calls a staff meeting.
The staff tell Robert that they have seen a former member of staff stealing.
They were taking drinks, food and other items without paying for them.
Unable to change the past Robert puts plans in place to avoid this happening in the future.
Each servers checks will be numbered.
It can be tracked what has been served and by whom.
The high expense items will be on inventory.
Robert makes it clear that there needs to be ground rules to follow.
These are because they aren’t in the restaurant all of the time.
They also need to ensure they are followed up with consequences if they aren’t.
The owners are beginning to feel that to fix things they need to be in the restaurant a lot more.
Roberts next task is to address the food quality issues.
He introduces new menu items.
They include a Coconut Walnut Halibut and Peppercorn Demi NY Strip Steak with Olive Oil Poached Mushrooms.
Robert teaches the cooks how to cook the dishes.
The restaurant will be operating as a casual steak house.
This is due to the high volume of steak they sell.
As a final task Robert works with the servers to improve their server skills.
This is to avoid a repeat of the issues in the first service he observed.
Robert reveals the revamped restaurant to Pat and Karan, including the new bar.
On relaunch night, the customers had a lot of compliments.
They all enjoyed the evening in the new atmosphere with delicious meals.
What Happened Next at Whiskey Creek Steakhouse?
A few months after filming they had a good couple of months of business.
They had had begun to pay off their debts.
They moved from the location featured on the show to a bigger location across the road.
The couple brought back the old restaurant with the old menu, live music and the kitsch decor.
They told the local press that they had made a mistake appearing on the show.
They regretted many of the changes made during the show.
Reviews after the episode was filmed were mixed.
There were complaints on service, small portions and inflated prices.
The previous location was sold.
At a high price, probably due to the increase in value of the space following the revamp.
Pat and Karan retired in November 2013.
They passed the business to their employees.
Whiskey Creek Steakhouse closed in August 2016.
They announced the closure by posting a sign in the window of the restaurant.
Whiskey Creek Steakhouse was Restaurant Impossible season 5 episode 5 and aired on January 02 2013.
Click for more Restaurant Impossible Restaurants
Previous episode - Rising Sun Bistro
Next episode - Windseeker Restaurant
This angers me. Robert was taken advantage of trying to help a couple who were being robbed blind from their employees... sad
ReplyDeletethis too, angers me! I cant believe they would say they made a mistake going on the show after they seemed so grateful for what Robert did!
ReplyDeleteI agree exactly
DeleteHmmm, so you were failing before the show and found enough success to sell the place after and buy a bigger place, yet you think it was a mistake being on the show? I call BS.
ReplyDelete