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Hotel Hell: What happened to Layla’s Riverside Lodge?

Hotel Hell: What happened to Layla’s Riverside Lodge?

Layla’s Riverside Lodge has now been renamed under its new ownership, after Sandy decided to sell his beloved business in 2022.

Usually when the celebrity chef and hospitality expert, Gordon Ramsay, ventures out to help a struggling lodging establishment for his show Hotel Hell, he has to worry about everything ranging from the business’s signage the rooms, the service, the entertainment, to the grounds and even the food.

But Layla’s Riverside Lodge (which was known as the Four Seasons Inn when he arrived) also added dog kennels to Ramsay’s seemingly endless to-fix list.

Fortunately, Ramsay has never been one to back down from a challenge.

So by the end of the episode, this celebrity chef not only managed to give the lodge an identity of its own with its new name, but he also got Sandy (the owner of the lodge) to see the value of having his staff back on the payroll.

He left this owner with $10,000 worth of consultancy from an expert in the luxury dog kennel business.

What happened at the renamed Layla’s Riverside Lodge after Gordon Ramsay’s departure

Layla’s Riverside Lodge’s transformation seemingly proved to be one of the rare instances in Hotel Hell history when this success continued well after the show was cancelled, as the lodge remained open for business until mid-2022.

However, this good fortune did not last forever. Sandy took to Facebook on June 4, 2022, to explain his difficult decision to sell Layla’s Riverside Lodge to new owners.

In this post, Sandy explains that while he had planned to run the lodge for the rest of his life, he had suffered a heart attack in February of 2022, and simply no longer had the capacity to live out this dream.

How Layla’s Riverside Lodge became one of Hotel Hell’s biggest success stories

Ramsay’s Layla’s Riverside Lodge transformation was originally featured in the second season of Hotel Hell, which first aired between July 21, 2014, and September 9, 2014. More than half of the business featured on Hotel Hell have now closed.

So the fact that Layla’s Riverside Lodge managed to remain operational and under the same management for more than eight years after the episode aired, cements it as one of the show’s most successful turnarounds.

The success rates of the other season two establishments can be summarized as follows:

Hotel Hell business Episode Status
Meson De Mesilla Episode 1 Sold in March 2017
Monticello Hotel Episode 2 Closed in January 2014
Applegate River Lodge Episode 3 Sold in 2022
Hotel Chester Episode 4 Still open
Calumet Inn Episode 5 Closed in May 2022
Curtis House Inn Episode 7 Sold in September 2018
Murphy’s Hotel Episode 8 Still open

How Layla’s Riverside Lodge was doing before it closed

It seems as though Sandy and the rest of the Layla’s Riverside Lodge team truly took all of Ramsay’s advice on board, as the lodge remained extremely popular until Sandy made the decision to let his beloved business go.

At the time of its closure, Layla’s Riverside Lodge had earned an excellent 4.5 out of 5-star rating on TripAdvisor and a similarly impressive 3.5 out of 5-star rating on Yelp. One post-Hotel Hell review even branded it “a great night’s stay.”

What happened to the lodge after it was sold?

Sandy initially had some trouble getting the former Layla’s Riverside Lodge sold, as his first buyers pulled out of their deal last-minute.

However, Sandy managed to close the deal with the business’s new owners, Natalie and Julian Dion, a short while later.

The newly-renamed Sugar Maple Inn is already open for business and has already earned dozens of 5-star reviews from happy guests.

The same cannot be said for Layla’s Riverside Lodge, which has not opened a new location or welcomed any new guests yet, as Sandy promised in his farewell message.

However, the lodge’s old website and social media pages are still active, so there is still hope that Sandy may open a second lodge sometime in the future.

What happened to Sandy and his dog Layla?

It seems like Sandy has now fully recovered from his heart attack, and this former lodge owner is now once again working very hard to maintain his new business, the SSS Ranch SC in Conway, South Carolina.

And judging by his personal Facebook page, Ramsay’s comments about his cooking has not deterred him from experimenting with new recipes (though, thankfully, the apple juice ravioli has not made a comeback).

Sadly though, Sandy shared in 2021 that his beloved dog, Layla (after whom Ramsay named his business) had passed away well before the lodge had been put up for sale.