Rocco Dispirito: Elbowing His Way Into a Hall of Shame Moment

Celebrity chef Rocco Dispirito has done a number of things on The Restaurant that haven’t made him look very good. In just three episodes, we’ve seen him throw a diva tantrum in the kitchen, call one of his waiters a f***-up in front of customers, ignore customer complaints about cold food in favor of doing publicity, and inexplicably combine paper serving dishes with sterling silver flatware. All of those incidents might make you decide you wouldn’t want him as a boss, or that you’d prefer not to eat at Rocco’s, but they are not worthy of mention in the Hall of Shame. Instead, Rocco earns his Hall of Shame Moment with the poor way he handled the broken elbow of waiter turned runner Gideon.

On the second episode of The Restaurant, Rocco demoted Gideon from his job as a waiter to a runner. Gideon was not happy to find himself cleaning toilets instead of serving food and earning tips, but he accepted the change without complaining. That night, Gideon slipped on the floor in the basement and crashed into a tray of dishes, hurting his elbow.

The management of Rocco’s reacted to Gideon’s injury with a stunning lack of concern. General manager Laurent told him, “That’s life, go home.” At no point did we see anyone ask Gideon if he was okay or fill out the necessary paperwork to report the injury to OSHA. Instead, Gideon clutched his hurt elbow for hours, waiting for Rocco to stop working the room and start paying attention to him. Once Rocco learned of Gideon’s injury, he put Gideon in a cab and sent him to the hospital. Gideon told Rocco that he was worried because he doesn’t have medical insurance.

Gideon must have been incredibly anxious about how he’d pay for a trip to the emergency room. Health care is, as we all know, incredibly expensive. Trying to pay medical bills on what I imagine is not a princely salary from Rocco’s could have sunk Gideon financially. At no point, from what we saw, did Rocco reassure Gideon that his bills would be taken care of. Instead, Gideon headed off alone in the middle of the night to the hospital.

At the hospital, Gideon told the doctor that his pain was intense. On a scale of one to ten, he said that it was a six, but a ten if he tried to straighten his elbow. The doctor told him that his elbow was fractured.

Sporting a new sling, Gideon headed to Rocco’s the next morning to check in. His co-workers, who clearly cared about him and were worried about their friend, greeted him with warmth and sympathy. When Rocco came outside to greet him, he asked what happened to his elbow, but clearly wasn’t paying much attention to the answer. Instead of listening to Gideon, Rocco hugged and kissed the rest of his staff. The one thing Rocco did seem to notice was that Gideon’s arm was not in a cast.

That morning, Rocco had a meeting with Carla and Laurent to discuss staffing issues. Rocco reported that Gideon said he broke his elbow, but that Rocco didn’t believe him because his arm was not in a cast. As soon as that episode of The Restaurant aired, Editor David Bloomberg e-mailed me and said that a member of his family recently fractured an elbow, and that it is normal not to put a cast on such an injury. With such a recent break, the swelling is often too severe for a cast. Granted, Rocco isn’t a doctor, and he doesn’t happen to know anyone who has broken an elbow, so he didn’t know that it’s normal that Gideon didn’t have a cast on his arm. That’s fair. But Rocco had absolutely no reason to think Gideon was lying to him about his injury. If Rocco thought it was odd that Gideon didn’t have a cast on his arm, he could have handled the situation much better. He could have asked Gideon for his doctor’s phone number so that he could ask questions about what Gideon could or could not do physically. (Hell, he could have just paid attention when Gideon was trying to explain to him, outside the restaurant, that his elbow was swollen.) If Gideon were being dishonest, Rocco could have found out. If he was telling the truth, Rocco would have been better equipped to deal with Gideon’s injury. Instead, Rocco chose to question Gideon’s integrity with no cause. Rocco returned to the restaurant and sent Gideon home.

Later that day, Gideon got a phone call from Foye, one of the hostesses, asking him to come back in to work. Gideon told her he would be in as soon as he changed into his suit. If we viewers had any doubt about how difficult a broken elbow can make even the simplest tasks, that doubt was erased by the images of Gideon getting dressed using only one arm. It was a pitiful sight watching him try to tie his tie one-handed.

After Gideon made all that effort to go into work, no one seemed to know what he was supposed to do. He asked Mama. She didn’t know. He talked to one of the bartenders about the possibility of working behind the bar. Finally, Laurent sent him to the coat check room. Gideon vowed that he would do whatever he had to do to work. Gideon had only spent a short amount of time in the coat check room when the woman who is normally assigned there arrived. Gideon decided to go to the top to figure out where he should go. He went to find Rocco.