Restaurant Impossible - Seven Update

Photo - NWI Times

Tonight on Restaurant Impossible, Robert Irvine and crew are going to La Porte, Indiana to makeover Seven.  An engaged couple Chad and Tonya named the restaurant Seven in honor of their combined seven children.  Chad purchased the restaurant, which is where Tonya used to work as a server.  The restaurant is suffering from bad food, lack of management, and bad decor.  Also, Tonya's 19 year old son is the main cook at the restaurant despite a lack of training and passion.  As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Seven restaurant to get an idea of how the restaurant is doing since Robert Irvine visited, and here is what I found (note - all reviews are post Restaurant Impossible):



Positive Reviews:

• "HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!..Service was excellent! The ambiance was BEYOND anything La Porte places have. The prices where high for MY budget but the food was INSANE!!!!!!!!!"
• "Came in tonight for dinner and it was really good!! Had the potato bacon soup for the 1st time and that was awesome!! Most defiantly gonna have that again!"
• "Every time I go to SEVEN I have wonderful service and food. I am treated like I matter. Love this place and the people who represent it!!!! "

Negative Reviews:

• "I should have known better than to go to a restaurant who required the help of a TV show, but curiosity got the better of me...Mac and Cheese Burger - Ordered medium-rare, arrived almost no pink inside. One tiny little spot of pink. No seasoning, sauce, or anything.."7 spice" Salmon - $14 for 4 oz of salmon on a bed of mixed greens. It was very dry and tasteless... I wanted to like this place, because La Porte has a really limited range of dining options, but price came nowhere close to matching the food quality."
• "The interior remake was very nice. A definite improvement of the dining room...The bun was oversized for the small burger, which was overcooked or medium. Same for the other burgers. They all seemed smaller than the earlier versions of burger, before the makeover. The greens salad was good...A good selection of draught beer was available. Service was good"

Reviews from Tripadvisor, Yelp, Facebook


The Restaurant is Listed For Sale:

The restaurant is listed for sale with the asking price of $349,000 which includes the building, equipment, and business.  Here is the listing, which states: "Building and business for sale. Look no further for a turnkey business of your own. Seven, a recently remodeled, fully operational bar/restaurant is now available. The building, equipment, and business are included in this offering."

A local newspaper actually saw this listing and did a story, which has a lot of comments from locals angry about the restaurant being for sale after Restaurant Impossible came to town.  The last comment is from Tonya James which says even if they get their asking price, it will still be a loss.

After that story, Seven posted this message on their Facebook page:

"Just to squash any rumors...SEVEN is not closing!! We have listed the restaurant, but merely to explore our options. It's still business as usual with the same awesome food and fantastic service!!! We will continue to do our best to bring a great place to La Porte!! We are still extremely excited about SEVEN, our staff and it's future!! See you @ 7!!!"

And this message:

"To our customers...We will be opened business as usual and will continue to be!! Same schedule, same great food, same great service!!! We will continue to serve our customers and our town despite what negative you may here!! If you have any concerns or questions, feel free to contact us or come see us!! We are NOT going anywhere!! We will continue to strive to make SEVEN awesome and appreciate your support!! See you @ SEVEN!! XO"

That message also had follow up comments from Seven such as:

• "We have it listed, Bob! Just exploring our options. SEVEN selling is slim but we are not excluding any possibility! Nothing is changing! We're still in for the the fight!!!!"
• "There are many restaurants and businesses for sale in town. Just because it's listed doesn't mean it will sell! FYI Irvine and his executive chef told us on opening night we should list SEVEN or possibly lease it.  We appreciate all that donated their time and help, but we are still putting in a lot of money weekly to stay open! We are doing our best but yea would like to explore all of our options.  Things aren't always what they seem!" 

Other News:

• Another local article states Chad and Tonya said they "might take the business off the market depending on public response to the show."  It also states Seven tripled its sales the first week after the makeover, and sales were double for a few weeks after that.  Now it is running about 20 to 30 percent above what it was before the makeover.
• Here is an article where the owners say main reason they applied to be on the show was to eliminate the restaurant’s perception as a fine dining restaurant from when it first opened in March 2012.  They said, "La Porte is more blue collar and casual. We changed to a more laid back, inexpensive, cheeseburger and a beer place six months later, but a lot of people had a stigma of us as fine dining still."  The restaurant also hired a chef to take over the kitchen and have opened for lunch.  They hope to have Sunday brunch in the future.

Conclusion:

The reviews are definitely mixed for this restaurant, and there were far less reviews than normal for a restaurant that Restaurant Impossible has visited.  The service seems to be good, but the food is lacking such as overcooked burgers.  There were also complaints about the size of the food for the price.

This is yet another case of a restaurant being for sale before their Restaurant Impossible episode even airs.  I know a lot of people say that there should be some sort of clause in the contract that you can't sell for X amount of months after the makeover, but if what Seven is saying is true, Robert actually encouraged it.  Maybe if Robert thinks a restaurant can't turn around or there isn't enough passion, he suggests they sell it?

Either way, I don't think a restaurant openly being for sale can be good for business.  It made people that volunteered their time upset and feel like they were used.  I wouldn't want to go try a restaurant if I knew it could be sold in the near future.  When going to a restaurant, if I like it, I want to be able to go back to it. 

So, after the episode airs, we will have to wait to see if the restaurant sells, closes, is taken off the market, or if they decide to try to make it work.


UPDATE 9/2014 - Seven has closed - More information on the closing.



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