Is anyone else watching the show Restaurant Startup?

I watched season 1 of Restaurant Startup last year and have begun watching season 2. Anyone else? If you are not familiar with the show, it involves 2 judges/restaurateurs (Joe Bastianich and Tim Love) who give two food business owners the chance to convince them to invest in their respective restaurant concepts. For example, the owner of a food truck that serves Central American food would be faced against a catering company that specializes in Korean Food. Both want to take their businesses to the next level by opening a bricks and mortar restaurant but they need capital.

Each owner serves a sample of their food to Bastianich and Love while giving them a brief overview of their vision and business model for a bricks and mortar restaurant. Based upon the food and business prospects, Bastianich and Love choose one or the other owner to move forward.

Bastianich and Love give the contestant $7,500 to open a restaurant in a space they are given and execute one dinner service for the public and the judges. The owner does not have to spend any of the money on real-world things like rent, payroll, insurance, etc., but they use the money to buy the food, hire an interior designer, purchase furnishings, develop a logo, and however else they chose to spend the money.

The contestant creates a menu for the restaurant and conducts a full dinner service (with help of course) for the public as well as Bastianich and Love. Based upon customer reviews and their own impressions, Bastianich and Love may or may not make the potential owner and offer to invest in his/her business concept.

I am not nearly as excited about the show as some people on other internet boards, but I have found the show to be somewhat interesting. Nothing spectacular, but something different in the ocean of food related shows.

[Jenise]

Just watched it last night for the first time and didn't find it especially intriguing. And that's because it's not really a cooking show or much of a competition, it's a restaurant biz show and much as I love dining I just couldn't make myself care whether or not Yeah Dawg was going to be a huge success. And that's in part because I couldn't make myself buy into the idea that this one-night pop-up is actually a 'restaurant' or that things like front of house errors with a bunch of fake diners would actually influence a decision. All that kind of talk is superficial drama for the sake of making a 30 minute show which will get fixed by the set-up team Tim and/or Joe will bring in if they decide to invest.

Found it especially lackluster after an episode of Shark Tank--which I've caught a few times on CNBC and am becoming infatuated with.

Thanks for the response, Jenise, and I can understand your reaction and conclusion based upon even only watching that one episode. You mentioned it only being a 30 minute show so I hope that means you did not watch the other 30 minutes of what is a 60 minute show because it only went from bad to worse when the downtrodden gal whose life mission was to open a restaurant serving vegan hot dogs said at the very end, ya know after this I don't think I really wanna run a restaurant. She could not have figured that out long ago??? And ok, we get it. You LOVE your sister. Got it. Stop moaning about how much you love your sister and get back to making the Beet Balls which is your number one seller and you are now sold out of while customers are waiting to purchase them.

In regards to Shark Tank...I watch very little TV but I have watched every episode since it first aired 5 years ago on network TV. It is good to see that CNBC purchased the syndication rights so the shows can be rebroadcast. It is a fun show to watch. I will not ask you which Shark you think most closely reflects your personality. I know which one matches mine though.

[Jenise]

'30' was a typo, I watched the whole hour. Which dragged, because of the unreality of this supposed 'reality' show and my inability to care about the result. I agree with the rest of your description.

But oh I'm loving Shark Tank! I haven't stopped or been caused to consider personality-matches, just been kind of learning from the various Sharks' reactions. It's interesting to have watched enough of it now to get a sense of each one's methods. But I'm no Kevin O'Leary, I can tell you that! I really like Mark Cuban--when he's in a deal his deals are among the most interesting, but I'm not like him either. I'm probably somewhere between Barbara and Robert.