History Main / RestaurantOwningEpisode

** In another episode, Hugo the health inspector takes Bob on an inspection to show how important his job is. The restaurant they inspect is run by a former stockbroker who had no food service training and opened a wrap restaurant because he thought it would be fun and easy. Hugo finds violation after violation and marks the place with an F, then makes Bob eat one of the wraps, which makes him violently ill. The stockbroker doesn't seem to get the message, as he plans to start a sushi restaurant next.

** In the "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E4BartSellsHisSoul Bart Sells His Soul]]" episode, Moe renovates his tavern into a family-friendly restaurant. However, it soon fails when the incessant demands of child customers eventually cause Moe to react with his characteristic surliness.

** In one episode, Hugo the health inspector takes Bob on an inspection to show how important his job is. The restaurant they inspect is run by a former stockbroker who had no food service training and opened a wrap restaurant because he thought it would be fun and easy. Hugo finds violation after violation and marks the place with an F, then makes Bob eat one of the wraps, which makes him violently ill. The stockbroker doesn't seem to get the message, as he plans to start a sushi restaurant next.

** In the "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E4BartSellsHisSoul Bart Sells His Soul]]" episode, Moe renovates his tavern into a family-friendly restaurant. However, it soon fails when the incessant demands of child customers eventually cause Moe to react with his typical surliness.

* On ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', Frasier's and Niles's attempt to open up an exclusive high-end eatery meets with typically disastrous results.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' episode, "[[Recap/TheLoudHouseS3E26Cooked Cooked!]]", the Loud family acquire an abandoned seafood restaurant and turn it into a family restaurant called Lynn's Table. On the day of the grand opening, a printing error leads to the kids coming up with their own promotions, but their lack of teamwork and crazy promos lead to an ultimate nightmare in the kitchen for Lynn Sr..

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' episode, "Cooked!", the Loud family acquire an abandoned seafood restaurant and turn it into a family restaurant called Lynn's Table. On the day of the grand opening, a printing error leads to the kids coming up with their own promotions, but their lack of teamwork and crazy promos lead to an ultimate nightmare in the kitchen for Lynn Sr..

Owning and managing a restaurant is a demanding job. Operating one requires people to expend considerable money, time, and effort--and even that, in most cases, won't be enough to keep it from failing. When a character on a TV show opens up or buys a restaurant, he or she usually does so thinking it will be fun and not taking into account the amount of money, work, red tape, and stress involved. This results in the character being quickly overwhelmed by his or her new responsibilities and [[HilarityEnsues comically blundering through a series of culinary and serving mishaps]] that make his or her inexperience in the food service industry apparent to the unfortunate customers. In most instances, the episode ends with the character closing or selling the restaurant and [[StatusQuoIsGod going back to whatever job he or she did previously.]]

* The latter half of the second season of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' sees Iroh and Zuko getting jobs as servers in a tea shop in Ba Sing Se, and working their way up to running their own tea house. Since Iroh is so passionate about tea -- and so skilled at its preparation -- their shop is actually very successful, but Zuko resents the peasant life that he views as beneath him. It eventually all comes to an end when Azula conquers the city.[[spoiler: After the GrandFinale, Iroh moves back to Ba Sing Se and reopens, and the last scene of the series is the heroes celebrating there.]]

SubTrope of NewJobEpisode.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' episode, "Chez Amy", Amy is tired of Dave the Intern frequently getting her order wrong at Meh Burger, so she turns her house into a restaurant called Chez Amy, and hires Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Sticks as employees. This causes a rivalry with Meh Burger, and Dr. Eggman decides to help Amy win by destroying Meh Burger. This later leads Amy to hire Dave to work at Chez Amy, and thanks to Dave's lackluster service towards Eggman, Eggman destroying Chez Amy.

* In the ''Series/GoodLuckCharlie'' episode, "Wentz's Weather Girls", Teddy convinces Harry Wentz to follow his dream of opening Denver's first weather-themed restaurant only for [[BadJobWorseUniform her and Ivy tp get roped into wearing silly costumes as the restaurant's waitresses.]]

* An episode of ''Series/ILoveLucy'' has Ricky deciding to go in the restuarant business with his wife and the Murtzes after getting tired of show business. Unfortunately it ends in failure since the two couples couldn't work together.

* ''Machinima/Supermarioglitchy4sSuperMario64Bloopers'': In ''The Mario Cafe'', Bowser recruits Mario and his friends to run a cafe with him. Mario and the others initially hate it, but start to like it more when they find tasks in the cafe that they're good at.

* The ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "Stan's Food Restaurant" revolves around Stan wanting to start a restaurant centered around fun comfort foods, but Stan hits a snag when the bank denies him a loan. He turns to Roger, who gets a loan for the restaurant and is legally the owner, but wants to start a traditional Thai restaurant instead. Roger eventually tries to compete with Stan's successful restaurant by starting his own right next door. Roger's restaurant goes under, and Roger burns it to the ground for the insurance money. Stan's first instinct is to beat up Roger in a fit of rage, but he pulls a gun and nervously tells him to calm down and just let the fire do its thing. Then the episode ends.
* The latter half of the second season of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' sees Iroh and Zuko getting jobs as servers in a tea shop in Ba Sing Se, and working their way up to running their own tea house. Since Iroh is so passionate about tea -- and so skilled at its preparation -- their shop is actually very successful, but Zuko resents the peasant life that he views as beneath him. It eventually all comes to an end when Azula conquers the city. [[spoiler:After the GrandFinale, Iroh moves back to Ba Sing Se and reopens, and the last scene of the series is the heroes celebrating there.]]

** In the "No Meals on Wheels" episode, Lois gets her carpets pulled up when Peter won't stop shocking people with his footy pajamas. The Griffin family end up finding a 15th Century Rhode Island Ship token, which is worth thousands of dollars, and end up becoming rich enough to start Peter's dream job of owning a restaurant called Big Pete's House of Munch. When business is slow, Joe Swanson decides to help Peter by inviting his friends over to eat there. Much to Peter's ire, Joe's friends aren't cops, but rather paraplegics, giving Big Pete's House of Munch the reputation of only being popular with handicapped people.

* The ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'' episode, "Sunday Night Slice" shows the origin of how Pizzarriba came to be. When Gerardi's, Bugs and Daffy's favorite pizza restaurant closes down, Bugs buys it and decides to run it with the help of Daffy, Porky, Marvin the Martian, and Pete Puma. However, their attempts to run Gerardi's are a disaster, so Bugs enlists Speedy Gonzales' help, due to Speedy's lifelong dream to own a restaurant. Thanks to Speedy, Gerardi's is a success and Bugs not only gives Speedy ownership of it, but also renames it Pizzarriba in his honor.

* In the ''Series/GoodLuckCharlie'' episode, "Wentz's Weather Girls", Teddy convinces Harry Wentz to follow his dream of opening Denver's first weather-themed restaurant, but [[BadJobWorseUniform Teddy and Ivy get roped into wearing silly costumes as the restaurant's waitresses.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': In "Chez Platypus", the boys open a restaurant called, well, Chez Platypus. As typical of the show, they become the most popular restaurant in town as soon as it's created, with almost the entire town lining up outside and both Doofenshmirtz and Candace going on dates there.

* The latter half of the second season of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' sees Iroh and Zuko getting jobs as servers in a tea shop in Ba Sing Se, and working their way up to running their own tea house. Since Iroh is so passionate about tea -- and so skilled at its preparation -- their shop is actually very successful, but Zuko resents the peasant life that he views as beneath him. It eventually all comes to an end when Azula conquers the city.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' episode, "[[Recap/GarfieldAndFriendsS3E06 Orson's Diner]]", Orson Pig needs to raise money to buy some new books, so he and Wade Duck decide to start their own diner after finding a book that says, "How to Start Your Own Restaurant". When Roy Rooster is their first customer, they tell him that if he orders something they can't fix, he can get free food from them for a month. Roy takes advantage of their policy and begins ordering strange and complicated foods, including an elephant foot sandwich with mustard.

Owning and managing a restaurant is a demanding job. Their operation requires people to expend considerable money, time, and effort--and even that, in most cases, won't be enough to keep it from failing. When a character on a TV show opens up or buys a restaurant, he or she usually does so thinking it will be fun and not taking into account the amount of money, work, red tape, and stress involved. This results in the character being quickly overwhelmed by his or her new responsibilities and [[HilarityEnsues comically blundering through a series of culinary and serving mishaps]] that make his or her inexperience in the food service industry apparent to the unfortunate customers. In most instances, the episode ends with the character closing or selling the restaurant and [[StatusQuoIsGod going back to whatever job he or she did previously.]]

* The latter half of the second season of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' sees Iroh and Zuko opening up a tea shop in Ba Sing Se. Unfortunately, when Azula captures the city, Iroh is arrested and the tea shop is closed down.

* An episode of ''Series/ILoveLucy'' has Ricky deciding to go in the restuarant business with his wife and the Murtzes after getting tired of show business. Unfortunately it ends in failure since the two couples couldn't work together.

!!Examples
[[AC: LiveActionTV]]
* On ''Series/{{Frasier}}'', Frasier's and Niles' attempt to open up an exclusive high-end eatery meets with typically disastrous results.

[[AC:WebAnimation]]
* Inverted in the ''WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail'' episode [[Recap/StrongBadEmailE179PizzaJoint "pizza joint"]]. Strong Bad throws together a fake pizza restaurant, named The Pizz, as a scam to get college-aged girls to hang out with him. [[FakeRealTurn The Pizz somehow becomes a successful, well-reviewed restaurant]] without any effort from Strong Bad, but the college girls never show up.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

[[AC:RealLife]]
* Creator/AnthonyBourdain (a professional chef who's had to deal with them many times in his career) rails against these new owners in his book KitchenConfidential, explaining that they have no idea how much work it is to run a restaurant and how there's infinitely more to it than just being good at cooking, such as managing cooks who hate each other, changing menus to get rid of nearly-expired food, dealing with health inspections, knowing how to unplug grease traps, etc. Often the restaurants end up failing due to entirely predictable circumstances (predictable by the staff, not the owners).

* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' is about a family that runs a small restaurant, which is doing steady, if not remarkable, business. This trope comes into effect whenever they try to expand their services, like serving brunch or running a food truck. These are usually the work of Bob's impulsive wife Linda, and her poor planning, compounded by the kids' antics, usually means they're back to normal at episode's end.

* The ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "Stan's Food Restaurant" revolves around Stan wanting to start a restaurant centered around fun comfort foods, but Stan hits a snag when the bank denies him a loan. He turns to Roger, who gets a loan for the restaurant and is legally the owner, but wants to start a traditional Thai restaurant instead. Roger eventually tries to compete with Stan's successful restaurant by starting his own right next door. Roger's restaurant goes under, and Roger burns it to the ground for the insurance money. The episode ends with Roger glad that everything worked out in the end for everyone, as Stan watches in horror as his successful business literally goes up in flames.

-->''It's my theory that owning a restaurant is the kind of universal fantasy everyone ought to grow out of, sooner rather than later, or else you will be stuck with the restaurant. There are many problems that come with owning a restaurant, not the least of which is that you have to eat there all the time.''
--Creator/NoraEphron, "My Life as a Meat Loaf", ''I Remember Nothing:''