The Real Housewives Of New Jersey Recap: Growing Up Jersey

Melissa Gorga Blames “Shady” Management For Restaurant Closing! Was Joe Gorga Screwed By Business Partners?

Joe and Melissa Gorga‘s storyline for this season of Real Housewives Of New Jersey was the opening of their restaurant. Unfortunately before the season even ended, the restaurant closed! Well, kinda.

As with everything on RHONJ there are 13 sides to the story, and the truth is obscured at the bottom of a fake Chanel bag underneath leopard print, glitter, and salami. So of course that’s also the situation surrounding the sudden closure of Gorga’s Homemade Pasta & Pizza.

According to a source although the Gorgas (and one Giudice) are no longer part of ‘Gorga’s’ the restaurant remains open, in the same location, but is being run by Joe’s now ex-partners, who are still using the name Gorga’s. 

Joe was reportedly scammed by these shady business partners, and was forced to pull poison out. He’s now working to re-commandeer is family name and reputation for a new Gorga’s. “Joe is furious. He feels duped,” says the source. “They never made good on their end of the deal so Joe was done … This isn’t a good look and people don’t understand why they didn’t give Joe the money he promised him.”

Per the insider, “Aside from anger, Joe isn’t worried — his name is not on the lease or legally tied to the restaurant. If they are in a pickle financially or otherwise, Joe isn’t tied to it. He just wants nothing to do with them or the restaurant after being burned.”

However a different insider reveals, “They are still using Joe’s name and likeness even though he’s no longer part of the restaurant.” That insider promises, “Things are going to get ugly.” In fact they already did! In true RHONJ fashion there was an incident when “someone came in to remove pictures and things relating to the Gorgas and there was an argument.”

In her version of events, Melissa is all positivity about the future of the family restaurant, although she does admit to a business deal gone wrong.

Melissa actually blames the closure on the business being TOO successful for the current location. This combined with shady managers (not partners), who possibly defrauded them, led to the temporary closure.

Without giving too many details because “it’s a major situation unfortunately,” Melissa revealed they were “overwhelmed with the amount of people,” because, “We had no idea it was going to be as busy as it is…” Well, you did put it on national TV…

Melissa goes on to confirm that their partners – partners beside sister-in-law Teresa Giudice – caused operational problems. “We were having issues with the management and the way they were running it,” Melissa claimed. “There were a couple shady things going on.”

And yes, Melissa assured People there is a future for the restaurant. “The food’s amazing, the concept’s amazing, we need to regroup and make it bigger and go down the street and do it solely on our own.”

Melissa and Joe always have some ridiculous excuses for why things flopped. Like Melissa’s drama with Envy last year when her former partner Jackie cleaned out the store in the middle of the night!

Report: Danielle Staub gets it on at Gorga’s and ruins her chances of her engagement getting onto Bravo!

TELL US – WHO’S SCREWING WHOM?

[Photo Credit: Bravo]

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