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| Photo - Food Network |
Positive Reviews:
- "Customer service = excellent. Servers were very polite...Food= eggzellent. pho was so tasty, i mean how good can pho be? THIS definitely tops it. everything else we tried was amazing....Clearly, you get my point. good service and food all around. If i was in town, I'd definitely come back and even recommend it to anyone whos in the area. Hopefully this restaurant is possible after being impossible!"
- "Now with the new look. Customer service slightly improved...Food improved. So did the plating!...Overall: 3 for improvement and average bar. There are other good quality restuarants around the area. But if you want a sports bar in Eden Center, then go here."
- "Overall, great atmosphere if I want to grab drinks with friends. Not so spectacular when I want a satisfying sit down meal. In other words, I would revisit for other reason than to share a large meal with friends."
Negative Reviews:
- "Been coming here a few times now and have always had a great time. Until today. I don't know if our server was young and dumb or both, but she missed my husband's and MIL's orders...They also just changed their menu and are changing it again, for a more fusion type. Too bad, I really liked it, plus tv's are everywhere. It's really too bad."
- "You would think a restaurant who just finished shooting Restaurant: Impossible. You would receive great service and experience. I guess I was wrong. If you're looking for overpriced vietnamese food, and a bad wait staff. This is the place to go."
Other News and Links:
- Here is the Spicy Bar & Grill Facebook Page.
- According to their Facebook page, the restaurant has been offering all-you-can-eat snow crabs for $30 and all-you-can-eat crawfish for $35.
- The restaurant was only open for about a year before Restaurant Impossible came to do the makeover.
- Many reviews consider this restaurant as a Sports Bar and it is listed as a Sports Bar on Foursquare. They are also open until 2am every day of the week.
- The restaurant is in Eden Center, which is "Northern Virginia's premier Asian center containing approximately 120 stores." (Link)
- A description of the restaurant on the Eden Center website states, "Spicy is a Vietnamese sports bar with a wide variety of Vietnamese specialties, an awesome full bar, and a friendly and attentive staff. It sleek and modern design attracts the hippest crowds in need of a night out with delicious libation, a hearty meal, and a game on the TV."
- A group of tenants in the Eden Center are suing the landlord saying the mall is crumbling around them, there are roof leaking problems, potholes in the parking lot, and sewage backed up in kitchens (Link). The article doesn't state who all of the tenants are in the lawsuit, so I don't know if Spicy Bar & Grill is one, but a recent review said something about a leak from the ceiling.
Conclusion:
The reviews for Spicy Bar & Grill are mixed since the Restaurant Impossible visit with people saying the food has improved, but there are still some issues with service. Being in an Asian center with 120 stores, many of which are restaurants, it will be hard to attract customers if Spicy's food is not as good as their competitors. However, it seems as Spicy Bar & Grill is trying to appeal to people as a sports bar and offers late night food/drinks. So maybe this is another case of location better suited for Bar Rescue vs. Restaurant Impossible.
*Side note - After over 100+ episodes of Restaurant: Impossible, I am pretty sure this is the first Asian restaurant the show has visited.
UPDATE - The Food Network update stated that the owners have sold the restaurant and it is operating under new ownership.
*Visit Our Restaurant Impossible Update Page to see all Restaurant: Impossible updates, and which restaurants are open, closed, or have been sold. Also Like Us on Facebook and Follow Us on Twitter
I like that. Much more accurate. Season used to mean something in terms of the calendar. Nowadays, we can get two or three "seasons" of a program in less than a year.
ReplyDeleteI find Melissa D'Arabian's show to be a complete fraud, I mean half the stuff she uses you'd be going over the 10 dollar budget the show claims. Also, she has this attitude that everyone has all the things that she is using in their kitchens already. Not everyone has fresh garlic or fresh herbs or whatever else she's mentioned laying around their kitchen. Now, I've only had her on for background like so many other FN shows but her and Trisha Yearwood really piss me off with their falseness.
ReplyDeleteI've never cared for Melissa D'Arabian and as for Demaris, she's always struck me as fake. I didn't like her in NFNS and didn't care for her on the recent NFNS's Star Salvation.
ReplyDeleteJeff Mauro has been fairly successful, even with the limited POV of Sandwich King. I have to say I'm surprised.
Guy Fieri will likely go down in history as NFNS's most successful winner, as you pointed out Mo. FN should really just change their name to the Guy Fieri Network and be done with it. Bobby, Giada, Alton and all the others are really just satellities circling Guy's sun.
Irvine's wife is asian.
ReplyDeleteAnd for his sake I hope she doesn't see him taking those two to the pedicurist. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat's Carmen's last name? She's a hottie
ReplyDeleteOh. Blah. :(
ReplyDeleteThat's why he told those girls not to dress so sexy. She was probably there lol.
ReplyDeleteHey Lenny, you're just jealous that Robert can be professional.
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for these owners. They thought they were just going to put up the money and suddenly had to run this place. Some friend they had that bailed on them!
ReplyDeleteAccording to the FN R:I update, both of the owners have bailed.
ReplyDeletewait... so domestic abuse is funny when women do it??
ReplyDeleteSurprising that FN actually put that information in its follow-up. They usually don't like to admit such things.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that I am not the only one to notice this.
ReplyDeleteRobert has been "had" again.
ReplyDeleteActually, the FN update says one owner has sold his share in the restaurant, and the other is no longer hands-on but is still in the business.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind that one has sold and the other is a silent partner. They had no business being in the restaurant business. No management skills and you can't communicate with the chef? And a waitress who comes in 5 hours late, drunk and looking like she should be at a club going for a hook up?
ReplyDeleteAt least the kitchen was clean.
These restaurateurs that scam RI for a free makeover and then sell are going to be the ruin of Restaurant Impossible. Who wants to watch these con-artist put on an act for the show while they lie their pants off???
ReplyDeleteOr did the owner who "no longer works" there not have a financial stake in the restaurant and just walked away. I was once offered partial ownership of a small business that my investment (buy-in) was to setup and day-to-day manage the business.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, neither one are there anymore, and that's bailing in my book. Absentee ownership of a small business rarely works out, especially when you know nothing about the business to start with.
The update page has turned Falls Church into Falls Point.
ReplyDeleteDANG!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'll bet all you got. His wife was probably there.
ReplyDeleteWhat in the blue hell are you talking about?
ReplyDeletethis episode was more comical, than business. These two had no business being in business. Drunk waitress showing up late, inappropriate dressed waitress, partying with the waitress, stinky chicken wings, and the interview for the two cooks was ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteShe is smokin hot!
ReplyDeleteI think this show went south a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteOf all the Food Network Star winners, my favourite is definitely Jeff Mauro. I love him on The Kitchen, and I like seeing any shows where he's with his kids.
ReplyDeleteRI just cares about ratings.. as long as the show is great and entertaining that's what matters most.
ReplyDeleteSandra Lee ought really not have a show. Semi-Homemade should be called cooking while sloshed! I always figured if she wasn't living with Andrew Cuomo, she'd never have been put on FN.
ReplyDeleteSo was the Asian chick with the ginormous rack.
ReplyDeleteIt is high time that U.S. networks adopt the British habit of defining shows by their "series" year instead of season.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, I'm sure Lenny will have plenty of free time for call-ins to radio shock jocks. That should keep the easily entertained happy.
ReplyDeleteEwwwwwwwwwwww don't remind us. I try to pretend that I live in a world where Guy FIETTTTTIII doesn't exist :)
ReplyDeleteNorthern Virginia is hyper-competitive with Vietnamese restaurants. I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to fix this one for that reason alone. There are so many great-to-good options that the marketplace will take care of shedding those that can't compete.
ReplyDeleteNever mind the myriad of other reasons this place was a disaster.
I fully agree and I feel is either drunk or on some form of drugs. Also, the show should be called "all bought and barely homemade". Think about it for a moment, her "show" is all store bought not enough homemade. I mean I am fine with some shortcuts but not almost an entire dish.
ReplyDeleteI would have fired that waitress "on the spot" - she was hired to work at a certain time and then she did not show up until several hours later...
ReplyDeleteAccording to Lenny's brother who keeps a Facebook fan page for Lenny, Lenny had to cancel his appearance at the Food and Wine Festival "due to a prior commitment at Kessler Canyon Ranch". That reason sounds suspicious in the first place but Lenny's brother also admitted that he had already purchased a ticket to the festival. It sounds to me like Lenny was supposed to be there but got cut by FN and came up with a phony excuse for not going.
ReplyDeleteI went to college with Andy Cuomo and he's a real jerk. It's no wonder he ended up with her.
ReplyDeleteI always thought FN gave Melissa the ten dollar limit, which was totally unrealistic, and she didn't argue with it because she was just grateful to have a show. Also, most of her shows are a few years old now in repeats and grocery prices have been going up so fast that it's even more out of sync with reality now.
ReplyDeleteWhat, is Food Network going to pretend Lenny winning FNS never happened?
ReplyDeleteI think Sandwich King show is cancelled. He is part of that Saturday show The Kitchen. There has been no new seasons of The Sandwich King during the past three updates on this site. All shows of the The Sandwich King recently have been repeats. Only Guy Fieri and Damaris Phillps have the original cooking shows from their NFNS show victory.
ReplyDeleteDon't like fake Damaris and her granny arms scare me.....
ReplyDeleteThat Tanya's getting hotter every epi
ReplyDeleteThey should make her wear clothing with sleeves. I grumble at her when she's on a show like NFNS, always asking my poor hubby why she can't seem to purchase anything with sleeves. He just shakes his head.
ReplyDeleteSounds like it to me. Nice find.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I used to work with someone who left Cuomo's employ to change fields entirely. He never said much, but facial expressions when the name came up spoke volumes.
ReplyDeleteSome article I read put the mix at 70/30. It may be close....
ReplyDeleteSandwich King hasn't been cancelled. It takes long hiatus between seasons. Since last year, there's only one Sandwich King season per year. FN's episode guide for the show already has a Season 6, so most definitely it's coming back by New Year's, just like 2014. Also, Jeff is busy doing The Kitchen and prime time specials, like a new about candy coming next month. Plus, Sandwich King is one of FN's highest rated weekend shows.
ReplyDeleteSUNDAY MORNING FOOD NETWORK ORIGINAL SHOWS:
B. Flay's BBQ Addiction (12 episodes season 4--6/15-9/7/14): 784,000 viewers
Sandwich King (season 5--1/5-3/30/14): 757,000 viewers
Giada at Home (season 6--1-7/14): 718,000 viewers
Guy's Big Bite (season 16--4/6-7/13/14): 690,000 viewers
Barefoot Contessa (season 21--7/20-8/24/14): 680,000 viewers
Southern at Heart (season 2--3/16-6/8/14): 641,000 viewers
In class he acted like he was still in high school, sitting in the back row, making loud jokes, throwing paper airplanes, never shutting up. A very immature way to act at Fordham University! Of course the professor knew his dad was the governor so he didn't say anything!
ReplyDeleteMaybe they'll turn Lenny into another Justin Warner - Give him one special a year later and make him write blogs for "Food Network Star" but no real series on the network. His brother also said Lenny would "start filming his show soon" but who knows - He also thought Lenny was going to the Food and Wine Festival too and look how that turned out?
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear I was incorrect about The Sandwich King. I guess his seasons are really seasons and not series.
ReplyDeleteI hope he doesn't even get that much.
ReplyDeleteI posted up above, glad to hear that I was incorrect. Jeff Mauro is the second most successful NFNS since he has a show and branched out to other shows. Melissa and Aarti who preceeded Jeff no longer have shows and are relagated to judging or competing . All the winners prior to Melissa D'Arabian (except for Guy) are long gone from FN as stars.
ReplyDeleteSince the 3rd 'partner' wasn't on-scene I'm guessing he saw the light about these 2 and decided to walk away while he could. Neither one knew diddly about running a business let alone a restaurant - that was plain. Had it been mine those waitresses would have been looking for a new job. I'd rather have a dedicated staff that knows the menu than wants to show off to potential hookups. Quality and service over all. THAT'S what keeps your eatery going and builds repeat business through word-of-mouth advertising. Having been to 3 of the restaurants RI has re-done both before and after....RI staff need to look at the restroom sanitation as well!!!!!(2 of them I'd rather have used the bushes behind the build-they would have been cleaner!)
ReplyDeleteNot her name, but ok she is cute.
ReplyDeleteThis is one place I would have actually ate at after the makeover. At least it was not filthy before, filthy owners will just go back to being filthy.... And they have strippers as waitresses!
ReplyDeleteTaniya! Damn, thanks for catching that
ReplyDeleteThe reviews are not legible, they are just dashes (in both FF and IE). Here's a cut'n'paste from the first "review":
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I went to the Spicy FB page, they don't appear to have their own web page. They are hiring specifically female wait staff and bartenders. I guess that not only is gender discrimination allowed in the resteraunt business (I'm looking at you, Hooters) but that the Spicy management is actually trying to capitalize on the fact that their wait staff dress like bar girls for hire. After seeing the FN show I thought I'd give some business to a struggling local restaraunt, but after reading their reviews (on other sites, they are illegible here) I'll be giving them a pass.
I'm so w/ you regarding Trisha Yearwood who gets on my last nerve, and I don't think she can cook.
ReplyDeleteI really like the two owner guys. I respect them for going for their dream, even if things didn't work out. The two chefs were great too. They really compliment each other and Mommy.
ReplyDeleteI hope the dudes made their money back when they sold.
I had never heard of Damaris until I stumbled on her salad-and-biscuits episode the other day, and I couldn't watch anything else; she's just stunning - if she was on at 3:00 AM, I'd set the alarm to get up and watch the show.
ReplyDelete