Birth of the Monster
The damage started in 1993 with the Food Network. The network was founded by a consortium of cable companies—Providence Journal, Adelphia, Scripps-Howard—with Reese Schonfeld, one of CNN's co-founders, as president. It launched November 23, 1993, reaching 6.8 million households.
Two people I knew were instrumental in making that network happen, though not in the way most people think. One was Shep Gordon, who basically invented the modern idea of chefs as celebrities. When Gordon learned about the Food Network's development, he made an offer that changed everything. He'd founded Alive Culinary Resources in 1993—the first talent agency for chefs, representing Emeril, Wolfgang Puck, Nobu, Daniel Boulud. His pitch to the cash-strapped startup: free talent for three years.
Gordon didn't found the network. But he was the guy who understood something the food world didn't: fame could be manufactured, packaged, and monetized. The chefs were a product. He'd perfected these techniques managing rock stars like Alice Cooper, Blondie, and Teddy Pendergrass, as well as Groucho Marx and Raquel Welch. Now he'd do it with cooks.
The other was Robin Leach. Robin told me he was one of the founders. When he died in 2018, his obituaries—Chicago Tribune, Voice of America, Hollywood Reporter—all called him a founder with equity he'd sold for serious money. But dig into the published accounts, including Allen Salkin's exhaustive book based on 200-plus interviews, and Leach appears only as early on-air talent.
Robin would come by my shop in Vegas, eat caviar, tell me war stories about visiting TV stations one by one across America, convincing them to carry the network. Guerrilla distribution—just Robin and his Rolodex. Maybe he had equity or maybe he was embellishing. I don't know. But he was there, doing something significant, and he believed he helped build it.
I joked to both of them they'd destroyed the food industry by unleashing the ego of the chef. They laughed. I wasn't entirely kidding.
Cameras and Ego
Chefs have always had massive egos. You need one to survive a professional kitchen—the heat, the pressure, the military hierarchy with knives. But television gave that ego a boundless platform.
Interestingly, the chefs who seem terrible on TV are often the most professional people you'll meet. Gordon Ramsay's a perfect example. Off camera, when you speak to him, he gives you his full respect and attention. Contestants and crew call him humble, generous, funny. He trained under Marco Pierre White, Guy Savoy, and Joël Robuchon. He's earned 17 Michelin stars across his career. His flagship in London has maintained three stars since 2001. Twenty-four consecutive years. It's the longest-running three-star in London.
So when I criticize this model, understand: Ramsay isn't the problem. He builds strong teams and maintains standards as well as economics allow.
Meanwhile, some chefs with affable, accessible TV personas are nightmares in person. The camera doesn't capture reality. It manufactures it.
Let's Talk About Money
During Caesars Entertainment's 2016 bankruptcy, details of Ramsay's Las Vegas contracts became public. $340,000 annual licensing fee per restaurant, plus 5 to 6 percent of gross profits. In exchange, he's required to visit each restaurant once per year for twenty-four hours.
That's $340,000—call it $450,000 in 2025 dollars—just for putting his name on the place. Before a single onion gets chopped. Then another slice of whatever profit they manage.
In Las Vegas fine dining—where I worked for twenty-three years—the math gets extreme. Opening a restaurant costs around $1,000 per square foot for build-out. A typical 5,000-square-foot concept runs close to $5 million total. Finance that at 8 percent and you're paying $400,000 annually in debt service, before you turn on the stoves.
Rent in premium locations takes around 15 percent of revenue. You can't hide a name-brand restaurant in a cheap neighborhood. You need the address to match the brand.
Labor generally runs 35-40% of revenue for fine dining.
Between licensing, debt service, rent and labor, you've spent 70-75% of revenue.
You still need utilities, insurance, marketing, maintenance, credit card fees, smallwares, linens, licenses and permits.
What's left for food? Some breakfast places I know run fifteen percent food cost. Twenty to twenty-five percent is the new normal. Thirty will get a chef fired.
The Death of Quality
When I started in 1998, high-end restaurants spent 35 percent on ingredients. Really serious places—chasing Michelin stars—went 45 to 50 percent. That bought line-caught fish, heritage pork, vegetables from farmers who cared about flavor.
Research at the University of Denver on Michelin-starred restaurants shows they still allocate 30 to 35 percent of their budget to food cost. But they operate at 1.6 to 3.8 percent net profit. Razor-thin or negative margins. Many flagship restaurants run at two percent margins because they make their reputation there, then make their money in Vegas and other tourist centers. The flagship earns them the licensing deals. Vegas pays the bills.
At 20 to 25 percent total food cost, you're serving commodity ingredients. Your $20 burger cost $4 to make. Divide any menu price by four or five to estimate actual food cost. The same De Cecco pasta found at Safeway, served for $40 a plate. General Mills all-purpose flour in gnocchi. Pre-made hollandaise from a bag on your eggs benedict. The same broadline distributor garbage supplying chain restaurants.
According to the National Restaurant Association, from 2020 to 2025, food and labor costs increased by 35 percent. Every time budgets get tighter, it's the food that gives.
The Customer Experience
When patrons visit an expensive restaurant they assume they're getting high-quality ingredients. They're not. They're paying for the address, the ambiance, the Instagram moment, the right to tell people they ate at a name-brand restaurant. The actual food—the thing that should be the whole point—is beside the point.
Research from the University of Denver's International Journal of Revenue Management found that for high-priced restaurants, consumers were more influenced by ambiance and service than by food quality. A 2019 study found guests considered ambiance the most important factor when comparing restaurants. When you're dropping $300 on dinner, the psychology of the expense creates its own satisfaction. The ambiance is nice. The service is attentive. The plating looks great. The name is on the menu. You took a photo. The ingredients become secondary to the presentation.
It's Not the Chefs' Fault (Mostly)
Most of these chefs got into cooking because they love food. They want to make great food. But they're trapped in a system that makes it impossible.
When you have to pay licensing fees, rent in premium locations, and pay off multi-million dollar build-outs, something breaks. Always the food.
I've watched chefs who used to work closely with passionate farmers and food producers, then start ordering the same ingredients as Applebee's. The conversation shifted from "How do we get the best product?" to "How do we hit target food cost?"
What We Lost
Restaurants still exist where chef-owners are actually in the kitchen, where ingredient quality hasn't been sacrificed to licensing fees and real estate, where the ambition is culinary rather than empire-building. They're just harder to find in all the noise.
The era taught us something: fame and food quality are inversely related. When we moved attention from food to personality, the money followed. The food got worse.
Until we value what matters—until we're willing to pay for quality ingredients instead of famous associations—mediocrity will continue to be served with a smile and a famous name attached.
In Part II, we'll explore how Instagram delivered the final blow.