Kitchen Nightmares/YMMV


 * Badass Decay: Oy.
 * Some of the head chefs have suffered this by the time Ramsay shows up, usually through the owner being unsupportive and/or forcing a bad menu on the chef. Ramsay usually manages to reverse this by changing the menu to one that the chef can get excited about again.
 * Subverted by the head chef of The Priory in the UK edition, who Ramsay thought was a capable chef who had simply lost any passion for the job due to having to make the exact same thing every day for the restaurant's carvery. When Ramsay redesigned the restaurant as a grill, it turned out that the head chef really was terrible at his job after all, resulting in him being demoted to sous chef and sacked entirely by the end of the episode.
 * Subverted again with the owner of Mama Rita's. Laura wasn't unsupportive, as she was a bit clueless about the differences between catering and running a restaurant.
 * Growing the Beard: While few people have argued that the US version is outright bad, most agree that Season 3 was a marked step up from the previous two, due to the postscript sequences that show whether Ramsay's efforts actually counted for anything in the end (perhaps surprisingly, they've shown several instances where they didn't), along with a more diverse selection of restaurants rather than the bistros and Italian restaurants that Seasons 1-2 tended to focus on.
 * Harsher in Hindsight: During Gordon's visit to Campania, he warned that the business was about to "float down the Hudson River". Cut to a few years later, when owner and head chef Joseph Cerniglia's body was recovered from the Hudson River after a suicidal jump off the George Washington Bridge.
 * Jerkass Woobie: David Blaine, the (initial) head chef of the Burger Kitchen. While he engaged in some major Jerkass behavior, such as repeatedly accusing one of the owners of being bipolar and then semi-seriously threatening to hit one of the others (resulting in him being fired midway through the two-parter), it was clear that he was a pretty talented chef who had been hamstrung by the owners' obsession with using frozen Wagyu burgers, and had been working for several months without pay. He was also the tenth chef that left Burger Kitchen.
 * The owner's husband in the Fiesta Sunrise episode comes off as aggressive and confrontational with the manager (to the point of almost starting a fistfight on camera), but it is revealed that now only is he paying his own bills, but he is putting money into the restaurant to keep it from failing and even paying the manager's bills because of the manager's incompetence.
 * Mis Blamed: After the tragic suicide of Joseph Cerniglia, many news sources attempted to imply that Gordon was either partly or wholly responsible for the suicide, because he had said some mean things to Joseph during the episode — ignoring the fact that three years had passed, and that even the NYPD hadn't learned enough about the circumstances of the suicide to say why it happened. Some even went as far as to dig up the 2007 suicide of Hells Kitchen contestant Rachel Brown and blame that on Ramsay as well.
 * The UK episode Bonaparte's had the owner threaten to sue Gordon after her restaurant failed, despite her inexperience at owning a restaurant and the incompetence of her head chef.
 * The manager of Black Berry's tried to blame Gordon for the dead mouse that was discovered, claiming that it had been planted by the camera crew to make the show more dramatic. This almost ended the episode, as Gordon came within a hair of shutting down the whole thing rather than be called a liar.
 * The owner/chef at La Parra de Burriana tried to blame Gordon's new menu for the chaos of the relaunch night, claiming that the grill chef couldn't handle the changeover. Gordon was quick to point out that the owner had switched menus when the confusion was at its worst, rather than when the chaos started, as they had agreed.
 * Nausea Fuel: The filthy kitchens.
 * Tear Jerker:
 * In Burger Kitchen, Daniel's epic breakdown when the stress of his dysfunctional family relationship finally overwhelms him.
 * In Zeke's, watching the footage of Zeke entertaining his customers while the narrator explains that Zeke died during Hurricane Katrina.
 * They Changed It Now It Sucks:
 * The American version includes the usual reality shlock (excessive use of flashbacks, cheesy and continuous background music, and replacing Gordon with the narrator from The Dog Whisperer). Most importantly, Gordon no longer has exclusivity on deploying Cluster F Bombs.
 * Several restaurant owners say this about Gordon's changes. As it turns out, they make the place better.
 * Unfortunate Implications: In the Fleming's episode, Ramsay's shock and dismay at being told that the chef of a Danish restaurant is not Danish. As a Scottish chef trained in French cuisine, he obviously knows that people can learn to cook food that's not from their own culture, so this comes across as if the chef being Cuban were particularly bad. It later turns out that the Cuban chef had just as many reservations about cooking.
 * What the Hell Hero: Gordon mercilessly needled the incompetent Dillions/Purnima manager Martin until he finally quit near the end of the episode, then later sued Ramsay for defamation (the suit was later dismissed). Even some of the staff came to Martin's defense, but were brusquely shut down by Gordon.