Restaurant Impossible - CocoaModa Update

Photo - Facebook

Tonight on Restaurant: Impossible, Robert Irvine and his crew are in Calvert, Texas to makeover the CocoaModa.  The restaurant is French Bistro with an event space and chocolate boutique and owner Ken Wilkinson opened the restaurant seven years ago.  Despite Calvert being a small town, Ken refuses to advertise in the nearby big cities, and also doesn't cater to the local community, and this has supposedly put him in debt.

As I normally do with Restaurant: Impossible episodes, I searched around the Internet to read stories, comments and reviews about CocoaModa 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):

Reviews:

There were no new reviews for CocoaModa since Restaurant Impossible visited besides some Facebook ones which are all positive.



Other News and Links:

• The Restaurant Impossible makeover happened in January 2015
• Here is the CocoaModa Facebook Page and website
• CocoaModa only offers dinners on Friday and Saturday nights.  They seem to do one sitting Friday and Saturday at 7pm which are 5 course meals for $55 per person.
• CocoaModa also sells their truffles online and they are $3 per truffle. (Link)
• All of the reviews for CocoaModa before Restaurant Impossible are great - Yelp and Tripadvisor.  People complement the chocolates, the food, the hot chocolate/coffee and how nice owner the owner Ken is.  The reviews also say the Friday/Saturday dinners fill up so reservations are recommended.
• A 2011 article in the NY Times credits Ken Wilkinson with leading in the transformation of Calvert, TX and putting it back on the map.
• CocoaModa was featured on the Cooking Channel in 2011 on the show FoodCrafters with Aida Mollenkamp (Ask Aida Food Network).  Here is the video from that episode.
• Robert Irvine posted on Facebook today that the ratings of the current season of Restaurant Impossible will determine if they shoot the next season of the show (Link).  This is probably why you see a lot of promotion for the show.
• Robert has tweeted the following things about tonight's episode on Twitter:
• "Cocoamoda in Calvert TX , is my next stop tomorrow on #RestaurantImpossible. 10pm eastern on Food network .Major meltdown , 2 english guys"
• "Well when you think of Englishman , we normally think of peaceful people .. Not tomorrow fireworks in Calvert TX and they are not so pretty"
• "Words that describe this experience in Calvert .Quaint pompous egotistical , know all ,Crazy in denial Disturbing ..And thats just a few LOL"

Conclusion:

There haven't been any reviews of CocoaModa since the Restaurant Impossible makeover, but the reviews before were great and people like the food, chocolate, drinks, and owner.  They only serve food on Friday's and Saturday's, so I am not sure if this restaurant was chosen because it made for a unique story or because they actually are struggling.  The next few episodes are at a grocery store and a pharmacy, and a barbershop, so it appears the show is trying to pick unique places.

If the main problem was simply not advertising, the show should bring some exposure to CocoaModa which should help out.


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