Location: Denver, Colorado
The owner still clings to a five-star review from the 1980s to justify the outdated pizza served at his family-owned restaurant.
Tropes
- Catchphrase: "Oh, shut up!"- Pete
- Dysfunctional Family: Pete had become so pig-headed that it took his wife and son threatening to abandon him to get him to agree to change the way he ran the restaurant.
- Epic Fail: To drive the point home that Pantaleone's was well past its Glory Days, Gordon served a public taste test between their pizza, a pizza served by the highest-end restaurant in Denver (which is not named), and a store-bought pizza. Pantaleone's pizza ranked dead last, behind the store-bought pizza.
- Glory Days: Pete is still clinging to decade-old five-star reviews to justify refusing to change his disastrous recipes.
- It Tastes Like Feet: A customer saying his meatballs "taste like cat food." When Gordon asks him how he knows what cat food tastes like, his response is "Long story."
- Noodle Incident: The aforementioned customer who apparently knows what cat food tastes like.
- No Name Given: Gordon organizes a public taste test of Pantaleone's previous pizza, a frozen pizza, and pizza from "one of the best restaurants in town". Said restaurant is never named, presumably because the owners didn't want to get in trouble with Pete or didn't want to be associated with Kitchen Nightmares.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Gordon's shirt at the end... it's actually far brighter pink than the one worn by the owner's wife.
- The Scapegoat: Attempted after the fact. In local media, between filming and airing, Pete claimed the new menu alienated some long-time customers, and that the production crew purposefully sabotaged the relaunch "for better television". But business increased 70% after airing of the episode, and the restaurant is still open as of 2022, with reviews remaining mostly positive.
- Separated by a Common Language: Ramsay refers to the elderly owner/chef as an "old boy." The owner is at first insulted, before Ramsay clarifies that it's a term of respect for older men.
- Viva Las Vegas!: Gordon flies the restaurant owner and his son to Las Vegas so they can meet with the manager of Rao's at Caesars Palace and hear from him how a proper family restaurant operates.
