Momma Cherri’s Soul Food Shack – 3rd June 2008

At Momma Cherri’s Soul Food Shack in Brighton, East Sussex, staff costs were crippling owner Charita Jones, yet she was doing most of the work herself. Ramsay forced her to get tough and tackle staff’s laidback attitude by writing a rule book. The more she set boundaries, the more professional her staff became.

Gordon Ramsay arrives at Momma Cherri’s Soul Shack to find an owner with £65k in debt and the restaurant that was empty. Momma Cherri had head chef Brian, but Charita was doing all the cooking and writing the menu she was trying to run the whole place [familiar story Walnut Tree]. This meant chef Brian had a cushy job, which created his lack of motivation. Gordon loved Charita’s food, he said “her home cooking should be the restaurant’s unique selling point”, but it wasn’t working. But then he discovered she’d been deep frying chicken wings eight hours before service. Gordon began to suspect the home cooking wasn’t quite as wholesome as he first thought.

Problems:

The food is not as it appears, some of the home-style cooking was cooked eight hours prior to service, the staff turned up late and were far too laid back it’s like they are at home with mum and they let her look after everyone. Charita talked to her staff like they were one of the 33 foster children she’d adopted over the years. Charita was killing herself trying to do everything and only paying herself £200 a week. She was paying two chefs to dress plates, this would have to be the quickest way to ruin a business. Gordon said Brian needed to take the reins and be the head chef, and like the Walnut Tree Charita needed to stay out of the kitchen.
Ramsay was confused about the menu prices they were offering specials at £8 but on the menu dishes were a heavy £14. Why the leap? Charita said her bank manager suggested boosting prices to make money, looks like her bank manager knows even less than her about running a restaurant. Gordon said it was killing the business, Charita needed to cut prices and offer smaller portions.

Ramsay Makeover:

Gordon in his usual style gets locals sample Momma Cherri food, and they loved it Charita’s street hustling paid off and she got the restaurant fully booked for that night.  With chef Brian in charge of the kitchen this cannot go wrong.

Charita slipped effortlessly into being the hostess with the mostest. Brian took his first decision as head chef, to make buffalo wings to order. But two hours into service, the food wasn’t going out quickly enough, Brian struggled and wasn’t helped by Charita’s constant interruptions. Gordon helped Brian regain his lost confidence by getting him to cook delicious dishes at home. This confidence booster worked and towards the end of Gordon’s week in Brighton, Brian was finally behaving like a head chef.

Gordon overhauled the menu by offering a weekday £10 three course  fixed price menu of simple, sexy and irresistible soul food. He called it ‘Soul in a Bowl’.

The idea was to let customers sample small portions of different foods during the week and then hopefully customers would return on a weekend for more. But at £10 a head Charita had to fill the restaurant twice over each night to make it pay, this was a big challenge as before they could not even turn one table and now they had to turn the entire restaurant at least once. It was a gamble that paid off the customers loved the food, the front of house team pulled together and the atmosphere in the kitchen was professional.

Revisit:

Two years on Gordon returns to find Momma Cherri is now one of Brighton’s biggest success stories and his best ever Kitchen Nightmare makeover. Six months ago Charita moved out of the shack to bigger premises round the corner. Momma Cherri’s Big House has over five floors and is triple the Shack’s size. People are booking 3 months in advance. They have an average of 900 to 1,200 covers a week this is the number that the original owners of the very successful Walnut Tree where doing in its heyday. Gordon’s amazed at how far Momma’s has come but he says the first year of expansion is dangerous for any business so he hopes Charita has got a tight hold on the reins. Brian is still head chef, Charita has taken on nine new chefs. Ramsay hopes they’re sticking to the fresh food regime, but the signs aren’t good. He finds trays of pre-cooked chicken wings around the kitchen. He’s distraught and wants to know where the passion’s gone.
Gordon likens it to a fast food restaurant he cannot believe they ditched the successful ‘Soul in a Bowl’. Charita is upset, she thought they were moving up, but Gordon tells her the business may have expanded, but standards have definitely slipped.

Ramsay says they need to ditch the pre-prepared food and get ‘Soul in a Bowl’ back on the menu. He gets the chef team to throw away the pre-prepared food and gives them the task of cooking ‘Soul in a Bowl’ in under 25 minutes. Next day Gordon returns and they’ve followed his advice Lunch is delicious he feels like he’s back in the Shack. He tells Charita and Brian they were the original team and only they can make the place successful.

Favourite lines:
“You might come in skinny, but you ain’t goin’ out that way!”
“Soul in a Bowl”

Check out the restaurants website and menu:

Home page http://www.mommacherri.co.uk/

 

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Tags: Momma Cherri's Sould Food Shack, ramsays kitchen nightmares

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