TV Restaurants

What Happened to Blackberry's After Kitchen Nightmares? (Plainfield, NJ)

Closed verified

As of September 2026, Blackberry's has closed — confirmed via the business's own closure notice, September 16, 2023.

Primary source
thedailymeal.com ·
Secondary source
Yelp ·

Last verified

What the source shows: The Daily Meal reports the business's own Facebook page announced the Plainfield location's closure in March 2013; a Yelp listing for the address is marked permanently closed, updated May 2026.

  • Season / episode Season 5, Episode 1
  • Original air date
  • Address 500 Watchung Ave, Plainfield, NJ 07060

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What happened after Kitchen Nightmares?

Blackberry's was a soul-food restaurant in Plainfield, New Jersey, run by owner and executive chef Shelly Withers, who had put her mother's retirement savings into the business. The Season 5 premiere, airing September 23, 2011, showed a colorful purple-and-yellow dining room that stayed nearly empty most nights. Staff told Gordon Ramsay that Withers ran the kitchen her own way and often blocked them from doing their jobs, leaving too many people crowded around too few tasks. Ramsay found the menu overloaded and short on the soul-food character its name promised, and during his walkthrough discovered a dead mouse at the restaurant's entrance, a moment Withers and her general-manager partner accused him of staging for the cameras. The accusation visibly angered Ramsay and briefly threatened to end the visit before an apology smoothed things over.

Ramsay reorganized the kitchen, introduced a clearer leadership structure among the staff, and helped simplify the menu around the soul-food dishes the restaurant was named for. By the episode's end, Withers had walked out of a confrontation with Ramsay rather than continue discussing the changes, and Ramsay told the family that Withers herself was the one thing about the restaurant he could not fix.

According to Tasting Table (2026-06-15), the relaunch's improvements did not hold: within a few months, diner reviews described food and service sliding back toward the restaurant's pre-show standards, including complaints about oversalted, greasy dishes and unhappy staff still audible from the dining room. Blackberry's remained open for roughly a year and a half after the broadcast. The business's own Facebook page announced in March 2013 that the Plainfield location would close, with plans at the time to relocate; per The Daily Meal (2023-09-16), that relocation never happened, though the business kept offering private catering under the Blackberry's name for several more years, including a Facebook post marking 25 years in catering in 2019 and an Easter catering menu advertised in 2024. Withers moved into food-service work with Aramark starting in 2013, a position her LinkedIn profile still listed as of 2026, according to The Daily Meal.

Featured on Kitchen Nightmares

Season / episode
Season 5, Episode 1
Original air date
Episode title
Blackberry's
What was featured
soul food restaurant; disorganized kitchen, thin menu, and a dead mouse at the door
Role
Featured restaurant
Name on the broadcast
Blackberry's

Frequently asked questions

Is Blackberry's still open in 2026?

As of September 2026, Blackberry's has closed — confirmed via the business's own closure notice, September 16, 2023.

What happened to Blackberry's after Kitchen Nightmares?

Blackberry's was a soul-food restaurant in Plainfield, New Jersey, run by owner and executive chef Shelly Withers, who had put her mother's retirement savings into the business. As of September 2026, Blackberry's has closed — confirmed via the business's own closure notice, September 16, 2023.

Is Blackberry's permanently closed?

As of September 2026, Blackberry's has closed — confirmed via the business's own closure notice, September 16, 2023. We publish a closure only with a dated source behind it, and we say plainly when it has not been independently confirmed.

Where is Blackberry's located?

500 Watchung Ave, Plainfield, NJ 07060. That is the address on the record as of September 7, 2026.

What season and episode of Kitchen Nightmares featured Blackberry's?

Season 5, Episode 1 of Kitchen Nightmares, first aired September 23, 2011. The episode is titled “Blackberry's”.

Did the makeover last at Blackberry's?

The episode first aired September 23, 2011. Our most recent check was September 7, 2026 — 15 years later —: As of September 2026, Blackberry's has closed — confirmed via the business's own closure notice, September 16, 2023.

What do reviews say since Kitchen Nightmares?

According to Tasting Table (2026-06-15), the relaunch's improvements did not hold: within a few months, diner reviews described food and service sliding back toward the restaurant's pre-show standards, including complaints about oversalted, greasy dishes and unhappy staff still audible from the dining room. We summarise what dated sources report; we do not publish our own rating.

Is Blackberry's still using the Kitchen Nightmares menu or branding?

Ramsay found the menu overloaded and short on the soul-food character its name promised, and during his walkthrough discovered a dead mouse at the restaurant's entrance, a moment Withers and her general-manager partner accused him of staging for the cameras. Anything newer than our last check on September 7, 2026 may not be reflected here.

Every status on this site carries a confidence label and a date, and names the source it rests on. Read the Editorial & Corrections Policy for what each label means and how quickly we act on corrections. The questions above are generated from this record's own published fields — we never publish a question we cannot answer from the data.

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Visit info

Address
500 Watchung Ave, Plainfield, NJ 07060
Venue type
restaurant
Official website
None found

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Sources

  • tastingtable.com — https://www.tastingtable.com/2191176/blackberrys-soul-food-after-kitchen-nightmares/
  • thedailymeal.com — https://www.thedailymeal.com/1394620/whatever-happened-blackberrys-soul-food-kitchen-nightmares/
  • Yelp — https://www.yelp.com/biz/blackberrys-catering-and-family-restaurant-plainfield

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