Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back: Lowery’s Seafood

Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back Season 3 visited Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant, and owner William Lowery told Hidden Remote what it was like.

What’s it like when Gordon Ramsay comes to save your restaurant? Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant in Tappahannock, Virginia was featured in the Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back Season 3 premiere Tuesday—and it was a wild ride.

Hidden Remote spoke to restaurant owner William Lowery to discuss his experience on the FOX show, what he learned from working with Gordon Ramsay, and what TV viewers should try when they come to check out his revamped business.

Learn more about Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back in our interview below, and learn more about Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant by visiting their website.

Hidden Remote: What brought you into the restaurant business originally?

William Lowery: My family’s restaurant’s been there since 1938, so I was pretty much born into it. I grew up in it, so that’s pretty much what I wanted to do.

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HR: So what was your reaction when you realized Gordon Ramsay was in Lowery’s and you were part of Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back?

WL: Oh s–t. (laughs) We first figured it out that night, which would have been Friday. They rolled into town and I hope they learn one thing about a small town—don’t take the post office parking lot and fence off half of it and park a big truck behind it at 2:30 in the morning, because the whole town is going to the post office Friday morning.

So the whole town was up in arms. People started sneaking around over there and got pictures and stuff, and that’s when we saw that it [had] 24 Hours written on the side of the truck. That’s the first time we knew it and we were just like, wow. They stuck to their lines [of] this is a whole new show no one’s ever heard of before, so they had us pretty well fooled.

HR: Not only is Gordon making drastic changes to Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant, but you’re having to process and adapt to these changes in less than a day. So what is the experience of the show like for you as an owner?

WL: I found it very interesting and exciting, seeing the whole production side of it, and then the renovation team and how my team worked with everybody. Things went well but a whirlwind is the best way to describe it for sure. So many different things going on, some of the things we don’t understand. [It’s a] very fast-paced 24 hours, on top of it just being 24 hours.

HR: What’s one thing you learned from Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back that you’d pass on to other people?

WL: Don’t be scared to make the changes. It’s a business and you’ve got to make the changes to take care of things. That’s what Gordon has helped us with, is as a family is to make changes that needed to be made. He got through to all of us. Before we were kind of on different pages, where now [we’re] on the same page. If you’ve been in business for a long you’ve got to remember you have to evolve with the times. We’ve been there since 1938 and you can’t do things the same way all the time; you’ve got to progress with the time changes.

HR: Are you excited for national TV viewers to see the episode and see this epic transformation that Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant went through?

WL: I’m ready for them to see the whole episode because I’m the one on the commercial getting things thrown at me. (laughs) Everybody’s seen that and I’m getting commentary on that left and right from friends. I’m ready for the whole thing to air and see that the kinds of changes that were made and how well everything looks.

I think this is going to do us really good, too, because we had the place up for sale before this and it’s off the market now, but for some reason it got through everybody’s head that we were already closed. I’m really excited because it’s an opportunity for people to find out we’re not closed; we’re still here run by the same people and ready for things to take off.

HR: When a TV fan checks out Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant, what should they order?

WL: We probably had 60 to 65 entrees before Gordon. Gordon cut us back to about four or five, and since then we got it back up to 15 to 20, depending on how the weekends are going. We’ve given everything a little more tender loving care, because we only have the 15 to 20 as opposed to the 65 we had on there before.

Certainly the flounder, the shrimp, the crab cakes are things we’re famous for. Seafood chowder that Gordon added. The chocolate peanut butter pie Gordon added. I don’t think you can go wrong with an appetizer of the chowder, the crab cakes and top it off with the peanut butter chocolate pie.

Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back airs Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on FOX. If you missed Tuesday’s premiere episode, catch up on-demand or on Hulu now.