Restaurant reality show getting reboot with help from acclaimed Toronto restaurateur
After years of building some of Toronto's most-talked-about restaurants, lauded local restaurateur Jen Agg is turning her talents toward helping rescue others from ruin.
Those, like myself, who kept their eyes glued to Food Network at any time between 2011 and 2023 will undoubtedly recall the cinematic masterpiece that was Restaurant: Impossible.
Helmed by the, at times, ruthless Robert Irvine, the show centred around restaurants across the United States in dire need of a glow-up. With a tight budget and a handful of days to make magic, a panel of experts took each restaurant from drab to fab, rescuing it in the process.
Production of the show wrapped for good in 2023, but this year it's getting a much-deserved reboot, this time helmed by the straight-talking Jen Agg and celebrity chef Aaron Sanchez.
"Well. I NEVER thought I’d say yes. I really didn’t. But how could I say no to rebooting Restaurant Impossible??" Agg writes in the caption of an Instagram post announcing the reboot.
Agg describes the job of "sauntering" into a restaurant and picking apart "everything going wrong" as being "very extremely my wheelhouse," and she's got the credentials to back it up.
Over her storied tenure, Agg has shepherded a flock of celebrated restaurants onto the Toronto food scene, which include, but are not limited to, Le Swan, General Public and Grey Gardens. In that time, she's also earned a reputation for her apparent allergy to sugar-coated opinions: a quality that'll surely take her far in the reality television realm.
Now dubbed Restaurant Impossible: Last Call, because any self-respecting reboot deserves an equally new name, the show's trailer details restaurant owners in a "fight for survival," while Sanchez and Agg put three days, $20,000 and infinite expertise to good use, all in hopes of turning the trajectories of these restaurants around.
Restaurant Impossible: Last Call premieres on Food Network and CityTV+ on July 23.
Jesse Milns at Le Swan
