Cinema Head Cheese Visits Amy's Baking Company!

Reviewed By: Mike Heenan

If you're reading this, chances are you've already seen the Kitchen Nightmares episode featuring Amy's Baking Company.  After their Facebook meltdown, the owners closed up shop for a week and hired a PR firm to rebuild their reputation.  The PR firm put out a notice on Facebook for reservations to their re opening, and I was one of the lucky ones to get in on opening night.  Allegedly, they had over 1000 reservations, so they decided to span the re opening the entire week.

My reservation was for 8:30pm, but I live near by the restaurant, so I decided to drop by early at 7pm to see if there was any drama going on outside.  There were about 20 people lingering around, and several trying to get in the place, but they were turning away anyone who didn't have a reservation.  I went up to check my status and saw there were empty tables inside, and the girl said I could go in at that point or I could wait until 8:30pm.  I decided to go in and was promptly seated at the back.  Samy was working the tables, and I noticed about four wait staff as well.

We were approached for our drink order, and I gave it to the girl, then minutes later we were approached by a waiter, and I repeated the order, and then finally the actual waitress dropped by to confirm the drink orders.  My mom ordered a glass of wine, and she had to ask two times where it was, and it was finally delivered after 15 minutes.  Our food orders arrived in 30 minutes, which seems reasonable for how busy they were.  Up to this point Samy hadn't assaulted anyone. HE dropped by our table to ask if we had our order taken and fluffed the napkins to look busy while he asked us.

We ordered a Pear Salad, which was excellent, and a Garlic Chicken Mushroom pizza.  The pizza did not have raw dough like Chef Ramsey's; it was actually delicious, but I felt it had too much flour on the bottom.  I'm guessing Amy didn't think I was a "hater" or an "internet bully", which explained the absence of fruit flies in the pizza.

We asked the waitress for a dessert menu and we were brought the regular menu.  She didn't come back to our table for 30 minutes, and at that point we decided to ask for the check and she profusely apologized to us.  I didn't blame her at all, but I noticed that Samy hogged the POS system the whole night like he did on the show, and that really slows things down for the restaurant.

A couple things happened during the dinner that you may be interested in.  The three security officers outside chased down two girls, who were sitting in front of us, after they left.  Samy thought they didn't pay, but I noticed they did.  They were brought back inside and conferred with the event organizer, and they left shortly thereafter.  One of the first people to get in at 5pm gave an extremely glowing review via twitter of their whole dinner and encounter with Samy.  The PR rep was monitoring twitter at that time and allegedly they said live tweeting wasn't allowed.  However, the rep had no problem retweeting the positive reviews from that blogger.  After reading several other blog reviews of the night, I determined this couple were a "plant" and their dinner was likely comped for the positive reviews.

Samy and Mike having a moment.

All in all, the dinner and experience was rather uneventful. It was just like Chef Ramsey said on the show. They mainly have good reviews for their food, but have poor service. I will likely go back in about a month assuming they are still open, to see if things have improved or perhaps I will end up in the emergency room after being assaulted by Samy.