Kitchen Nightmares: Whatever Happened To Finn McCool's

If you were a fan of "Kitchen Nightmares," you probably remember this episode from the first season featuring Finn McCool's. This is not the same Finn McCool's from New Orleans which is on our list of the best Irish pubs in America. This is the Westhampton-based family restaurant and Irish pub which, in 2007, fed Gordon Ramsay a shepherd's pie so greasy that he ran to the loo to throw up. While the episode itself featured a happy ending, with a local newspaper's food critic giving the revamped menu and ambience a thumbs up, the turnaround in fortunes were short-lived.

To be fair, the business was swimming against the tide from the very beginning, even without the greasy pie. Being located in a tourist destination with extremely seasonal footfall was just the start of the nightmare. Founded by a retired local cop Andrew "Buddy" Mazzio, Finn McCool's was a family-run operation. Buddy's son Brian was the head chef. His other son Jason and Jason's wife Melissa were the manager and the waitstaff, respectively.

And while America is dotted with successful family-run food businesses (In-and-Out is among three burger chains that are family owned), the Mazzios didn't seem to have the chops required to run a restaurant. Their problems ranged from food orders that took too long, and were still served cold, to questionable hygiene standards (at one point, the sous chef drops a chicken wing on the floor and proceeds to pick it up, dust it off, and drop it in the fryer). The family did let Ramsay ring in the changes. Apart from a deep clean and a makeover, the celebrity chef redesigned the menu with family-friendly dishes that appealed to the small resident population.

If Yelp reviews from the years following the "Kitchen Nightmares" episode are anything to go by, the next couple of years went well. "I really like this restaurant. Cute atmosphere and a lovely outside patio for dining," one customer wrote in 2009. "The waitstaff is always super friendly and sweet. I always eat here when I am back east. Excellent onion soup! One of the best. Burgers are great!" That's a long and successful journey from the shepherd's pie that made Gordon Ramsay throw up.

The Mazzios did have some issues at the time with how the episode was edited. At one point on the show, it features Brian driving off in anger after a fight with his father — the family insists he didn't. They also claimed that the sous chef who picked up the chicken wing was not an employee but someone hired by the producers. While it's common for reality TV to edit for dramatic storytelling, there is a fine line between drama and lies (in a separate case, "Kitchen Nightmares" was sued by New Orleans-based Oceana Grill for misleading viewers).

In the case of Finn McCool's, the turnaround in fortunes did seem to be real. When Ramsay revisited the family, they said profits were up to 37% and that they had paid off all their debts. Health problems had pushed Buddy to the sidelines, and the Mazzios ended up selling the restaurant two years after the "Kitchen Nightmares" episode aired. The new owners kept the business going for three more years, but it too shut shop in 2012. Buddy Mazzio died at 67 in 2023.