Kitchen Nightmares Showrunner Katy Dierks Shares Insights Into the Show’s Success and Gordon Ramsay’s Magic Touch

NFL teams and their fans aren’t the only people gearing up for Super Bowl LIX.

Businesses in New Orleans have a lot of work to do before the big game, with people from all around the world visiting their fair city.

Restaurants, particularly, will be overflowing, so it’s a perfect time for Gordon Ramsay to offer his unique opportunity to restaurant owners to prepare them for the Super Bowl and beyond.

Kitchen Nightmares: The Road to Super Bown LIX brings Ramsay and his team into the Big Easy, sharing their gifts to gear up some of the city’s eateries that are most in need of help.

TV Fanatic spoke with showrunner Katy Dierks, who brings her long history in unscripted TV on such shows as Ice Road Truckers and Bar Rescue to Kitchen Nightmares.

Hi Katie. Hi. How are you?

I’m good. I was just reading some of your articles, and I couldn’t agree more with the perfect family household article. I loved it.

Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate that. So you’ve been producing reality TV for quite a while now.

I have.

How did you get involved with it?

I always wanted to work in TV. I worked in radio before I worked in TV. It’s so funny. I feel like I’ve been doing it for over 20 years now. It’s crazy.

I think what I keep coming back to — I’ve kind of dipped in and out of different genres. And I think what I keep coming back to is the thing about reality television is there’s an, there’s, there’s an opportunity for telling honest, relatable stories. And that’s one of the things that I think Kitchen Nightmares does really well too.

It’s like, we really touch on that family household story that is relatable. That is, they can touch base with a lot of business owners and families in general.

And you’ve worked on Bar Rescue as well, right? How did it compare?

That’s it, right? It’s a location show. We’re in someone’s business.

We’re in their lives. We kind of dip in and out of their lives very quickly with very dramatic changes. So I think that’s the similarity to it.

And you know, we’re in someone’s life, very in and out of someone’s life very quickly with very dramatic changes. That’s the heavy-handed part of it. And then the nuance of it is that every family has their own story.

Everyone has a story to tell. So I think that those are the similarities, and that’s probably where where it ends.

Kitchen Nightmares really has an impact on people’s lives and their livelihoods. How does that change how you approach your job?

I think there’s always an underlying empathy when working with a lot of these owners and staff that work at this restaurant.

This is their livelihood, and the reality is that sometimes these people are in mounds of debt, and the window is closing. And if they don’t do something now, then that’s it. The recurring theme is this is their last shot.

Gordon [Ramsay] is there to kind of pull everything together and kind of kick everything back up and be like, “If you don’t do this now, it’s not going to happen. So refocus everything, get everything in line, and here’s some help to do it. Here’s a beautiful renovation to get you to the finish line.”

What surprised you the most about the nightmare kitchens that you encountered?

I’m always surprised at how dirty things can get.  I’ve seen this for a long time, but it comes back to the empathy of it. It’s like, it is kind of heartbreaking as a producer and as a crew to see what they don’t see when it’s right in front of them.

Sometimes it takes Gordon coming in and being like, “How do you not see this? Hey, look over here.”

Even when they try to clean before we get there like they always try to outsmart us to a certain extent, it always comes back to that sometimes they’re just so far in the hole that they just can’t see the forest through the trees.

(Here’s an exclusive look at Kitchen Nightmares Season 9 Episode 1 to give the queasy of the Big Easy edition a jump start!)

Does seeing that change the way you feel about going to restaurants?

Yes, it absolutely does. You can sometimes smell it when you walk in. You definitely have a different lens for quality, I think, cleanliness and quality.

You know, I couldn’t even watch Hotel Hell. For some reason, the idea of a restaurant isn’t as bad because it’s such a short period of your life. You know, you spend like an hour there, but the idea of going in and sleeping in squalor is too much Yet I love watching Kitchen Nightmares.

[laughs] The grossness is always fun. There’s a lot of grossness.

What’s it like working with Gordon as he tries to dole out this helpful advice, which is so often dismissed? They’re receiving great advice, but they’re defiant about it.

He’s been doing this for a very long time, and his intuition is just beyond. It’s interesting because as a host — and being a host is one thing, but he’s also a legendary chef on top of it — he’s an expert in these two fields that typically don’t intersect.

He has such an intuition for what they need to do as a business owner, what they should be seeing, what they can be doing, and what it takes to get there. You know, sometimes some of these restaurants only need two or three weeks of good business to get them to the end of the year.

And that’s one of the things that is interesting about the timing of this series is they are specifically in New Orleans.

They are kind of at this inflection point for their business, but if they don’t capitalize now, they can’t down the road. They won’t be able to make it longer. So that’s one of the things that I think is really interesting about his intuition.

And he sees the long game for them and tries to just give them that advice. Sometimes they take it, and sometimes they don’t. But once you’re in the room with that man, he has such a presence.

And, it really is an opportunity for some of these owners to take advantage of that. He’s right in front of you. Ask the questions now.

Right. And you know, I like that this is the lead-up to the Superbowl because these restaurants do have an opportunity. They know this event is coming and their business can skyrocket in a very specific timeframe. I can’t imagine not accepting Gordon’s advice at that point.

Sometimes, it’s pride that gets in the way. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. But for the most part, from my experience on this show with Gordon, they are receptive, and they do take it to heart.

And it’s because this is more than just a TV show to them. We do cross the threshold. This is real. Like you said, this is their livelihood on the line.

So once you get past the pride with some of these owners, they really do recognize that like, okay, we’re here to help. Gordon’s here to help and at least give them an opportunity to take for themselves and run with it.

Gordon gets that hilarious bad rap where everyone makes fun of his outbursts, like the idiot sandwich sketch, but the reality is you can tell that he is so caring and compassionate and wants so much for these people to succeed across all of his shows.

Yeah, it’s genuine. From being on the ground and in the room, it is absolutely genuine. From doing these types of shows for so long, I have learned empathy. I’ve acquired this over time, but with him, it’s just so natural that he plays these scenarios so far ahead.

Like, what is it going to look like for them in five years? What is it going to look like for them in 10 years? Is there a legacy here?

Do they want a legacy? Do they want to pass it on? He just has this natural, and he genuinely cares, and he genuinely wants to help, and he can.

And that’s what’s so heartwarming to be in the room, like, “Oh, this is real.”

You know, one of my favorite parts of every episode is the initial taste test when he goes into a restaurant and tries to get a feel for the place. And then he eats the food. How much of that of what we see on screen is the reality of what he’s experiencing?

And do you all kind of get to participate in that at all?

We do, a little What you see is what you get. I joke about this. He has such an elevated palette. I joke that I have a trash palette.

I’m well aware of this. I definitely experiment with new foods, but his palette is so elevated that the quality that he’s looking for is so unique, and so specialized that it is like a textbook for what good food is. And he is so good at it.

And that is literally what they serve him. We are hands off. Once he’s in the building, we are hands-off as far as producing; they are on their own.

We set it up, and then we just let everything happen once he’s in the room. So, what you see is what you get. It’s always shocking because he’ll always picks up something that we don’t. We can point him in a direction, but then he really takes it and runs with it.

And he knows exactly what he’s looking for once he gets in that building.

It seems like everybody on the sidelines who’s filming it and just watching him do his thing would feel like they’re watching like a train wreck, just like holding your breath, waiting to see what his initial reaction is.

He is a champion. There are times when I’m like, “Oh no,” and he’s giving them the benefit of the doubt. He’s going in there and trying it. He’s looking at the menu. He’s seeing the room he sees, he already sees it.

And that’s what’s so unique about on-camera talent and as an executive chef and empire.

What’s the hardest thing about capturing the best moments of these revamps and then telling a cohesive story in such a short amount of time?

He really is the glue. Gordon is the glue and we are on this expedited schedule, and it is a crash course.

So I think that’s it. It’s going along, it’s holding on tight for a very crazy ride. Cause once he’s in that room, we don’t always know where it’s going to go next or what they’re going to say. We know the framework, but then it’s really just holding on.

So it’s kind of being comfortable in the unknown and just holding on tight.

The promotional materials use the phrase “the road to big queasy,” which I thought was hilarious, but in a few words, how would you describe this particular chapter of Kitchen Nightmares?

I think it’s grounded in heartfelt moments and honest scenarios. I love that he was so willing to take the time to listen and give honest feedback. And even on this expedited schedule, there’s still time with him on the ground with these owners that need him and need the insight.

It’s an honest, heartfelt, crazy rollercoaster.

And do you think you’ll stick around and do some more Kitchen Nightmares?

I hope so. I love the team.

It sounds, it sounds like a really fun job.

It’s really fun. We have the best of the best on this team.

You know, obviously, Gordon is an elite talent in and of himself in so many facets, but also the team that he has around him, the culinary producers, the story producers, the director, the camera operators, our AD, everyone, the whole team is really, in my opinion, is at the top of the list.

So, my last question for you is: What was your reaction to the results that he achieved with these restaurants?

Shock. I mean, there’s always, there’s always a shock, right? There’s always a shock when they do it, when they listen, and they take the advice and find their confidence.

Because some of this is confidence and being comfortable taking it and running with it.

That’s the stuff that makes me the most excited when I see it can be done. It’s not a magic wand, but it is a beginning, and it is like a playbook, and it is all the bullet points that you need if you just listen and just get out of your own way and trust the process.

There’s heart; like I’ve always felt warm and fuzzy inside when I see someone being like, “Hey, not only was Gordon in this restaurant but look what we’ve done with it since he left.”

That’s the stuff that really makes me excited for these owners. And they really do turn it around.

He inspires their passion again. And when he can see what the future can hold, it helps them see it, and they become passionate about their work again.

Yes. And there’s a proud, proud producer from the sidelines going like, “Hey guys, we knew you could do it.” There’s a goodness in all of these owners.

They’re good people who are sometimes in difficult situations. If we can help them get up the hill a little bit, so they can see the end of the light at the end of the tunnel and realize that it’s temporary, like, you can get through this, it is motivational.

That’s the part that I’m always excited about when I see them take it and run with it and be like, “Oh, we can do this.”

Kitchen Nightmares: The Road to Super Bowl LIX premieres TONIGHT at 8/7c only on FOX.

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