Restaurant Impossible - Knife & Fork Gastropub Update

Photo - Food Network

Tonight on Restaurant Impossible, Robert Irvine and his crew are in San Antonio, Texas to makeover Knife & Fork Gastropub.  Brothers Gabe and Javier have owned the restaurant for two years with the financial help of their mother and stepfather.  Although the restaurant seems successful, the mother and stepfather called on Robert Irvine for help.  Robert needs to figure out where the money is going, get the restaurant clean, and inspire the brothers to turn the restaurant around.

As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about Knife & Fork Gastropub 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:

• "The chef brought out an array of items for us to try and enjoy (aside from what i had ordered for appetizers) and everyone LOVED everything, especially the homemade pickled items.  Dinner was amazing, no complaints here! We ended up staying all night.  I, and EVERYONE else will be back, OFTEN.  Thanks for an amazing evening KNF!"
• "The HOLY GRAIL of Chicken and Waffles in my eyes. The food here is simply amazing! From the Brisket Fried Rice to the Chicken and Waffles, you definately can not go wrong..Overall, this is one of those places I try my best to never turn down an invitation to go and visit."
• "Went to eat here with friends who live in the area - we drove around for a few extra minutes trying to locate the restaurant....The outdoor patio is lovely and spacious. The service was good and friendly, and the food was very good as well. A few of us had split the pizzas and the cheese plate - we were full afterward. Overall, a great place to go for a fun night out"

Negative Reviews:

• Only 1 negative review since the makeover, which didn't seem legit as it complained about Texas heat in December.

*Reviews from Yelp, Tripadvisor


Other News and Links:

• Here is the Knife & Fork Gastropub Facebook page, which is kept up-to-date and looks more like a bar's page than a restaurant page.
• Here is the Knife & Fork Gastropub website which also has their food and drink menus. 
• The restaurant opened in 2012 and was an expansion of their Bistro Six food truck.


• Onto the juicy stuff.... Tonight, the Knife & Fork will be having a Restaurant Impossible Viewing/(booing) party.  The description of the party states:

"Early October 2014, The Food Network's show "Restaurant Impossibe" came to San Antonio, Tx. to attempt to recreate, reorganize and rebuild Knife & Fork Gastropub located at 20626 Stone Oak Parkway. The shows producers spent many weeks and a lot of hours interviewing our owners/partners and staff to see where there might be a disconnect, that is causing us finacial hardship. Well folks they didn't find it. They made up a lot of good camera time though. Lots of tears and lots and lots of coaxing, cohersing, take after take to get the shots "they" wanted. Restaurant Impossible did not bring in any more customers, any less customers nor did they manage to fix anything. It actually cost us thousands of dollars to get our place put back together. So we'd like to invite everyone to come and watch with us, the national airing of the episode they (The Restaurant Impossibe show) have named "Oh Brother!"....We are calling this watch event "A Boo-ing Party!" Come join us as we all watch for The First Time and "boo" some (or most) of the edited scenes. We hope to see you all here and thank you all for your continued support."

• An event before the makeover sounded like they were excited about the makeover and were looking forward to the changes.
• On October 26th, Gabriel posted a picture of Robert Irvine taking a shot and captioned it, "This fu$&ing guy!"  He also said in the comments, "It was a lot of bs! I'm an actor now... He was actually real cool.. They stayed and got fu&$ed up w us"
• Restaurant Impossible painted an air duct in the restaurant black, and the restaurant has repainted it to look like a rocket (Link).
• An article in the Express News stated, "But the show ended up costing the Orozco brothers about $8,000 in free food for the filming crew, ingredients for the restaurant relaunch, rewiring televisions and stereos that had been disconnected during the remodeling and other expenses. Some employees quit during the taping, and it was difficult watching their mother, Norma Montalvo, who co-owns the restaurant with her husband, Rudy, go through the taping"
• The above article also states that Robert Irvine persuaded the brothers to divide their responsibilities with Gabriel now the chef and Javier the general manager.  Also, they said they were losing money, but it was due to employee theft and a dispute with their current landlord.
• Finally, Gabriel is quoted in that article as saying, "We knew (Irvine) was going to come in here and rag on us, but the amount of publicity should compensate for what we went through"

Conclusion:

The reviews of Knife & Fork Gastropub are mostly positive since the makeover, although there are not too many of them. 

It seems like the restaurant is saying that tonight's show will be all manufactured drama and that they were coached with what to say/do to make an interesting episode.  They also claim the makeover cost them money and that they agreed to the makeover for the publicity that it brings. 

UPDATE 11/2015 - The restaurant closed sometime in late 2015.


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