Jamawn Woods wins his dream of opening a chain of soul food restaurants called Soul Daddy. He was my favorite contestant on America’s Next Great Restaurant, and I liked the concept. Joey and Sudhir may find local backers thanks to the show, who knows!
All the teams took some last minute risks tonight, some bigger than others. Jamawn decided to offer a healthier baked chicken entrée instead of fried at Soul Daddy. Sudhir changed Spice Coast’s design and menu to closer fit Chipotle’s (founder Steve Ells is an investor). Joey went for a nervous low trained crew at the Brooklyn Meatball Co.
Even though Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle, was strangely drawn to Spice Coast, all of the judges felt that he’d gone too far away from Indian food (his original concept). Curtis Stone said it was almost all Mexican now, with no curry of any kind on the menu.
Joey fell apart at the Brooklyn Meatball Co. They may as well have been heaving meatballs at each other in the kitchen. At least that would have entertained the captive paid audience while they waited forever for food. At one point there were over 17 tickets waiting to be made by what is supposed to be fast food dining. The judges were pleasant and complimented the food, but the outcome was obvious. Bobby Flay gave Joey a pep talk as Joey said he was “in the weeds” (never a good term in a restaurant).
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeJamawn gets to open three restaurants in the next month in New York, LA and Minneapolis. Hopefully we’ll see more of them soon! Congratulations!
While I enjoyed the idea and most episodes of America’s Next Great Restaurant, I don’t see it returning for a second season. It was a little boring with the same tasks over and over. What did you think of season one? Would you watch another season of America’s Next Great Restaurant?
P.S.
The worst part of this show was definitely Steve Ells constantly telling us that he is the founder of Chipotle. I paid homage to him in this final update!
Copyright @ 2008 TV Review
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I'd love to see the show have a second season, but maybe it would be better on USA Network instead of NBC?
ReplyDeleteSPICE COAST not SUN COAST...
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think Soul Daddy will crash and burn for these 8 reasons.
ReplyDelete1: What the hell is "sould food"!
2: Due to my lack of knowledge on the subject, I can not have any cravings for the food because all I know is that it comes from all over the country. At least with Spice Coast and Brooklyn Meatball Co. I could have direct cravings.
3: Jamawn seems too nice to make the tough decisions that a restaurenteur needs to make. A person might be doing the absolutely awful job at what they're doing, but as long as they're nice people, they will be safe.
4: Jamawn seems to become obsessed with some things that the investors tell him that he needs to fix. When they told him that fried chicken was too unhealthy, he took it off his menu entirely!
5: Jamawn seems too ambitious. Early in the competition the investors had to walk him off a ledge that would've probably gotten him eliminated.
6: I think Jamawn doesn't know that he will have to jeopradize his parent-hood by doing a lot of traveling. I think that when he realizes that he has to be gone for meetings for investors or big businesses for recipes or whatever they do, he will quit and leave the restaurants in a very awful prediciment.
7: Jamawn got lucky with his chef. I don't think that he realizes that he will hire some real retards one day and (we go back to reason #3) he will not have the guts to fire people that are costing hundereds of dollars because they aren't letting the line get through fast enough.
8: I think that Jamawn is going to make real mistakes on where he builds new restaurants to his chain. He might over shoot Philladelphia and go straight for some back-woods village in south georgia.
I would watch another season but I would have doubts on how many 'next great restaurants' this country can handle.
ReplyDeleteWe missed the last episode on the West Coast! Will they air it again???
ReplyDeleteyou can watch it on the network site or Hulu.com
ReplyDeleteTo the person who listed 8 reasons, do you personally know Jamawn? pretty big assumptions on someones personality IMO.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of person take the time and evaluate this person every move. Get a life.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the show immensely and would watch another season if they would incorporate new twists. Criticizing Jamawn at this point is ludicrous, besides he has the expertise of the backers and professionals to guide him. He's one lucky guy and he knows it!
ReplyDeleteI love this show! It was so much more interesting to me than most reality shows b/c I am a business major and I got to see all the aspects of the business coming together. My favorite episode was when they had to price their products and make a profit, and they had no idea how to do that. There is a lot to learn about running a business. I would watch another season but I agree with the previous commenter that it would be hard to actually launch a new restaurant every year.
ReplyDeleteJamawn is a solid risk. Great integrity, family values, faith and good old fashioned dedication and hard work. He is star. Love is dad, he is awesome.
ReplyDeleteYes, I would watch another season.
Launching a new restaurant of this type every year can not only be done, it MUST be done from an investment perspective. Point being that you have got to plane lots of seeds and see what come up.
Whewie @ 8 reason... I would love to list all the reasons why a bunch of people sitting home on their !!@#! watching tv judging and claiming failure on someone else. Me and some friends going to NY to visit the restaurant and I hope the meatball place gets a second chance, I would have loved to have checked that spot out.
ReplyDeleteJawmawn..Soul Daddy is a cry baby..oh poe me .. a black man ain't gots no money..please hep me rich white folk..its fo my kids..yeah right!!
ReplyDeleteThis franchise will fold in under one year.
This is ridiculous..Fatty Soul Food is the cause of African American Heart and Cholestral Health problems..I guess Obamacare will have to deal with that at the taxpayers expense.
ReplyDeleteThis country has gone to hell..every reality show has the token black that always ends up the winner or the biggest trouble maker..these people raisded in the ghetto need to stay in the ghetto.
ReplyDeleteOuch, the last 3 comments have been pretty harsh. Funny how the ability to post anonymously brings out the worst in a few people online.
ReplyDelete"America's Next Great Restaurant" was not a political show, nor was it racially biased (in my opinion) so there's no need to take the comments there. Thanks! Meucci (blog owner)
I enjoyed the show, and yes I would watch again.
ReplyDeleteNew restaurants launch everyday across the nation, so there is room in the market for more players. The fast food giants such as MacDonald are constantly trying to gain market share and saturate the market with more locations, so why not insert a little variety instead.
8 reasons and the racists need to go to the gym and work off their hostility before the develop high blood pressure from the hatred and negativity in their souls. Maybe some soul food would do them some good.
I really don't understand why Soul Daddy won. I was just looking at the menu and it is 5 boring main dishes. I think Sadir should have won.
ReplyDeletei loved this show but i see one big problem with it, and its the same problem i see with every reality show: the goal of airing a show is to make money. and the way to do that is to keep airing it for five or ten seasons, right? i dont see how they could do this show again. Even with a super successful show like American Idol, i feel like im watching the same thing every year, just with different names. this feeling would be magnified if they aired this show again because there was so much emotion in the last couple episodes, what with the contestants seeing their famlies and all...to do it again would just seem unsensitive to Jamawn and Joey and all the others.
ReplyDelete