I used to watch a lot of Food Network around 2012-2014. My favorite shows to watch were Chopped and Restaurant: Impossible. I also watched a little bit of Cutthroat Kitchen, hosted by Atlanta's Alton Brown, and made it a point to see season 12 of Top Chef because Ron Eyester was a contestant and Hugh Acheson was a judge (both also from Atlanta). After that, I sort of got burned out and tired of the channel. All of the programming got repetitive. It just seems to be the same thing over and over.
Food Network became, and admittedly still is to me, one of those channels that I'd sometimes play in the background and pay not much attention to. At least the food looks pretty. And it's a good thing I actually tune into this channel at all unlike 99% of the other channels in my cable package.
Late last year (2016), I, along with dozens of other Atlanta area Yelpers, received private messages from a casting director looking for Yelpers to cast in a new Yelp-authorized TV show on the Food Network. Details were murky. We weren't sure if these messages were even legitimate, but they were. A supposed working title for this project, "12 Hungry Yelpers," had floated around the Internet for the better part of a year. The production company, ITV, was filming episodes for this project in Atlanta.
I replied to the casting director, had a Google Hangouts video interview with her, and was selected to be on the show. The filming dates were January 5 and 6, 2017 at an undisclosed location. The folks who ran this production really kept us in the dark. I was really curious how Yelpers would be portrayed on the show. In the back of my mind, I thought we would be okay since I didn't think Yelp would ever greenlight a show on the Food Network that portrays Yelpers or the Yelp brand in a negative light. However, a part of me was legitimately concerned, especially after I signed a release which essentially allowed the producers to portray us any way they pleased.
We were given a meeting address which turned out to be a shopping center in Kennesaw, a suburb about 25-30 miles northwest of Atlanta. I checked out the address on Google Maps and correctly guessed the restaurant we would be filming at: Barbecue Street. The Yelp reviews for the restaurant weren't stellar at the time (and I'm not sure they've improved much since).
Most of our time during the filming days was spent waiting around until the production crew was ready to film us. There was a group of seven of us on the first and second days of filming. On the first day, our group was split into smaller groups and sent into the restaurant to dine at different times. Our mission: To eat and comment on the food and service using hidden mics, earbuds, and cameras. The restaurant was well aware they were being filmed for a Food Network project, but they didn't know what kind of project (at least, that was my understanding when I asked one of the restaurant's managers).
On the second day, our group had a face-to-face meeting with the restaurant owners and the show's host, Monti Carlo. Individually, we read our reviews to the owners and Monti. Everything was on camera from the moment we walked through the restaurant's doors. It got emotional. If you've seen the episode, you know what I mean. That was that and we were let go. We were compensated by the production company. At that point in time, the title of the show and the air date were still unknown.
Monti, acting as a restaurant consultant, used our criticisms as a way to help the restaurant owners recognize their problems and initiated changes to help them improve. Then, on the third and final day of filming, a second and different group of Yelpers came in, under hidden cameras again, and commented on the presumably improved food. They had more positive things to say.
The show title was announced a couple months later: Help My Yelp. The purpose of the show is to help turn around struggling local restaurants through feedback from Yelpers and advice from Monti Carlo. It's a short (30 minutes), fun, funny, and positive show that I think is a win-win for everyone involved: Monti, Yelp, Yelpers, and the restaurants featured.
You can watch Help My Yelp on Mondays at 10/9c on the Food Network. It turns out we were in the season premiere. Here's the schedule with episode numbers and businesses in parenthesis.
* April 10, 2017 (1.3): Barbecue Bootcamp (Barbecue Street, Kennesaw, GA)
* April 17, 2017 (1.0): Brooklyn Taco Fail (Paco's Tacos, Brooklyn, NY)
* April 24, 2017 (1.2): Comfort Food Catastrophe (The Spot, Montclair, NJ)
* May 1, 2017 (1.5): Burger Bomb (Delkwood Grill, Marietta, GA)
* May 8, 2017 (1.4): Shot-y Service (Pearl Restaurant and Lounge, Atlanta, GA)
* May 15, 2017 (1.1): Italian Intervention (Fresco da Franco, Montclair, NJ)
I'm not sure why the episode numbers don't follow the air dates chronologically. It's confusing.
Our episode, Barbecue Bootcamp, is re-airing tonight, April 15, 2017 at 6:30pm/5:30pm central. read more