Last Friday night, watching the Kitchen Nightmares segment filmed at Austin's El Greco in late summer was a painful experience: an hour of family members screaming, crying, and swearing at each other in English and Greek felt more like an intervention than a restaurant make-over.

Chef Gordon Ramsay made a valiant effort to mediate the battles and mend the serious rift between Mother and son restaurant owners Athina and Jake, but the overnight solution didn't feel destined to last. Ramsay was finally able to convince Jake that freshly prepared food would be more appealing to his clientele than day-old food reheated in the microwave. In fact, the highlight of the hour was seeing Ramsay heave the over-used microwave out a second story window, yelling "chef mike has left the building!" Ramsay and his team did their usual over-night make-over on the restaurant interior and then he presented the owners and staff with a new menu of freshly prepared, classic Greek dishes. The re-launch, which happened the first week in September, was portrayed as successful, with satisfied customer leaving and Ramsay and the staff breaking plates on the floor afterwards to symbolize "breaking old habits," according to Athina. Unfortunately, the voice-over in the last scene explained that even with the improvements, the owners of El Greco were unable to overcome an insurmountable debt burden, and the restaurant closed later in the fall.