The Power of Food TV on Delaware chefs' careers
Can an appearance on a national TV culinary show change your life?
Yes, it can.
Just ask Newark pastry chef Dana Herbert, winner of “Cake Boss: Next Great Baker,” a TLC pastry competition program hosted by star baker Buddy Valastro.
Herbert, who took home the title in December 2010, says the series gave him a national platform that showcased his baking and decorating skills. It also helped the University of Delaware graduate expand his thriving custom cake making business and eventually open a Newark dessert shop. And Herbert has been crowned with lifelong celebrity chef status.
“It definitely changes things,” says the Bear resident. “What TV does, it puts a stamp on what you’ve already been doing. It introduces you to people that are outside of Delaware, and even inside Delaware. It really gets you out there and gets you known for what you loved doing.”
In 2011, Jennifer Behm-Lazzarini, a former Wilmington real estate agent and amateur cook, walked away as the Season 2 winner of the Fox TV series “MasterChef,” starring famed screaming chef Gordon Ramsay. She now owns and runs Red Fin Crudo + Kitchen, a Rhode Island restaurant with her husband, Julio Lazzarini, a former Wilmington restaurateur and 2009 finalist on “Chopped,” a Food Network culinary competition show.
Carla Guzzi who owns Bing’s Bakery in Newark with her husband Tom, credits a July 2014 episode of “Buddy’s Bakery Rescue,” also starring Valastro, with breathing life into and turning around their foundering business and bringing in new customers.
“Being on national TV, it was a great recognition. It was a great way for people to be aware of us and remind them that we were here. We have kept the momentum up. We kept it up and have gone a tad bit higher,” says Guzzi.
This Saturday, the Guzzi family will celebrate the old-school bakery’s 70 years in business with a party in the 253 E. Main St. shop from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bing’s staffers plan to hand out free vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles to the first 250 customers, and will offer some baked goods, such as petit fours and coconut macaroons, for 70 cents each.
Even more recently, TV exposure has been good to Robbie Jester, executive chef at the Stone Balloon Ale House. He says he is seeing an uptick in customers at the Newark restaurant as well as getting some widespread recognition after his three recent appearances on the Food Network supermarket/cooking game show “Guy’s Grocery Games.”
“It’s definitely increased business,” said Jester one recent afternoon while sitting at the bar of the Stone Balloon Ale House where he’s worked since 2013. “It’s increased almost 450 percent from the moment we’ve opened.”
Jester first appeared on “Guy’s Grocery Games,” hosted by celebrity chef Guy Fieri, in November 2015. While he was eliminated in the final round of that show, the 30-year-old was asked back on the program to compete in a “Redemption Tournament.” Jester won the episode that aired in mid April and then moved onto the finale.
VIDEO: Robbie Jester gets redemption on Guy's Grocery Games
STORY: Celebrity chef opens bakery near Newark
On May 1, he was one of four chefs vying for a comeback. Slightly overcooked duck knocked him out of the first round of the tournament, but Jester’s cooking skills, creativity and upbeat attitude earned the respect of the show’s three judges, host Fieri and the show’s fans.
Jester recently took his family on a trip to Orlando, Florida’s Disney World – he won $16,000 on “Guy’s Grocery’s Game” – and was surprised to find some tourists recognized him.
“This guy grabbed me and said ‘I saw you on TV. I saw you on the Food Network.’ He said, ‘You should have won,’” Jester says chuckling. He also got recognized for wearing a shirt with the Stone Balloon name. “People would come up to me and say, ‘I love that place. I use to party there back in the day.’”
After Herbert’s win several years ago on “Next Great Baker”– he walked away with a car – he was invited to work with Valastro at his family’s business, Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey. Herbert also appeared on some episodes of Valastro’s flagship “Cake Boss” series.
Herbert is still recognized by fans. Recently, he was sitting in a Philadelphia sandwich shop and his server kept staring at him. “She said, ‘You look so familiar. You’re the guy from Cake Boss!’ I don’t think it gets old [getting recognized] ; it’s nice that people remember you for what you love doing.”
The win also has opened doors for Herbert. “Almost five years later, I’m still flying all over the country” doing guest chef stints and appearing at food events. Herbert says he has been expanding beyond pastry and will host a dinner in Philadelphia on June 14 and he has been asked to cook a dinner June 21 at New York City’s famed James Beard House.
Herbert says getting celebrity baker Valastro’s nod as a top-notch pastry chef also has accelerated his career faster than maybe he could have done on his own.
“It gave my business a little more leg,” Herbert says. In 2014, he opened his 1212 Capitol Trail shop, Desserts by Dana, in Newark and now has a satellite office in Philadelphia to serve clients. Herbert says he is currently planning a cookbook and there might be more TV appearances.
Carla Guzzi says celebrating 70 years of Bing’s Bakery in business this Saturday might not have been possible if celebrity baker Buddy Valastro hadn’t come into their Newark business in October 2013 to film his series “Buddy’s Bakery Rescue.” The show was later broadcast in July 2014, and now can be seen on YouTube.
At the time, the Guzzis were in serious debt and thought they might have to close their doors. It was hard for the proud family to talk openly about their struggles on camera with Valastro.
Guzzi says Valastro gave them ideas, encouragement and advice that they still use. One thing he told the family to do was stop baking items that were not selling well.
“We stopped making things that were not making sense, sort from a revenue standpoint,” Guzzi says. Doughnuts are no longer in the pastry case, not because of the taste, but because they counted for only 1 to 2 percent of sales. They’ve also limited production on such things as rolls to certain days or weekends only.
Not everything has changed. Guzzi says her husband, Tom, head baker at Bing’s since 1996, still makes his famed glacés and carrot cake squares. He also decided to put back some cases that Valastro suggested he remove from the shop. “Tom wanted [customers] to see a wow factor,” she says.
And even almost two years after the show aired, Guzzi says they are still hearing from fans. Two weeks ago, a woman wrote to the bakery after watching the show in Germany. She asked for some of Bing’s pastry recipes. Guzzi says eager out-of-state customers also seek out Bing’s Bakery.
“We’ve had a lot of people that came from different states that wanted to stop by and support us.”
Guzzi says although the family was initially reluctant to be on the series, now they are glad they did it.
“I feel to this day it was a great opportunity to work with Buddy. The whole exposure that we received, and sharing our heartfelt story, we have no regrets.”
But, reality TV doesn’t work out for all businesses. Over the years, Food Network celebrity chef Robert Irvine has visited Delaware to help turn around the struggling establishments for his TV show, “Restaurant: Impossible.” The three makeovers didn’t work, and none of the restaurants that Irvine tried to help are still operating.
His last visit for the TV show was in March 2013 to the Wagon Wheel, a Smyrna landmark for more than 40 years. It closed in September 2014.
Robbie Jester, however, believes in the power of food TV and the Newark chef says viewers might be seeing him on the small screen again in the near future.
Jester won’t elaborate, but a $21 seafood dish now on the Stone Balloon menu offers some hints.
“A Chef Robbie competition winner!” reads the description.
Stay tuned.
Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 orptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter@pattytalorico.