Cafe Tabouli owner claims Colin Fassnidge’s Kitchen Nightmare makeover turned her business into laughing stock

Kitchen Nightmares host Colin Fassnidge has defended his reality show after a Sydney cafe owner claimed the program made her business a laughing stock and she was losing $4000 a week.

Not happy: Virginia Cheong at her Homebush cafe. Picture: Richard Dobson

Celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge says Sydney cafe owner Virginia Cheong needs to take ownership for her restaurant woes.

It comes after The Daily Telegraph broke news of a stoush between Channel 7’s Kitchen Nightmares, hosted by Fassnidge, and the Homebush cafe owner who featured in a recent episode.

Cheong claims she has lost business since appearing on the show because customers think her restaurant is a joke after rebranding from Cafe de Vie to Cafe Toubouli in the episode.

Production’s decision to move her coffee machine from street view to the back of the restaurant also hasn’t helped sales, she claimed.

“She (claims she has) lost four grand a week from us moving a coffee machine … she wasn’t even making that much when we were there,” Fassnidge told Confidential.

Colin Fassnidge in Kitchen Nightmares

“We filmed the show in May, so it has taken her until November to realise that the coffee machine, she could move it back. She can do whatever she wants, it is her joint. She could have changed the name back and moved the coffee machine, it doesn’t take six months to work that out.”

“It is her business. They asked us in to help, you have got to take some ownership. That is the nature of the business.”

Cheong earlier this week claimed the show’s decision to turn her cafe’s assorted menu into a Lebanese restaurant has caused a downturn in business, especially because she is of Chinese heritage and doesn’t have experience in a Lebanese kitchen.

“Our Lebanese customers said the name was a joke. It was like we were making a mockery of their culture,” she said.

The show, based on the Gordon Ramsay series with Fassnidge at the helm, aims to help flailing restaurant owners turn their business around in a week with a menu revamp and new restaurant fit out.

Cheong claims that since her cafe was rebranded, she’s lost $4000 a week in business.

Not happy: Virginia Cheong at her Homebush cafe. Picture: Richard Dobson

Fassnidge responded: “She is a Chinese lady in an Italian cafe but the chef was from Iraq and her husband is Middle Eastern and they already served manoush, that was on the menu and was in the episode. So they went down the road of something they already sold that they couldn’t make work.”

Homebush cafe owner Cheong is the owner of Cafe de Vie, which during a recent episode of the reality show was transformed into Lebanese restaurant Cafe Tabouli by the production team.

But Cheong claims she’s lost business since appearing on the show because customers think her restaurant is “a joke.”

Cheong said the show’s decision to turn her cafe’s assorted menu into a Lebanese restaurant has caused a downturn in business, especially because Cheong is of Chinese heritage and doesn’t have experience in a Lebanese kitchen.

“Our Lebanese customers said the name was a joke. It was like we were making a mockery of their culture,” she said.

The show, based on the Gordon Ramsay series and hosted by Fassnidge, aims to help flailing restaurant owners turn their business around in a week with a menu revamp and new restaurant fit out.

Cheong claims the show’s decision to get rid of the coffee window on the footpath and move the coffee machine to the back of the shop and out of sight has seen a downturn in business. Picture: Richard Dobson

Cheong claims that since her cafe was rebranded two months ago, she’s lost $4000 a week in business.

Production’s decision to move her coffee machine from street view to the back of the restaurant also hasn’t helped sales.

“It instantly killed our coffee business. We were doing 30kg of coffee a week and now we are down to 15kg. And when people order coffee, they usually order a bacon and egg roll or muffin. That’s gone too,” she said.

Fassnidge defended the show’s appraoch to Nova FM radio hosts Fitzy and Wippa.

“It was a Chinese owned café serving terrible Middle Eastern bread and Italian food. It was also losing,” Fassnidge said.

“(Her) husband is a tiler and his wage was keeping the cafe going. So this thing of they’re losing all this money because we moved the coffee machine, mate -- move the coffee machine back.

“The way that the restaurant world is at the minute like you can come in, you can do a paint job you can do a new menu.

“But not everyone’s gonna survive, that’s the brutality of the industry we’re in.

“I feel sad that Virginia has to close, but she was closing anyway. You know, it’s not the outcome we want and I really liked Virginia and it’s a shame.”

Cheong took over the cafe originally after her cousin had a heart attack. With a background in business, not hospitality, she went on to show “hoping for direction from the experts.”

Colin Fassnidge with Virginia Cheong at the original Cafe de Vie. Picture: Nigel Wright

On the claims a spokesman for Channel 7 said the show has given, “six struggling business owners on the brink of collapse access to industry expertise, advice and solutions to help put them back on their feet. The hospitality industry has been doing it tough and our goal is to encourage all Aussies to get out and support local business.”

Cheong said Fassnidge himself was helpful, the overall experience hasn’t been.

To try and increase business, Cheong has enrolled in cooking classes via zoom from a chef in Lebanon and employed a Lebanese food consultant. But if that doesn’t work, she will be looking to sell.

“If I sell, I feel like I’ve let everyone down. I’ve got everyone telling me, I shouldn’t have gone on the show and how it destroyed us but in a way, I don’t want to give up. I want something good to came out of it,” she said.