Changing Ruby Tates’ name to Love’s Fish Restaurant did little to change the restaurant’s doomed fate.
Before Kitchen Nightmares emerged as one of the most popular business rescue series on television in the early 2000s, there was the show’s UK-based predecessor, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
And while this first iteration of the program may not be as widely publicized as the highly meme-able US version, it certainly has a few stand-out episodes.
One of the most memorable episodes from this first iteration is the “Ruby Tates” episode from Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares series five, which first aired in 2007.
Not only did this episode feature, perhaps the first instance of a restaurant owner kicking Gordon Ramsay out of their restaurant, but it also showed some of the least appetizing dishes and most hideous décor-items featured in the history of the entire franchise.
The changes at Ruby Tates
To put it plainly, Ramsay pretty much had to change everything at Allan Love’s Ruby Tates before the restaurant’s re-launch at the end of the episode.
This included the restaurant’s name, which Ramsay suggested should be changed to Love’s Fish Restaurant.
And while Ramsay’s suggested changes certainly worked in the beginning, the renamed Love’s Fish Restaurant ended up closing its doors permanently just a few years after the Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares intervention in January 2009
At the time of the restaurant’s closure, Love listed the credit crunch and a “lack of bookings” as the reasons for the restaurant’s closure.
Though some local reviewers insisted that many of the same issues that Ruby Tates had faced before Ramsay’s visit (including bad food and service), were still to blame for the restaurant’s decline.
Love’s Fish Restaurant’s declining revenue
Although Love was quite happy to tell Ramsay that business had improved considerably after his first visit, he later admitted in a podcast posted on the restaurant’s website that things had started slowing down shortly before Love’s Fish Restaurant ultimately closed its doors.
Love’s Fish Restaurant’s slow financial decline over the course of its last few years can be summarized as follows:
| Timing | Date | Description |
| Before the Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares intervention | Before July 2007 | Restaurant loses about £1,500 weekly |
| In the months leading up to Ramsay’s second visit | Between July 2007 and October 2007 | Restaurant turns over about £20,000 a week |
| After Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares episode aired | November 2008 | Restaurant’s business decreases by about 50% overall |
Allan Love’s farewell message for the Love’s Fish Restaurant patrons
Longtime patrons of Love’s Fish Restaurant only found out that the restaurant had gone under when they were met with a letter that Love had stuck on the establishment’s front door in January of 2009.
Love also later posted a short message on the restaurant’s website which thanked all of the loyal patrons who had supported Love’s Fish Restaurant (and its previous iteration, Ruby Tates) over the years.
This message read, “We would like to thank everyone who came to the restaurant over the past two years for their support and good wishes. We were very lucky to have had such a wonderful mixture of people to serve. It’s a very sad time for us all but we hopefully will try to be positive for the future.”
Allan Love no longer works in the restaurant industry
According to Love’s LinkedIn profile, he returned to his career in the entertainment industry shortly after Love’s Fish Restaurant closed down.
But instead of reviving his acting career, it seems like he has mostly been doing behind-the-camera work like writing, producing and directing.
Love also moved to the Philippines recently, and although it is unclear whether he has continued with this work from overseas, his personal life has certainly changed a lot since he was on the show.
Love now has a wife and two beautiful children who reside in the Philippines with him.
Love’s Fish Restaurant is not a unique case
Although it is true that every business, its owners, and its financial situation is totally unique, Love’s Fish Restaurant was not the first Brighton-based restaurant that Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares failed to save.
Momma Cherri’s Soul Food Shack, which was profiled in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares series two episode in 2005 also struggled to maintain its business after Ramsay and his team left.
The restaurant was placed under administration in 2007 and continued to operate under a license in Charita Jones’s daughter’s name, but the restaurant eventually had to close its doors in 2009.
However, it is worth noting that neither Love (from Love’s Fish Restaurant) nor Jones (from Momma Cherri’s Soul Food Shack) blamed Ramsay or Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares for the failure of their businesses.