It's opening day at Spatz, London’s latest fast-food sensation. But with only 4 hours to go, the manager, TJ Strickland, has much on his plate: the building is half finished and short-staffed, and Mrs. Frapelli, the owner’s wife, is about to arrive for the grand ribbon-opening ceremony featuring no ribbon and nothing to cut it with. Yet there’s even more chaos on the menu when an uninvited guest turns up and tries to put a squeeze on the festivities
Heavy metal man Vince Powers quickly changes his tune when he realises that the girl he’s got a crush on, Chloe, is a Mozart freak. Music of another sort is driving the staff out of their minds – it’s the brain-numbingly jolly Spatz jingle which Karen has had committed to a loop tape and insists on playing all day long. Meanwhile a customer called Mr. Fox loses his wallet at the same time as Vince becomes inexplicably well-off.
Toni Gordon is a girl with a problem. Two problems, actually: one, her mother and two, her father. The reason? In a moment of crisis and low self-esteem she wrote and told her Scottish parents that she's been promoted to the position of manager at Spatz. When Mr. and Mrs. Gordon unexpectedly turn up, Toni's forced to take control of the situation – and the restaurant. Meanwhile, Dexter loses all control in his bid to be the first employee to sell 500 hamburgers and win a corporate trip to Paris
Karen takes a tip from the Spatz Tokyo outlet and introduces an early morning exercise programme designed to keep the hard-pressed staff on their toes. After Karen has publicly humiliated Vince and Jo during one of the workouts, the duo get together and not only discover that it's Karen’s birthday, but also that she has had a 'nose job'. They decide to organise a knees-up their boss will never forget (including a birthday card with Pinocchio on and full of nose-related puns). Meanwhile, TJ is on crutches after pulling a muscle at the exercise class and now lives in horror at the prospect of letting down his hockey team
While Karen racks her brains dreaming up yet more publicity gimmicks, TJ's much-derided first aid class gets a shot in the arm when Lily uses what she learnt to save a choking customer's life. Karen quickly sees a chance for some free newspaper coverage and plans to exploit Lily's heroic action for all its worth. There's just one problem: Lily adamantly refuses to cooperate because her dad has no idea she’s working here and would be appalled if he did. But when did Karen ever take no for an answer?
Dexter sets his sights high when TV soap star Cindy Stewart blows in for a bite at the restaurant. The question is, will she swallow fast-talking Dexter's outrageous claim that he's not really a greasy nobody but is in fact the son of the Senegalese ambassador? Meanwhile, TJ is having major pay-cheque problems when the central Spatz computer goes haywire and issues a grave announcement – that TJ is dead.'
A gang of teenage hoodlums starts hanging around the restaurant and Karen orders TJ to get rid of them. But when the self-styled Diablos return it's with revenge on their minds. When it is revealed that Vince used to belong to the gang, his loyalties are sorely tested as he comes to wrestle with the problem.
A protest group calling itself Planetwatch pickets the restaurant, ruining Karen's quarterly profit figures. It may be friendly to the environment, but Planetwatch is downright hostile to Spatz – that is, until its ringleader Sebastian gets the hots for Jo. It takes a special package, sent from Granny Strickland to TJ, finally to give the protesters some food for thought
TJ conjures up a plan for Spatz to host kids' parties and reckons he’s come up with a wizard scheme. But as usual (since it wasn't her idea) Karen is deeply unimpressed and soon the whole enterprise seems doomed to failure. But when Head Office green-lights the project and commends TJ for his initiative, Karen sees red and decides to sink the party plan once and for all. Meanwhile, the staff work their magic on Stanley to get him ready for his first date.
The staff of Spatz is revolting. When Vince discovers that rival hamburger chain Blimpy's is paying their staff 10p more an hour than Spatz, it's a case of down with the pickle choppers and up with the workers when Karen lets it be known that she'd sooner throw herself into the deep fat fryer than pay them more money. Agitprop Sebastian is back to join the strike force and picket the scabs – and Jo gets to see her sweetheart in an altogether new light.
The staff are used to Karen calling the tune, but there's dischord in the ranks when she instructs the staff to sing out the customers' orders. Will Debbie and Derek ever make sweet music again, or will her hot date with good-looking Terry hit the right note?
A battle of wits is in danger of escalating into an all-out war when TJ challenges Ivor Willis, the manager of Blimpy's, to a friendly trivia quiz. With secret weapon Lily up their sleeve, the Spatz team is confident of blasting the Blimpettes clean out of the water – until Lily's grandmother falls ill and she has to go away for the week. Meanwhile, Jo's part-time jobs threaten to knock the stuffing out of her.
TJ gets promoted. It seems like great news, but the downside is he's got to return to Canada (that's somewhere just north of the USA). For Karen this is the upside; that is, until TJ's replacement arrives, in the shape of Melvin Frapelli, slobbish and conniving nephew of the Managing Director. Even Karen's got to admit that things were better before. But how to unseat golden boy Frapelli and reinstate Thomas Jefferson Strickland? That is the question. And it’s a sticky one
When new girl Freddy joins the crew, Dexter quickly takes her under his wing. The Williams’ silver tongue is quickly in top gear, and he shamelessly declares himself 'friend of the stars' ... however when Karen takes him up on his word and instructs him to invite his "best buddy" soccer superstar Gary Lineker to visit Spatz as a publicity gimmick, Dexter comes to realise he's gone and put his foot in his mouth
Karen finds herself on the horns of a dilemma when, in order to placate her pushy mother, she announces that she’s engaged to TJ. Unfortunately TJ's new girlfriend gets to hear about this unforgivable chicanery, and very soon the long claws are out – and slashing. Meanwhile, the new Spatz food delivery service (a.k.a. a clanking pushbike with a slipping chain) is driving the staff to distraction
A time and efficiency expert is called in to streamline the Spatz operation. The obsessive Mr. Pashby's eyes roll out his head when he arrives at a particularly chaotic moment, and his recommendations prove to be horrendously far-reaching – horrendous for the staff, that is. So Vince and Dexter make some small amendments to Pashby's report, which Karen insists are carried out to the letter by TJ – with surreal results. Amidst all this, love flourishes: Freddy and her building-site boyfriend, Dave, cement their relationship
Karen seeks advice from TJ on how to win herself a husband - but not just any old husband: she’s got her sights set at the top of the tree, for multimillionaire Spatz tycoon Frapelli is in town ... and according to the grapevine, between wives at the moment. Behind the counter, there's rivalry of another sort afoot, for head office has just announced a corporate competition to find the Ideal Spatz Employee, and soon poster fever runs rampant and friendships are forgotten.
Vince is absent, so TJ persuades his girlfriend Julie to replace him for the day. Sparks fly when Karen gets to hear about it, for she's taken a personal dislike to the woman who's "so wet there's a salmon leaping up her dress" and is determined to get her fired even quicker than she got started. And speaking of fires, there's trouble smouldering when Karen's new cheap and cheerful alarm system starts playing up
One by one, the staff and management of Spatz are mysteriously vanishing. But there's nothing supernatural about the armed robber who finds himself having to take more and more people hostage in a failed robbery bid. The big question: is the Twitching Man really a dangerous armed robber, or is he just a jerk with a courgette for a gun?
Wedding bells herald a ding-dong between Debbie and Derek, but the only bells Vince can hear are the ones ringing up a fat profit in his cash register shaped head. He stands to make a killing if he can persuade Debbie’s mother to let him handle the reception do. But first, he's got to persuade Debbie's mother to let her daughter get married in the first place
TJ incurs the wrath of Karen when he allows a local talent show to be staged at Spatz. Meanwhile, Dexter is dating two girls at the same time
Weird happenings abound and the staff are freaking out. Can it be true? That the restaurant, built on the site of an ancient graveyard, is being haunted by spirits who have an aversion to the smell of fried onions? There's only one way to find out: stage an all-night vigil. But tonight’s the night Karen and TJ are off to a fancy dress party..
It never rains but it pours: on the day an important food critic’s arriving, the Spatz delivery van has got itself lost and now there’s no food to critique; Stanley's pet ducklings are on the rampage; the electrical circuits have blown a fuse; Vince's twin brother electrician doesn't know an amp from a watt; and there's a mysterious lost boy called Charlie who's right at the centre of it all, lapping up the three ring circus
Everybody's losing it today: Karen can't find her contact lenses, the bank manager's heart is gone completely to 'The Magnificent Ms. Hansson', and Freddy's cool vanishes when she accidentally mislays £3000 of Spatz's money. Not even intergalactic superhero Captain Electric (a man who has clearly lost his mind) can locate its whereabouts. Freddy decides to take drastic action by contacting a nefarious loan shark and borrowing another £3000 to satisfy the bank. Then she loses that, as well...
The Russians are coming! - so hollers Karen when a delegation arrives from Moscow with a view to picking up the Spatz franchise and introducing the concept of food poisoning to the USSR. Desperate to impress the visitors, Karen is agog to find that TJ has gone to pieces. The reason? He’s just been given the heave-ho by Julie, and nothing can console him. Meanwhile, something smells decidedly off when Vince gets involved in some under-the-counter perfume deals, and an unlikely romance blossoms over the hot grill.
The staff of Spatz turn green, but not with envy: they've all become Blimpettes. The nightmare scenario has happened: inveterate gambler Louis Frapelli has been beaten in a poker game by rival restaurateur Roland Blimpy, and now the chips are down because Spatz was put up as the stake. A new colour scheme heralds the arrival of a new boss, the loathsome, gloating Ivor Willis, who takes a special delight in humiliating TJ by demoting him to humble onion chopper. However, Vince reckons there may yet be a way of turning the tables.
Dexter sucks up to a customer and before you know it, has the offer of a high-flying new job: as delivery boy for B. Bumble's Pizza Parlour. Meanwhile, Vince persuades Karen to buy up a ton of toy hamburgers as give-away gifts, but omits to give away the fact that Mr. Bappy The Cheesy Chappy and his clockwork companions have just recently fallen off the back of a lorry
The betting shop across the mall [named Grant Lee Bookmakers] is raided and Freddy almost thwarts the escape of the man in motorbike leathers who brandishes a gun and hares off. Freddy's proclaimed the heroine of the day, but quickly comes to realise that as the only witness, she could soon be in for an unwanted visit. Then a man in a crash helmet starts hanging around in the mall... Meanwhile, Karen's latest coup involves Brewster Dwight of the American Tourist Office, coach loads of culturally-starved Yanks, and an authentic English eatery called Ye Olde Spatz
When it comes out that Spatz employee Stanley and Blimpy kid Margaret are partners at a ballroom dancing contest, Ivor Willis is round stirring trouble - and soon the two rival hamburger chains are up against each other in a dance contest of their own, with big money and reputations at stake. Amidst all of this, Karen has discovered that her idol Frapelli is an exotic bird fanatic and spends a fortune on a rare parrot in a bid to gain his affections. Unfortunately someone left the window open ...
It's smiles all the way at Spatz, as Karen instigates a new initiative whereby any employee caught not beaming cheesily at the customers will have their pay docked. But the grins quickly dry up when a gruesome bunch of mobsters appear in T J’s office and try to extort money out of him. But Thomas Jefferson Strickland is not about to be intimidated by the likes of Horace Flint and his blockhead cronies. However, he is about to be duffed up ...
Karen gets tough with a pair of loopy bag ladies who are creating mayhem in the restaurant and summarily throws them out into the mall. One of them puts a curse on Karen, who is unmoved by the old woman's rantings. However, the curse gives Vince a very nifty idea of how to get Karen off their backs for a spell. Meanwhile, TJ helps rescue the Saturday morning TV kids' favourite Lenny’s Lunchtime Laugh-In from the rain, by inviting the television crew to stage the show inside the restaurant
Derek has been driving Debbie up the wall again. More correctly, Debbie's been learning to drive and Derek's been learning how not to teach her. The fighting reaches a head when Debbie slams the brakes on their grand affair - and starts seeing someone else in her lunch breaks. Meanwhile, the staff earn extra money by assembling Christmas crackers, and TJ and Karen become attached to one another when an experiment with a set of handcuffs goes horribly wrong
Vince is in love. She came into his life and she stole his heart - and also, apparently, his tongue, since Vince can't summon up the courage to speak to her. Then when he recovers his voice, he doesn't know what to say with it. The reason? She's a university student of English majoring in poetry, and the only rhymes Vince knows are the ones scratched on the back of the lavatory door. Upstairs in the office, Karen draws up plans to rid the mall of buskers.