Restaurant Revisited: Spicing Things Up at Spicy Bar and Grill
Jon Longstaff
"Nothing here is run like a typical restaurant," Robert Irvine admitted after arriving at Spicy Bar and Grill in Falls Church, Va., and surveying the mishandled management and poorly run kitchen. Owners Mike Loh and Floyd Bui first entered the restaurant industry with plans to keep their former jobs in the car industry and with the government, respectively, but after their third partner deserted them, they were forced to take on Spicy as their sole venture. Two years later, they were facing nearly $5,000 losses every month, and it was up to Robert and his Restaurant: Impossible team to overhaul the interior of what he called this "very generic" interior and reform the Vietnamese menu.
Thanks to Robert's work over the course of two days, he was ultimately able to complete his mission, and Spicy Bar and Grill reopened its doors as a welcoming space with a cohesive Vietnamese list of offerings. It's because of the Restaurant: Impossible transformation that Spicy is set up for future success under new ownership. As of July, Mike no longer works at Spicy, and as for Floyd, he notes, "I decided to sell and move on to my next venture."