News — The Friary Guildford shoppers get ‘Served by Ramsay’
Shoppers delighted as a familiar face serves lunch at The Friary Guildford’s food court
On Saturday, 30 June, customers at The Friary Guildford were surprised to see a very familiar face wandering around their local shopping centre, and it wasn’t long before the rumour mill took off on the Centre’s social media pages.
World famous Gordon Ramsay look-alike, impersonator and body double, Martin Jordan, who has appeared on TV shows including Britain’s Got Talent, This Morning and Lookalikes on Channel 4, visited The Friary Guildford and its retailers, where he cooked up a storm as customers were ‘Served by Ramsay’.
The Gordon doppelganger began his visit to The Friary Guildford by doing a spot of shopping in Beaverbrooks, where shocked customers and staff began questioning whether he was the real deal.
The celebrity chef double then made a surprise visit to the Centre’s food retailers, not hesitating to get stuck-in at the kitchens. After having a pretzel making lesson from Auntie Anne’s, being shown how to make one of KFC’s famous chicken burgers, making a coffee in Muffin Break and a smoothie in Café Moka and finally handing out food samples to customers, it was then time to have a bite to eat himself. Customers were surprised to see the gourmet impersonator’s food of choice was McDonald’s chicken nuggets and a soft drink from El Mexicana, both of which were enjoyed while sitting amongst starry eyed shoppers and The Friary Guildford’s Marketing Coordinator, Rachael Millward.
But of course, a chef in his whites always has room for more! The next pit-stop was at traditional, Victorian style sweet shop, Mr Simms, where staff set him a challenge to take on their most sour sweet in store, the Black Death. The mega sour sweet caused the usually hard faced chef with a frightening demeanour to pull a number of funny facial expressions, showing that even the most intimidating of people are still human when it comes to trying new foods! Having his taste buds tingled was thirsty work for the world famous celebrity chef lookalike, so it wasn’t long before he stopped off at Bubble CiTea to sample one of their refreshing Taiwanese beverages.
A few more visits to The Friary Guildford’s fashion retailers, including River Island, Primark, Levi’s and Superdry, and numerous customer selfies later, it was time for Gordon’s double to leave; but the discussions continued on the centre’s social media channels for hours after.
Marketing Coordinator, Rachael Millward, said, “Having Martin join us at the Centre over the weekend was just amazing! Not only does he look like Gordon Ramsay himself, but seeing him getting hands-on in the kitchens, it’s apparent that he can also cook like him too! Customers loved being ‘Served by Ramsay’ and I’m sure it’s something that they’ll be telling all their friends about.
“Whether customers believed he was the real deal or not, everyone was stopping him for photos, and seeing the looks on customers’ faces was priceless. It really was a fun day for all, and we would definitely consider doing something similar in the future.”
For photos from the ‘Served by Ramsay’ event, visit The Friary Guildford’s Facebook page here.