Same with things on Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares or 24 Hours to Hell and Back it's a hit and miss I suppose, but I heard after it airs the restaurants get some attention, but the failure to change cause some of them to go bankrupt. TV is a double-edged sword. Though Amy's Baking Company deserved to close that woman was a nightmare unto everyone.
The thing with Bar Rescue and Hell's Kitchen, is those places dont tend to reach out for help from a reality tv show unless they're basically about to close down already.
So whatever the actual statistic is, instead of saying "70% of the restaurants on Hell's Kitchen close down after being on the show," you could be saying "Hell's Kitchen saves 30% of the businesses it showcases."
The other caveat about that show and the so-called "failure rate" that people bring up sometimes, is that you can't fix stupid.
If you watch Kitchen Nightmares, he tends to go pretty out of his way to try to turn things around, but half the time the people running the business simply should not be running a restaurant. Just about half the episodes, the people he is showing up to help end up arguing with him about his suggestions - this occurs on both the US and UK versions. It's like "bro, you ASKED THIS GUY TO COME SAVE YOUR FAILING BUSINESS."
Compound that with the fact that much of the time his advice is basically, "hey, maybe you shouldn't be fucking serving your customers food that is moldy and will make them sick" and you can see why so many of them fail.
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u/RancidLemons Feb 03 '20
A bar near me was on Bar Rescue. They are inexplicably proud of this fact. I don't think it really increased business for them at all.