The famous restaurant in Cranbury, N.J., Hannah and Masons has closed down. This restaurant which is known as a high-end French-Influenced New American place was rumoured to be having some financial problems lately.Hannah and Masons gained some popularity when it was featured on “Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares”, located in a beautiful old house on Main St. in Cranbury between New Brunswick and Princeton.
According to some sources, there was a couple who went there for a dinner and found out it was closed. The couple was shcoked to see the FOR SALE sign on the door of the French-inspired restaurant.
[…] Hannah and Masons – Hannah and Masons Closed Down, Hannah and …The famous restaurant in Cranbury, NJ, Hannah and Masons has closed down. This restaurant which is known as a high-end French-Influenced New American pl… Read more […]
It’s not surprising since neither of the owners gave a damn about the place – it was obvious since they were totally ungrateful.
It’s a shame that after all that was done for them, by wasting Chef Ramsey’s time and money, and dashing the high hopes for their staff.
It’s sad when the owners don’t give a shit about anyone else but themselves.
CHRIS is and idiot ..happy the place has closed..if I ever find this owner in another establishment im not eating point blank…he simply crapped on the local community ..
#1 The co-owner, Chris deserved to have this place closed down – you’re getting advice by one of the top chefs in the world, put your pride aside and learn. This especially so when it will financially benefit you. He should be digging ditches.
#2 If you write a two paragraph article, at least do a spell-check, “shcoked “? Come on!
Just saw the Kitchen Nightmares episode. What douches those people are. Sad to see that Chef Ramsay wasted his time. Hope those two get what’s coming to them.
Any place serving junk rotten food, not even ‘smell tested’; first by the cook, not only should be closed (maybe burned down). The cook should be thrown in prison. If I want raw sticken chicken I can go to the trash bin behind the local supermarket! I bet its fresher too!!
Infuriating to see such ungrateful and unenthusiastic owners.
I feel for the community and local farmers who came out in support only to see these two owners who couldn’t be inspired by a blow torch burning their tushes.
I thought the owners were douche bags who had NO right to run a restaurant. Yep, Ramsey wasted his time & viewers on that episode!
Ok the owners really are stupid and didnt deserve to run a restaurant… BUT…has Ramsay ever saved any restaurant of those featured on the show? I am just asking because i have been checking now the names of the restaurants of all the 3 last episodes including this one… and all 3 are closed!! One of them closed just 4 days after the episode aired first time on TV. Ofcourse the owner was a total IDIOT but still…. did any of the restaurants survive? Whats the success rate?
Ive never seen 2 people so unorganized passionless no communication !! The co owner Brian is a complete idiot!!what a disgrace and embarrassment to the culinary institute of America!!
I am just confused by this site. Someone posted a response from the future? The posting date I’m looking at doesn’t exist yet.
Wow, I am in the future too. Maybe I’m Marty McFly.
I was very impressed when Kitchen Nightmares aired. I couldn’t wait for Chief Ramsey to come to New Jersey and bring his expertise to a local Restaurant. Hannah & Mason’s in Cranbury is close to me. Today while watching Kitchen Nightmares, my mouth started to water and decided that I was going there this evening and was going to treat my future daughter-in-law for her Birthday. When I googled the restaurant I was very disappointed they were closed. Chris & Brian, please don’t give up, I know you can do it. Chief Ramsey, (as Jackie Gleason said) BABY YOUR THE GREATEST!
I just watched this episode on BBC America and just felt sorry Ramsey and all the work that he and his crew did. From the beginning of the show there was no emotion or concern from the owners for their restaurant. The owners did not care about serving their customers rotten food. When I read that the restaurant had closed it was no surprise. The owners were just unwilling to learn new ideas that could have made them tons of money.
As far as other restaurants closing after Ramsey visited them it is not due to Ramsey but the owners themselves. Ramsey tried to teach the unteachable. The restaurants had no chance if the owners did not want to learn and use the expertise and expierence that Ramsey would give them.
Many owners of failing restaurants have Ramsay (or lately Robert Irvine) come in and do a makeover and generate buzz about the restaurant for the sole purpose of getting a higher price when they sell – they had no intention of keeping the restaurant in the first place.
the restaurant business is very difficult. the better you do the more you advance and the more your supplies cost, better produce alcohol, your always chasing your tail. the only people who really get there are quite rich or use it as a loss for another endeavor. i have had two and both failed. i had good people, but goods got out of hand and people wanted top notch booze and it is expensive unless you sell enough to get a good price from suppliers. very very very hard work.
If they closed down after the show airs its not Chef Ramseys fault, he came there to help them, give them advice and better cooking skills. If they dont follow the advice that was given thats is by all means on them. Some of the restaurant owners are already in so mufh debt and theres nothing anybody can do but them to get themselves back in a better financial situation. Chef Ramsey has the BOMB resturant and really good staff. He is a hard man but for good reasons, if you havent notice he is famous and still in business and great at what he do!!!! Enjoy
Those owners (Chris and Brian) are a pair of losers that had no business owning a restaurant. Sure the change was a little radical from their shitty version of what they called a French bistro, but they had a buzz in the community from Gordon Ramsay’s arrival. They could have used that to their advantage. How many restaurants out there need.. wish.. want.. and hope but never get any professional help? They knew they couldn’t handle it and still wasted everyone’s time. Those dumbasses were so in over their heads and so completely clueless they never had a chance. Gordon knew it. Watch and listen carefully to his final comments to his viewers. I hope Chris and Brian are shunned like lepars and everyone in the community throws their rotten produce at them.
hannah & Masons Resturant, should have been Renamed to Dumb & Dumber. 2 Morons! i watched this show a few days ago. what a SHAME!
[…] Top Today News – Hannah & Masons Closed Filed Under: [US] Season 2 […]
Well , we’ve found two of the three stooges, looking for Larry now.
As everyone has said, it wasn’t a surprise this restaurant closed because the owners seemed so apathetic and unwilling to embrace change. And Chef Ramsey does come to work with restaurants that are already in serious trouble. It takes lots of commitment ad determination to turn the corner and make a profit. But quite a few if the restaurants Chef Ramsey has helped are still on business and are doing well two and three years after his visits. I’ve started checking up on them while watching the show. And those that haven’t made it are, quite frankly, places I wouldn’t want to eat, like Hannah & Mason’s. It was obvious the owners didn’t care about their guests or their staff. And that shows in the food.
Fact is that EVERY restaurant that Chef Ramsey overhauled closed down within months or was sold or redesigned only months after the show had aired. Not a single one of them lasted which makes me wonder why that is. In comparison, over 80% of the restaurants that are being overhauled by Chef Robert Irvine on The Food Network make it. Robert Irvine has a feel for the people he works with and he can motivate them into change while Chef Ramsey’s only approach is to put people down and insult them both verbally and mentally. Don’t get me wrong Ramsey is a good chef, but he is by far not a motivator or a people’s person. That is why all his makeovers fail in the end!
RE: Tony
I cannot dispute many of the restaurants Chef RAMSAY has rescued have closed; but your time is off on many of them: in fact many have survived over a 18 months, and at least 5 had been sold by the owners to other beers. If the business is voluntarily sold, it really isn’t a failure – it was their choice. We don’t know why they sold it. Take Finn McCool’s for example, the owner did so mostly due to health concerns after the business did a 180 and turned highly profitable.
With H&M, on the other hand, when they couldn’t decide whether to take or leave Chef RAMSAY’s advice, it clearly is not his doing. He can plant a send: it is up to the owners to sow the seed and make their business successful from there. Same goes with Robert Irvine and Bobby Degle . They plant a seed…it is up to the owners to use it. None of these shows can force the owners to actually do anything … the only thing is the show is not like if they do NOT do it.
It is like me saying if you save a penny a day for a x days you’ll have y dollars at the end. Is it my fault if you borrow from the till along the way?
I know this is an old episode but I just recently watched it on our local cable. I agree with everyone. The owners should take advantage of the publicity brought by the show and build on it if they truly want to survive long enough to pay off their debts.
most restaurants on that show actually close down. even though Gordon is there to help, the show is more concerned about ratings so they don’t really care about the success of the restaurants.
It’s a TV show. Ramsay is the equivalent of a shock jock. He is a skilled chef and is enthusiastic, but the show is on FOX for fuck’s sake! The businesses were all pretty much failures before he even turned up. The establishments are all picked for the drama and conflict that their episodes will generate. If the businesses took on board all the advice, and the economy wasn’t in a recession/depression, then many of the businesses would survive. No wonder most of the restaurants in season 2 are closed, the shows were filmed during 2008, just as the economy tanked.
To answer the question about Ramsay saving a restaurant classic American is still thriving years after the episode they have a website catering etc. But yes a lot of these people suck lazy assholes. You’d think being in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and people who rely on you to feed their family would be enough to at least feign interest.
I often wonder why these owners bitch at Chef Ramsey…I mean after all, they CALL HIM right? I started to follow up on restaurants and look at their web sites after I see the show air. I am disappointed to see so many closed, and at first I was a little unenthusiastic in watching future episodes. But I agree with bloggers before me…it is not Chef Ramseys fault, as I feel that the ultimate demise is in the restaurant owners that do not follow his advise-the ones that result back to old menus, old ways, and old décor. There is in fact restaurants that were saved by him. THE END
Chef Ramsey is obviously a brilliant chef and entrepreneur.He is also an opportunist who uses SHAMING people to try to generate change. What needs to be understood is that the REASON why SO MANY of his restaurants close is because his approach is SHAMING to the mostly male chefs he encounters.Whether or not it is evident- most people at a job have SOME pride in what they do.Most men define themselves by what they do and Ramsy EMASCULATES that by telling them they have no pride. Ramsey goes in and does’nt credit ANY efforts they have made and ASSUMES the reason they are failing is lack of passion. That is an ASSUMPTION.No customers CAN be because of a lack of passion as in this episode BUT most of the shows I have seen it is because the food and decor are bad. If the soup does’nt taste good that does NOT reflect a lack of passion it reflects a bad recipe. His personality is a type A choleric which does not INSPIRE people.He is like a father who does all his childs’ homework and expects the child to feel great after getting good grades. Robert Irvine on Restaurant Impoosible salvages some humanity in the people he works with. Thats why more of his restaurants SURVIVE.I AGREE THAT PEOPLE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL. However I challange any male to have another choleric male come accuse them of a lack of passion and honstly feel great about that in any way. Nothing is taught. Changes on Kitchen Nightmares are implemented to fit a 60 minute television time frame. Ramsey totally ignores the fact that communicating with ones mind and heart will make more lasting changes. He trys to do that but he also emasculates and shames and you can’t have both. When one is shamed ie. telling someone what they feel or why they are doing what they do- that stays longer than the paint on the walls or a revamped menu.Permanent change is not happening because of this. EVERYONE is different.Some people are quiet yet strong-some are loud and strong. If someone does’nt become loud and strong like Ramsey by the end of the show he shames them for that.That is ARROGANT and wrong. Shaming NEVER works. That is why the ratings are up but the restaurants are closed.
Rebecca,
“Choleric” or passionate? I just saw this show. and have watched a lot of them over the last six months. Shaming, yes, well, how would you stimulate stuck people who are about to lose their businesses?
“Nothing is taught!?” Wow! I can’t agree with that at all.
“Ramsey totally ignores the fact that communicating with ones mind and heart will make more lasting changes.” What! Are you on something? The whole drive of the show is communication and passion.
In this world there are too many people who think that pass/fail is better than A, B, C, D, E, F grading because telling people they don’t stack up (or how they stack up) is too tough on them. That’s not arrogant.
In the end, there are many people who are operating restaurants that shouldn’t. I see this show as a remarkable study of Darwinism in the food industry. Without much effort, lessons learned here can be applied over many businesses.
What most people do not realize is that being a chef especially a great chef is very hard work. Let alone going out and helping others. Most chefs are a breed unto themselves because their work is so very strenuous the curse, yell and shame others into doing a better job. They don’t have the time to be “polite”. Robert Irvine was let go from the food network for quite a while because there were questions about his previous employment. Seems to me I would rather have a chef Ramsey than one who is questionable. And most restaurants close within the first year.
That guy Brian needs a big peepee in his poopoo hole. Cuz he is gay!
The only reason Chef Ramsey did this episode was so that 300 lb. waitress could sit on his face and poop a wet stinky poopy mess in his mouth! Eww!!!
I can’t believe anyone can say that chef Ramsey is only in it for the ratings. I’ve been watching this show, as well as Hell’s Kitchen, and though Gordon comes off As a hard ass, he also shows he has a heart. He is passionate about good food and wants people to succeed. If people don’t take Gordon’s advice then they are to blame, not Gordon. He has a 44% success rate or should I at their are 44% of the people he helps that have a brain and takes his advice.
You know it’s infuriating to see that it’s people like this (Chris and Brian) are the folks who actually can afford to run a place. There are thousands of passionate, capable, and talented folks who scrape by everyday to realize their dream of opening a terrific eatery in a small town and will never get a chance.
These owners really pissed on Cranbury and the dreams of people who would actually take pride and care in owning a great restaurant. Glad they shut down…good riddance.
I just want to say to everyone who said Chef Ramsey wasted his time. The show aired in 2007-2008? It was filmed about 8 months before it aired, so they benefited from Ramsey’s visit for a couple years before finally closing. Some restaurants do not last as long as Hannah & Mason’s did. As reluctant as they were to change, they gave it a try. It is no ones desire to lose their dreams.
Those two ignorant f**** do not deserve to be anywhere close to a restaurant. I want to knock out that big-eared goon Brian. His fat ass couldn’t cook boiled water; I wouldn’t let his fat dumbass make me toast, he’d find a way to f*** that up too. Neither of those two degenerate f*** deserve to be anywhere near a kitchen, let alone own a restaurant. Good riddance to the two simpletons.