David, along with many of Meson De Mesilla’s staff members had to leave the hotel when Cali welcomed a silent partner.
The “Meson De Mesilla” episode from Hotel Hell’s second season will always be one of the most chaotic episodes in the show’s history.
And while most fans probably just remember the moment in this episode where the usually-grumpy Chef Gordon Ramsay bursts into laughter during the owner Cali Szczawinski’s first rendition of Cher’s ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ (yes, there were multiple renditions), this episode actually included quite a few whacky moments.
One of these moments saw Ramsay venture outside of this hotel on his first morning, desperately in search of a hot breakfast.
Ramsay, who had decided to find a popular local farmer’s market, then happened upon David, one of Meson De Mesilla’s prep cooks. David has his very own food truck at the farmer’s market called “A Little Taste of Mexico”.
The end of David’s Hotel Hell story
Ramsay quickly realized that the food that this young chef was serving in his food truck was much better than Cali’s Meson De Mesilla menu.
And David, with his wonderfully optimistic outlook on this whole experience, was cemented as a true Hotel Hell fan-favorite.
Unfortunately, Meson De Mesilla’s restaurant changed hands pretty quickly after Ramsay’s visit and David, with the rest of its staff, were left without jobs when Cali’s silent partner took over in 2016.
And it seems like this change may just have made David reconsider some things, as this LinkedIn profile for Meson De Mesilla’s former prep cook reveals that he is now working in the tech industry as a brand representative for Dell Computers.
Meson De Mesilla’s slow decline after Hotel Hell
Ramsay’s visit to Meson De Mesilla took place just a few months before the episode aired, in June 2013.
However, just a few months after the episode aired, Cali had not only put the business up for sale, but she had also welcomed a new chef.
She even welcomed a silent partner who took over the restaurant-side of the business in 2016, before finally selling the property to new owners in 2017.
This rollercoaster-ride of a timeline can be outlined as follows:
| Date | Event |
| 2006 | Cali purchases Meson De Mesilla |
| June 2013 | The episode is filmed |
| July 21, 2014 | The Hotel Hell episode premieres |
| February 2016 | Cali announces that she has welcomed a silent partner who will manage the renamed NM Grille & Bar |
| 2017 | Thomas and Jerean Hutchinson purchase the property and rename it to Hacienda De Mesilla |
It seems like things at Meson De Mesilla have just never been smooth-sailing
While it is certainly not rare for the hotels profiled on Hotel Hell to struggle, or even close down, after they have been upgraded and remade on the series, few restaurants have had it quite such a rough time as Meson De Mesilla.
Cali revealed in a 2013 interview with El Paso Inc., which was conducted before Ramsay even arrived at the hotel, that the show’s chaos was nothing new at the Meson De Mesilla.
Apparently, Cali had shut the hotel down for 14 months shortly after purchasing it to give it her Tuscan-style makeover, but the hotel was then shut down again a short while thereafter to be leased, and then again after the people who leased the hotel backed out of the agreement.
What happened to Chef Angel?
It seems as though David is not the only ex-Meson De Mesilla restaurant employee who ended up pursuing a career in an entirely different industry years after their run on reality television.
Ceara Angel, who fans may recognize as the hotel’s former head chef, now seems to be working as a yoga instructor.
However, Chef Angel’s LinkedIn profile also discloses that she has balanced many different jobs since her time at Meson De Mesilla, including various types of chef-roles, a sales manager job and a fitness instructor job.
Cali is still doing her Cher-impersonations
It is really difficult to cover anything that happened in this episode without mentioning Cali’s singing or the three stages which she had set up at different places in the hotel.
However, if you enjoyed her musical styling more than Ramsay did, you will be happy to hear that Cali has continued pursuing her passion for singing and musical impersonations, even though she can no longer perform at the hotel.
Cali performs as Cher, and a bunch of other famous female singers, including Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Lady Gaga and more, under the stage name Cali McCord, with a song list that contains well over 100 different songs.thote
