In late May 2025, Gordon Ramsay's "Secret Service" aired an episode featuring Caffe Boa in Ahwatukee, Arizona, exposing poor kitchen practices. Outraged viewers immediately went to Google to leave one-star reviews. There was just one problem: they reviewed the wrong restaurant.
Two restaurants, one name
Caffe Boa Tempe, on Mill Avenue, and Caffe Boa Ahwatukee are ten miles apart. Both were opened by the same owners in the 1990s, but they split operations in 1996 and have been completely unaffiliated for nearly 30 years. Jessalyn Italiano and Zachary Powell own the Tempe location; Patrick Larson purchased the Ahwatukee one four years earlier.
None of that mattered to the reviewers.
The damage
Caffe Boa Tempe received approximately 25 one-star reviews with comments clearly about the other restaurant. One review read: "Owner says he can't wait for AI to take over the servers" — describing the Ahwatukee owner, not the Tempe team.
"There were some really specific details that just didn't make sense for us, and it was concerning."
— Jessalyn Italiano, Arizona's Family
"No one actually deserves the one-star reviews because those are based off of a television show."
— Patrick Larson, owner of the featured Ahwatukee location
What this case reveals
Reviews don't even require the reviewer to attack the right business. A TV audience can destroy an innocent restaurant's rating because it shares a name with a different establishment. No verification, no accountability, no recourse — just collateral damage from strangers who never visited.