2 CT Restaurants Featured In Gordon Ramsay TV Show Close

WATERBURY, CT — A Waterbury restaurant made famous on an episode of chef Gordon Ramsay's "24 Hours to Hell and Back" closed over the weekend. Vasi's Taverna, a Mediterranean restaurant located at 1700 Watertown Ave., opened for the last time Dec. 29, according to The Waterbury Republican American. The property is now for sale.

The Middletown Press also reports that Stone's Throw, a restaurant in Seymour that was featured on the same show by Ramsay has also closed. That eatery is on the market for $900,000, according to the report.

The owners of Vasi's Taverna wrote on Facebook: "Since February 2002, Vasi’s Taverna (formerly known as Vasi’s Restaurant and Bar), has been honored to serve the greater Waterbury area. Despite the support of our loyal customers and our efforts to rebrand over the last year, we have made the difficult decision to close our doors. We thank all of our loyal customers and employees for the great run we had."

Owner Vasilios Kaloidis told the Republican-American that the 2019 holiday season was the best ever for the restaurant in terms of catering, but there was a decline in business at the bar and dining room due to increased competition.

He's confident he can find a buyer because of the success of the catering business. The property has housed a restaurant for more than 80 years.

Ramsay came to the restaurant in October 2018, transforming it into a taverna. The episode aired in January 2019.

While Ramsay is probably most well-known for his heated temper on the FOX reality cooking competition "Hell's Kitchen," he is also known for his work attempting to save struggling restaurants in front of the camera on his show "Kitchen Nightmares," which ran from 2007 to 2014.

Kaloidis said Ramsay's plan for the taverna did more harm than good in an interview with the Republican-American. He said the new menu was too limited and expensive and that Ramsay's ideas didn't adapt well to Waterbury.

Ramsay doesn't appear to have a great track record in Connecticut: On "Kitchen Nightmares," he visited restaurants in both Stamford (season 2) and Bridgeport (season 4). Both places are now closed.

For the Vasi's episode, the show's website says Ramsay arrived in a state-of-the-art 18-wheeler, which housed a mobile kitchen and command center. He also brought "his sharp tongue and biting attacks" to the set, which contrasted with owner Kaloidis' "nervous apprehension."

In the end, Kaloidis was forced to "swallow his Greek pride," which he described as "humbling and difficult," according to the show's website.

"To his credit, Vasi stayed open throughout the ordeal," the website reads. "In the end, Vasi's gained a new menu and a renovation. The restaurant learned a few new tricks, gained some new perspectives and became a much closer family."

The restaurant receives mostly positive reviews with a 4-star rating on Yelp. One reviewer wrote: "We had another fabulous meal here this week! We brought friends who were visiting from England and the owners and staff couldn't have made us all more welcome! It was probably the highlight of their visit to CT!"

And in the Stone's Throw episode, Ramsay's goal was to "revamp the family-owned fine dining restaurant located on the Housatonic River," according to a news release from the show.

One of the changes Ramsay made was redecorating the restaurant's entrance and formal dining rooms to reflect more of a lakeside-lodge atmosphere. The menus were paired down to include some of Ramsay's specialties, as well as some original Stone's Throw recipes.

The show's hidden cameras revealed how management had let standards slide, but they also revealed that several Stone's Throw employees are cancer survivors. Seymour Pink, a local organization that unites the community in the fight against breast cancer, was a major player in the relaunch of the restaurant.

Stone's Throw, located at 337 Roosevelt Drive in Seymour, was owned by Chef Peter Hamme, who has over 30 years of experience professionally satisfying palates, according to the website.

This wasn't Ramsay's first rescue mission in Connecticut. On "Kitchen Nightmares," he visited restaurants in both Stamford (season 2) and Bridgeport (season 4). Both places are now closed.