The doors open for the restaurant's ""soft launch"". This is the night where friends and family test the food, but these guests are anything but sympathetic. As complaints escalate, a fire breaks out in the kitchen. Rocco extinguishes the flames, but the smoke drives away the food critic for the New York Times.

Preparing for the official opening - the ""hard launch"" - Rocco fires a hostess and demotes a waiter to a runner.

Paying customers arrive, and complaints about the food continue. Then one of the waiters falls and injures himself, but management doesn't care. The staff feels overworked, underpaid, under appreciated and abused. Mutiny is in the air, and Rocco doesn't have a clue as he dances with his Mama to an Italian folk song.