This week on Food Network Obsessed, host Jaymee Sire answers a few listener questions before diving into conversation with Tyler Florence. Tyler talks about what it was like to film in frigid Alaska for the latest season of The Great Food Truck Race and the process behind developing the intense challenges. He talks about why small towns are the best to film in, and the hospitality the crew experienced in Alaska. Tyler shares his favorite moments from the show after 14 seasons, keeping in touch with past contestants and the importance of mentorship in the restaurant industry. He reminisces on his 25 years with Food Network and why he had a feeling food television was his future. He also talks about his own digital content hub, Wolf it Down, and the exciting things he has on the horizon in 2021 and beyond. Finally, Tyler breaks down how to make the perfect omelette.
This week on Food Network Obsessed, host Jaymee Sire answers a few listener questions before diving into conversation with Tyler Florence. Tyler talks about what it was like to film in frigid Alaska for the latest season of The Great Food Truck Race and the process behind developing the intense challenges. He talks about why small towns are the best to film in, and the hospitality the crew experienced in Alaska. Tyler shares his favorite moments from the show after 14 seasons, keeping in touch with past contestants and the importance of mentorship in the restaurant industry. He reminisces on his 25 years with Food Network and why he had a feeling food television was his future. He also talks about his own digital content hub, Wolf it Down, and the exciting things he has on the horizon in 2021 and beyond. Finally, Tyler breaks down how to make the perfect omelette.
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Find episode transcript here: https://food-network-obsessed.simplecast.com/episodes/tyler-florence-on-how-to-make-the-perfect-omelette-filming-the-great-food-truck-race-in-alaska
JAYMEE SIRE: Hello. Happy Friday and welcome to Food Network Obsessed. This is the podcast where we dish on all things Food Network with your favorite Food Network stars. I am your host Jaymee Sire. And we have the one and only Tyler Florence on the podcast today. We chat about the new season of The Great Food Truck Race, how and when he got his first start with Food Network, his restaurant in San Francisco. We get to so many topics. I'm excited for you guys to listen.
But before we get to that, I have to tell you. Since we started this podcast, I've been getting so much great feedback and a lot of questions, too along the way from so many of my fans and listeners out there, things from just questions about our guests, about hosting the podcast in general, about Food Network, about food. So we figured we'd answer a few on the podcast today. I actually posted this in my Instagram story last night to see what was on your minds this week. And here are just a few of the questions. I'm so sorry if I don't get to yours in advance. We had some good ones and maybe we'll try to do this again in a few weeks.
Our first question is, what is the most interesting/important thing you learned from doing the podcast? I guess I would have to say that just how much we rely on technology. I know that we kind of already know that, but it's definitely been reinforced especially doing the podcast from home because we do all of these interviews right now remotely virtually over Zoom. So everybody's computer is different, so getting all of our guests set up for that.
And then on my end, even when I think that I have it all down, sometimes it's not perfect. And we saw that happen with Robert Irvine who was so gracious to reschedule our podcast interview for the next day when my computer completely crashed. So I think that is definitely something I've learned and never get too complacent with your technology because you never know when it is just going to decide not to work on you.
Next question, which is harder, being on TV or doing a podcast and why? I think this is a great question. And I don't mean to take the easy way out here. I think they're both completely different. I think doing the podcast has been a lot of fun for me just because a lot of times in television you have such a limited amount of time for your interviews. Especially back in my SportsCenter days, it would be-- you got three minutes with this guest. You got five minutes with this guest. And we really get to sit down and dive in with our guests on the podcast, which has been really, really fun for me. But they are both challenging in their own ways. So I'll leave it at that.
I love this next one. Do you feel compelled to cook immediately following the perfect food day answers? Definitely, sometimes. I specifically remember Anne Burrell's answer because I feel like she just took us on this whirlwind adventure that ended in Italy. And as she was describing all the pastas that she would have for dinner I was just literally drooling all over my keyboard. One of the things that she had mentioned was a wild boar ragu, which is one of my favorite dishes to cook. I did not go and cook that immediately, but I was definitely tempted to do so.
And last question for today, what few essentials do you need on hand to make quick healthy meals? This is a great question and something I'm trying to do a little bit more of lately. I think have some frozen fish ready to go in your freezer. I think because fish can thaw out pretty quickly. So even if it is frozen, you can still get it on the table quickly if you haven't really planned ahead. I like to have vegetables ready to go in my crisper drawer because you can easily roast those and have those ready quickly. And I also have wild rice that we probably eat two or three times a week when we're trying to eat a little bit healthier, or quinoa. I think those are my healthy staples. I obviously don't eat like that all the time. But I'm trying to be a little bit more balanced these days.
But all great questions, please keep them coming. My DMs are open. And if you want to share any of your thoughts and questions you can also do that on your own social media. You can tag Food Network. Also use the hashtag, #foodnetworkobsessed so we can see it. But my Instagram is Jaymee Sire. And again, feel free to DM me any questions, comments, or ideas for the podcast. Love hearing from you on all of it.
All right, let's get to our interview for today. We have a Food Network veteran on the pod today. He's the host of The Great Food Truck Race. He is a bestselling cookbook author, a restaurateur, and digital content creator. I mean, does this guy sleep? Tyler Florence is our guest today.
Tyler, welcome to the pod. How are you doing, today?
TYLER FLORENCE: First of all, congratulations on the pod. I'm so--
JAYMEE SIRE: Thank you.
TYLER FLORENCE: And can I tell you? I'm obsessed with it. I think you're doing a fantastic job. I listen every week, and congratulations on all this.
JAYMEE SIRE: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. We love to hear people are obsessed. Obviously, that is the name of the podcast. And I know some fans are going to be obsessed with hearing from you. And actually, this is not the first time you and I have chatted virtually. We did a little thing in November for a culinary conference. I loved our conversation. So I'm super excited to bring some of those insights that you dropped during that chat to the podcast.
TYLER FLORENCE: Yeah.
JAYMEE SIRE: Well let's start with The Great Food Truck race because obviously you've just kicked off a brand new season. We've got seven new teams of food truck operators all over the country competing in this series of creative challenges trying to win $50,000. But this time, it's set in Alaska. And I followed you along on Instagram throughout shooting. This was in late fall and winter. So I feel like we need to start there because I already have so many questions. Harsh climate, short daylight hours, had you been to Alaska before filming?
TYLER FLORENCE: Yeah, so that was my third time in Alaska. But the only other two times I'd been there before was in the summer. So I didn't necessarily know what to expect. And I've been to New Hampshire in the winter. I've been to Lake Tahoe, right. I sort of know cold. I had no idea what I was talking about. I had no idea what I was in for because my God, the high was about 7 degrees on most days. And the low was somewhere between negative 7 and negative 10.
And so every day, it would feel-- if it cracked 5 or got close to 10 degrees, it would feel kind of balmy after a while. You could start to feel the sun on your face just a little bit. But the nights are brutally cold. And the days are short. So you're kind of close to Arctic Circle. So there isn't as much room on the little blue marble that we all live on at that height towards the polar cap. So the sun comes up kind of late and sets kind of early. So the sun would come up every day around 10:00--
JAYMEE SIRE: Wow.
TYLER FLORENCE: --and set around 3:30. But then we would have these-- shoot days were six hours long and 4 and 1/2, five hours long. Because not only were we shooting with 75 people, we're also shooting with 21 cast members, seven trucks, and four or five different setups per episode, plus the reality of going out and just shooting on the main streets of Alaska.
And it was an adventure. It was tough. It was the toughest physical season I think we'd ever had just from a logistics standpoint. But it was the most rewarding because it was absolutely beautiful. It was that season that we had always talked about doing forever, and we finally got a chance to pull it off. And man, was it absolutely beautiful. We had so much fun.
JAYMEE SIRE: I'm so excited to see the season unfold. I'm from Montana originally so I do know cold, but nothing-- that sounds like on another level. So I can't imagine what these competitors were going through. And in the premiere, we actually saw the teams competing in a challenge where they had to get their food truck keys out of a 200-pound block of ice. I think that really sets the tone for just how gritty, how frigid this season is as you kind of just alluded to. What other types of challenges can we expect throughout the season without giving too much away of course?
TYLER FLORENCE: Yeah. Well Britain, our legendary stunt coordinator and producer who produces all the stunts and challenges, she was feeling particularly creative this season because man, she put them through it. And so we would have these meetings 24 hours before or 12 hours for the next day, kind of dialing in exactly what they're going to be. And so she had the whole set up ready to rock and roll. And then she would call me the night before. And we'd have kind of a big production meeting with myself, the producer, and the director. So we'd kind of walk through what's happening.
And I'm like, where do you get these crazy ideas from because this is kind of genius? You know what I mean? This is like, wooh. If you missed the first episode, a, you got to go back and watch it on Food Network On Demand and also Discovery Plus. So they had to-- normally I'd just give them their keys, and they have to go get their trucks in episode one. But this particular episode, they had to dig their keys out of a 200-pound block of ice that was frozen right in the middle.
So think about just the setup of all that stuff. Those keys had to get placed in those blocks of ice at least 10 hours ahead of time. So she had been working on that for a couple of days. And I just applaud her. She would set this stuff up. I'm like, this is next level. This is next level-- I'm so impressed.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's amazing. I mean, do you ever have any input in any of that? Or does she come up with all this on her own?
TYLER FLORENCE: She does a great job. And she's been with us for about five years. So my input is like, just tell me where to stand absolutely and it sounds great. We get a chance to get together just to walk through what they're doing. And other than that, we have very, very talented people that do great work. So we let them go.
JAYMEE SIRE: You talk about the climate impacting production. How does it impact the competitors as well? I mean, trying to complete all these challenges in these frigid conditions?
TYLER FLORENCE: That was also a real challenge because we had contestants from Walnut Creek, California that is close to wine country. So they were like thin-skinned chardonnay grapes up there in the cold. And we had people from balmy Houston, Texas that had never even seen snow before, much less been to Alaska. So it was brutally cold. And to me, I was a little fearful for them even from a wardrobe standpoint because I was like, well where's your big heavy coat? Where's your earmuffs? I know you guys are going to be outside for seven hours in 7-degree weather.
So it was real. And we had these meetings every day with all the contestants about safety first and making sure if you're feeling uncomfortable about being outside in the weather that you can rotate inside the truck. And there were heaters inside the truck. So it was kind of their little mobile sauna once they got out on the street and when they started to serve.
But all the what they call the stack where it's myself and all the contestants are lined up. And we're giving them information or giving-- or the elimination, that kind of thing. We want to make sure that they were all super protected and well taken care of. And I thought the production team just did an amazing job. So just off set, there were these little heat tents because not only did we have to keep everybody protected, but we also had to do it safe with COVID protocol.
So there were several tents just off camera where the teams could go collectively by themselves and get warm. And then we'd hop out for three or four minutes and shoot some more content. And then hop back into the tent. But it was very, very well orchestrated. And all things considered, I thought we did a really good job taking care of the entire production team and also the cast members. And we had fun doing it, too.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh that's the most important part. I mean, were there any other challenges that that whole situation provided while you guys were up there shooting?
TYLER FLORENCE: So we shot two seasons this year. We shot season 13, which is on the air right now and season 14, which is coming up a little bit later in San Francisco. So we shot with 75 people in two cities and two states and not one COVID outbreak amongst anyone. So I was-- we were very, very lucky.
But we were very strict about everything. We had a very tight production bubble, and the cast members had their own bubble. And every time we were in contact with each other, we had masks on right before we had to take them off to deliver content to camera and then we put them right back on again. And we had COVID protocol officers making sure everyone was staying six feet apart, and everyone was protected. And we had to take COVID tests every day. So that's what reality of television production looks and feels like right now, but we did it. And we created great content. And we did it safely and not one COVID case in two seasons.
JAYMEE SIRE: That is incredible. And I've heard similar stories from other productions throughout Food Network during this time. And it really is impressive just the way that you guys are able to create television during a very, very challenging time. I have never been to Alaska. It's definitely on the bucket list.
I'm curious how the reception was locally. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about the people up there, how nice and welcoming they are. Did you get that vibe from people when you guys were up there?
TYLER FLORENCE: I did. You know, Alaska is a big state for Food Network. We've got a lot of fans up there. And they came out. And so we've been from Los Angeles to somewhere on the East Coast nine times. So we've crossed the country nine times. And we've gone from Los Angeles to Chicago via route 66. And we've done little micro routes to the South and in and around Texas. And the smaller towns always has the biggest impact for the show.
And it was the same thing in Alaska. So we started in Anchorage and huge success there. And then we started going to these real small towns like Seward and Palmer and Homer, Alaska. And Seward and Homer are right there on the coast. And those are two just huge seafood capitals, not only for Alaska but also for the world. I mean, the best halibut, the best salmon-- the best salmon you've ever tasted in your entire life.
And I think I ate my body weight in Alaskan King crab legs when I was up there, maybe even a couple of times. But the seafood was fantastic. The people were so warm, so friendly. And they really came out for us. We had lines and lines of people-- I mean, just braving the shivering cold. They're are tough breed up there in Alaska. They've got thick skin. And they're more than happy to stand out in the freezing cold, where us, from California, like I said, felt like a thin-skinned chardonnay grape with a super heavy parka on. And they're out there in a tech jumper just waiting in line for Tater Tots. But we had so much fun. And the people were lovely.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, I'm sure they're probably out in Bermuda shorts when it reaches 10 degrees. You guys are still shivering. I mean, you've kind of alluded to some of these past seasons. You've hosted every season of Great Food Truck Race, premiered back in 2010. Any memorable moments that have stuck with you after all this time?
TYLER FLORENCE: Standing on top of the Flatiron Building in New York City at the finale of season one, I really felt like this was going to be something big. And I just love telling the story of the success of The Great Food Truck Race because back in 2010 when we launched the show, I would do the Today Show and Good Morning America. And it was really hard to get traction on the conversation of our food trucks because nobody got it. And nobody really trusted food trucks. It always seemed like that sketchy thing out by the construction site that nobody really wanted to eat from.
But we knew the trend was popping. And we knew that it started to become a big deal in New York and Los Angeles and Portland. And it was enough to say, OK, I think we got something here. So we did one season. And the first season-- between the first season and where we are now, the first season was-- it was goofy. We had a food truck with a gigantic hot dog on top of it. And so we said it was like food trucks meets cannonball run. So we're just going to take seven trucks full of goofy characters. And we're all going to race from coast to coast.
And the grand prize-- the grand prize then was $100,000. And we just had a lot of fun doing it. So we've had so many just memorable moments of standing at Lubec, Maine, which is the furthest most point of the contiguous United States with one season. And that was the elimination location. And then in Washington, DC in front of the Capitol building for an elimination.
And then we've been to Key West, Florida twice for eliminations, which is great and all the really amazing stops in between. And that's one of the most beautiful things about working for Food Network is the ability to travel, get out in America, see all these amazing towns big and small. And because of Food Network, I feel like I know most cities in America fairly intimately. Like I know the airport. I know my favorite restaurants. I know my favorite hotel because we've just been traveling for 25 years now. It's my 25th year on television with Food Network. And it's just been a blast.
So Food Network and also The Great Food Truck Race has just been this iconic-- there's nothing like it on television. There's one of one. Food truck competition on four wheels. And we've done so much good for a certain sector of the restaurant industry to prove that young people, young startups can jump into the game. Raising $4. and 1/2, $5 million for a restaurant, that's hard to do. And there's also-- there's a lot of gamble that comes along with that. But if you've got a dream, and you've got a great product, and you've got a really good vision on what it is, and you want to get out there for say, $40,000, you can lease a food truck. Skin it. Get your food handler's permit. Go to Costco. Get some food and hit the streets. And boom, you're in business with an app. So I think it's a really, really low bar to get out in the world and start having a mobile restaurant business. And you can do the same cover count. So you can charge the same ticket price per item and really have an amazing business for yourself for next to nothing.
And so it's kind of a benign thing if you lost your aunt's 25 grand that she invested in your taco truck. I'm sure eventually she'll talk to you at Thanksgiving again. But it's not the end of the world. But it is-- and let's just say it does fail. You can just skin it and call it something else tomorrow. And so 13 seasons of The Great Food Truck Race, we've had nine winners go on to open successful brick and mortar restaurants.
And I just love our hit rate. I just love that. So we've proven that both the supply and the demand for the model is effective. We've shown the world that with hard work, you can put six figures a year in your pocket. And it scales. You could have three or four food trucks in no time at all. And we've also created an epic fan base for the genre. So because of The Great Food Truck Race, food trucks are busy coast to coast. And I just love the fact that we're contributing to the success of all these small stories at such a great level. And it's been wild. I mean, rolling into food truck festivals and talking to people on the street all the time, and they're grateful for the show because it shines a spotlight on what they're doing.
JAYMEE SIRE: It sounds like you still keep up with a lot of these contestants as well to see how they're doing and what they've done with the success, with the money, and maybe even some of the people that didn't win but have gone on to be successful. How much do you keep tabs on people?
TYLER FLORENCE: I stay in touch with a lot of them. And I really enjoy that relationship. I'm pretty close with dozen or so people that have been on The Great Food Truck Race and track their career. Because at the end of the day, there's not a lot of avenues for mentorship out there. There's not a lot of places that you can go and have a board of directors or your kitchen cabinet of folks that you like to talk to and throw ideas by and call when you've had a bad day or call when you've had a success story.
And so there's a lot of people that I keep up with that we'll-- they'll just text me and say listen, dude I had to close my food truck today. You got a minute to talk? I'm like, yeah, dude. Absolutely. Or hey, we just got a PPP loan from the government. I'm so excited that we can stay on-- we could open up for another three months. And I'm like, that's so great. High five. Good news.
And so I think it's really important because it's such an intimate relationship being on the show. We're together for five weeks. We're together for five weeks. And if I unfortunately took your keys away from you on the first episode, or you made it all the way to the finale and I handed you 50 grand in cash, somewhere along the line you learn something about being in business and all of those success stories of watching those teams grow.
And then also, everything that I've done personally in my own career, I'm just so happy to share it. And not only with them, share it with everybody. We've been on Clubhouse recently talking to a lot of folks there about how to be successful and stay successful. And so, yeah. So we keep up with a lot of them. And it's probably quietly one of the most rewarding parts of the show.
JAYMEE SIRE: I love hearing that because it is such a connection that you've obviously formed with these people. And I love to hear that it continues on past filming. And we know you're obviously a veteran star of Food Network. You started on the network with a show called How to Boil Water. You had Food 911, Tyler's Ultimate. You're definitely one of the-- we could call you like an OG Food Network star for sure. Yes. Well take us back. I always love to hear people's origin stories. How did you get started with the network initially?
TYLER FLORENCE: Like I said, it's my 25th anniversary on Food Network this summer. I started in 1996. And I'm not sure where you were in 1996, but I was--
JAYMEE SIRE: I was in high school.
TYLER FLORENCE: Yeah, correct. So I was 25 years old. And I was the executive chef of a restaurant in Midtown Manhattan called Cibo, an Italian restaurant. And it's still there. I'm super proud of it. And it's on the corner of 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue, right on the cusp of Tudor City. It's a great Italian restaurant. And we were really getting a lot of buzz. We're getting reviews in all the big newspapers and magazines. And it was my first big foray-- and I'd been in New York City for a couple of years at that point. But it's my first big executive chef position, and we were just crushing it. I was super excited.
And then one night, one of the executives walked in to the restaurant, having dinner with friends. And I had my-- the chef's coat I got dirty when I was on the line. And I had my clean chef's coat that I'd walk around the restaurant in. And so I popped on my clean, crisp coat, did a loop just like I would do every night, walk around and say hi, introduce myself, I'm Tyler Florence. How was dinner? And she goes, that was amazing. And she handed me her business card. And she was a producer on this new cable network called the Food Network. And it was just on in New York and LA at the time. And she said, hey, would you like to be on television?
And the interesting thing about it, I grew up in television anyway. So my mom was the CFO of the local NBC station in Greenville, South Carolina when I was growing up. And so she's handled all the financing, closed all the books. And so my mom was under a lot of pressure on a regular basis to make sure that all the books were closed. She often worked weekends. So she would take my older brother and myself to the network. And then we would just run around the television studio, while she was up there pushing a pencil and making sure the numbers met up. And so we would sit in the director's booth and watch the director cut the news live, like give me camera one, going to camera two, and fade in. And 3, 2, 1, and boom, you're live now.
And so we would watch that. And we had-- we were on guest appearances with local kids' shows all the time. So in this weird way, growing up and understanding what being in a television studio was all about, understanding in a very loose way what the directorship was all about, and then understanding what food was all about, my first appearance on Food Network was on a show that was called In Food Today and was hosted by David Rosengarten. And I was executive chef at Cibo at the time.
And then so-- it was a live 6 o'clock news show about news in the world of food. So they would talk about whatever's going on. And right at the end, at the last segment, they would do a live guest appearance with the chef. And then I came down, prepped all my food. I knew what three and 1/2 minutes was all about. I was very as articulate as I could possibly be. If you go back and watch that, I was obviously very nervous but just did a great job.
I mean, I did a little morel salad with fresh watercress and did something else, a pasta-- I can't remember what it was exactly, but just crushed it. And I felt like I did a bad job, but Bob Tuschman, who's the former President of programming at the network, came down-- and he was the executive producer of that show at the time. And he came down and said that was great. Can you come back next week? And I'm like, are you kidding me?
And so I went back to the restaurant. I went back to the restaurant that night and again, prepped all my own food, showed up on time, always said yes. And I went back to the restaurant that night. And I sat on my desk. And I knew that that was going to be the first day of the rest of my life. I just knew it. I didn't know exactly how.
And there was a lot of buzz around food and food programming and television back then because MTV approached me with a show concept called Eats and Beats. And it was me and-- yeah, it was me and musical stars in a house, and we're cooking. It was like a pool party.
JAYMEE SIRE: I want to see that show.
TYLER FLORENCE: Yeah, right? I think we got to bring that back. It was very like MTV spring break 1996. I mean, it was very-- it was Limp Bizkit and whatever. And so that conversation was happening in a lot of different places. And so to me, being an executive chef of a restaurant knowing what I knew how to do really, really well and knowing that this opportunity was few and far between and incredibly rare, and the second they called and offered me a full time job, I accepted without hesitation and just leapt into the abyss of not necessarily knowing what I was going to do.
And so I signed the deal with Food Network back in-- so between 1996 and 1999, I hosted 100 or so different shows. I was on Sara Moulton Live and Emeril Lagasse Live and hosted specials and building up face time where I was starting to get recognized on the street on a regular basis. And people were like, oh hey, you're the guy from TV. And I'm like, oh my God, this is real. This is happening. Yep.
And so in 1999 they called me and said, hey, listen. We got this crazy idea for a show called Food 911 where you travel around the country, and you help people out with their food emergencies. So when you call 911, the cops show up. But if they burn their tuna noodle casserole, you show up. And I'm like, I love it. Let's go. So we hopped into that show-- and again, I had voice lessons. They definitely shaped me up in about a year to be the best presenter I could be at the time. And I just enjoyed every minute of it.
I mean, we traveled around with the same production company for God, six and 1/2 years shooting 90 episodes of Food 911 a year. And we were Emeril Lagasse's lead in. And we're just-- and having the time of my life, worked really, really hard. I was gone 250 nights a year. Gone, not in my own bed and at a different hotel room. So I didn't really have a big choice.
So I had to walk away from the restaurant business and jump into media full time. Well my thought was if I don't do this now, I'll never understand what it's like. If I don't do this now-- because I can always go back and get another restaurant gig. I mean, that's always easy. There's always-- the availability is there. But this is a singular thing. So I jumped in and obviously made the right decision. And it changed my life in ways that I just can't even thank Food Network enough for.
So Judy Girard, who was the very first president of the network-- she's retired now. She lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, and she runs a school for girls, a leadership school for girls. And she called me last year and wanted to know if I could come down and do a charity event to raise money for her school. And I couldn't say yes fast enough. She signed my first contract way back in the day. To thank her for taking a risk on me and to see what my life has turned out to become is a gift. And I say that to every new, young, fresh talent on Food Network. It is a gift. And welcome to the club. The table has gotten so big. There's room for everybody. And it's just such an exciting opportunity. And it changes your life.
And it's also an opportunity to really connect with a lot of people, too. And that's the most important thing you can never, ever, ever give up. People are looking to us and at us and for us for solutions. Not only for friendship and infotainment so we can show them great recipes and how to cook, but just great reliable information on how they can make their lives better. And so you always have to improve yourself. You always have to figure out, OK, what can I do this year that makes my information or my cooking or what we're up to even stickier with folks? And it's been an amazing wild ride. And we're super excited.
So here we are 25 years later crushing The Great Food Truck Race season 13, season 14, a lot of new fun stuff. We're also-- my production company, we're here in my television studio. So we have a production company and we're shooting lots of digital content for the network now too, which is really exciting. And we got a lot of fun stuff in the pipeline, too. So it's just been a crazy, crazy wild ride.
JAYMEE SIRE: Not only is Tyler on TV, but remember, he's a restaurateur as well. And we're going to talk all about that, coming up next. And you have been able to go back to the restaurant industry as well and kind of do both because obviously you have a restaurant in San Francisco, Wayfare Tavern, known for the very delicious fried chicken. I can personally vouch for it since I lived in San Francisco for five years.
And in speaking to you last fall, I was very impressed with just how you and your company was really able to pivot during the pandemic from you starting a food truck version of Wayfare Tavern on your own. You had the curated grocery boxes, the meal kits. Is there anything that you implemented during this time that will continue beyond the pandemic?
TYLER FLORENCE: Well there's a couple of things that we're thinking about continuing on well past this, and that's delivery. But not just local delivery but national delivery. But what we're really excited about is opportunities with companies like Goldbelly, which has been a lifesaver, a lifeline for a lot of restaurants be able to produce their signature dish at scale and ship it coast to coast. So now on Mondays, Wayfare Tavern is a factory where we produce fried chicken to go. And so we're doing a couple of thousand orders of that a week, which is really exciting. And that's a lot of-- it takes a lot of work as well.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah, that's a lot.
TYLER FLORENCE: It's a lot of coordination to make sure that we can get all that chicken packed up, Cryovac'd, and shipped out on time. And also the other thing that I think is really exciting is the idea of micro grocery. In the restaurant business, there's-- in the food world, there's a couple of places where you can get your food from and that's farmer's markets and grocery stores and restaurants. And I think grocery stores right now are ripe for innovation and disruption.
What we're really good at is sourcing fantastic ingredients and getting them to you at the last mile. And that's a hot plate of food right in front of you with a good glass of wine and spectacular service. But if we could think through what that last mile looks like and actually get a box of groceries that has a lot of the same ingredients-- so it's the same chicken breast, but it's marinated and then Cryovac'd. And it's a deli container full of fantastic cookie dough. And it's chicken noodle soup or it's our soup of the day. And it's a salad kit, things that you can actually meal prep with for the week. That's an amazing opportunity for a lot of restaurants to bifurcate what they're doing and not just think about that dollar-in, dollar-out meal service, but think about how can we get our signature gourmet product in people's refrigerators? So that's one thing that I think we're going to end up sticking with long term.
JAYMEE SIRE: That is definitely something that I've enjoyed as well. And I think as a consumer, it allows people to continue to support their favorite restaurants and their local establishments without necessarily-- if maybe they don't feel comfortable dining in yet or maybe they just really have become accustomed to getting these really high quality ingredients from a different source, I think it's just like a really fun way to bring that restaurant experience home. And I know you brought up your production company. And I wanted just to talk a little bit about the parallels between what you saw from your production of Uncrushable-- obviously that was made in the wake of the 2017 Napa fires. And just the parallels to what you saw in that aftermath to what you've seen over the past year just in terms of I think, people and community helping each other and just having that hope and fostering that hope.
TYLER FLORENCE: Well I was just talking to the CEO of Visit California yesterday on the phone as a matter of fact. And so Visit California is the state of California's advertising arm. So all those come visit California commercials and I've done a couple of them, they produce all those. And they've got a $200 million ad budget that produces $1.2 billion of tourism. And we were just talking about this yesterday because they had reached out and we'd reach out to them and said, can we produce some more amazing content just to let people know that the state's open, that restaurants are back in business and to really turn this into a feel-good program. And they loved it.
And so we're working on that, sculpting that storyline right now. But we just reflected on the fact that we've been in recovery since 2017. 2017 was the first big fire that was not a generational thing. So in the state of California-- and it's definitely climate change. And it's also the fact that it's happening through telephone poles are the major factor for wildfires in the state of California but just because they're not being maintained properly. There's four million power poles in the state of California. And sometimes they haven't been cared for or replaced in 15 or 20 years. And these are this big wooden sticks in the ground. So as the winds get higher, with El Niño as the temperature gets drier, these are basically matchsticks that tip over and catch the field on fire and then catch the forest on fire and then the town on fire. And it happens every single year.
So we're starting to address that from an infrastructure standpoint going-- no, and this is meeting climate change head on that the climate is dealing us a different deal now. So we can't have exposed power lines up and down the state because it's just too dangerous. So starting 2017 we have this big massive fire and 18 fires broke out within two hours of each other on October 7th 2017, 18 fires. So it wasn't like a one flash point that was-- it was the heavy wind snapping over these power poles all up and down between Northern Marin County and the top of Napa. And so all of a sudden, these huge fires started to break out and then connect and then spread. First year, we lost 44 people. The fires burned for about a month, and we lost-- it was like 8,000 structures, 8,000 buildings. And it burned. It jumped the one to one, and burned into Sonoma, into Santa Rosa where Guy Fieri lives. And it was just a horrible thing.
So we connected with the state of California and produced a documentary film on what recovery looked and felt like in 2017. And it was one of the most beautiful stories I've ever heard, much less have the privilege to create because of the human interest and how people pulled together and a sense of tragedy. So everyone knew-- because fire knows no economic boundary. It doesn't matter if you have a small modest house or a big mansion, fire will burn your house down. And so a lot of people were seemingly left with nothing and meeting in the middle from different economic classes going, OK, we're all in this together. And being able to document that story and how-- We banded together. We raised money. We got construction started really, really quickly through Habitats of Humanity to get buildings. We've been-- and Rohnert Park, which was completely destroyed and leveled.
And a lot of these homes are firefighters and teachers and police officers that live up there. And it was just absolutely devastating. So we got a chance to capture all of this in a really beautiful thoughtful way. And I think it's my finest work, I mean, out of everything that we've done. It was my first foray into making movies. I didn't really know exactly what I was doing, but being on television for 25 years and having a production company that primarily just shot television, but really thinking through OK, what is-- we can do a half an hour really, really well. All right, now let's do 90 minutes. And so we've been trying to crank out since 2017.
2018 was a big fire, 2019 was even bigger. 2020 was the first of what we called our giga fire where over a million acres burned in the state of California. And so we're partnering with Jose Andres with World Central Kitchen and making sure-- and Guy and I tackled Northern California together every single year. It's like a family reunion, unfortunately. I think it's like here we go again. We're doing it. But we get together every year, and wherever the community needs it the most because when the fire starts, the evacuations start. And they usually go to the Sonoma County Fair Facility where they have these big buildings. It's usually for shows and the car shows and that kind of thing. But we'll start setting up cots. We'll start setting up food systems right away because we know how to do it now.
And with that, I mean-- so you learn how to start feeding six, seven, 8,000 people three meals a day. And so that's like a newfound skill that we have now to be able to take care of other people. But it was scary. It's still scary. But I think through that, we have learned how to be better people. And we've learned how to take care and think about our larger community at a whole.
JAYMEE SIRE: Absolutely, which is very important obviously during a global pandemic as well. I did want to ask you about some of your other projects that you have coming up. I know you're working on a new steakhouse at Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors. And as somebody who covered the Warriors who comes from a sports broadcasting background, I personally witnessed just how much food has been integrated into the game day experience almost making it as much of a draw as the games themselves. How exciting is that to be part of that evolution because I know you're a big sports fan as well?
TYLER FLORENCE: I'm a big sports fan. I love basketball. I love baseball. And growing up in upstate South Carolina, I was a big Atlanta Braves fan growing up. And then moving to New York, you just fall in love with the Yankees. And now we've been in Northern California for I think about 13, 14 years now. And so the Giants are--
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah.
TYLER FLORENCE: We're friends with the organization. We've got tickets. We go to games. We love to follow along. And the Warriors, I mean, what an amazing success story that is. So three years ago when the Warriors organization shared the blueprints of the new arena with me and they were like, OK, we're not talking to any food service contractors yet. You're the first one. Pick your space.
So it's a partnership between myself and the Warriors. And it's literally the owner's restaurant. So it's called Miller & Lux. And it's an American steakhouse. And we're going to be opening probably the start-- and we're delayed for sure. We're delayed a year. But we're probably going to be opening the first of the '21, '22 season because we want to make sure that we can get people there.
And the beautiful thing about the story of the restaurant-- so Miller & Lux is a name that I stumbled across when doing research on the neighborhood. So it's in Dogpatch, just on the South Side of San Francisco, just past-- and they've renamed it Mission Rock. So in Mission Rock, Mission Bay, so it's got a new fancy name now.
JAYMEE SIRE: I used to live in Potrero Hill, so just over-- just right by there. Yeah.
TYLER FLORENCE: Exactly, exactly. Of course you know exactly where it is. The arena stands now used to be a meatpacking district back in the late 1800s.
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh cool.
TYLER FLORENCE: So all of the-- exactly. I thought, oh, my God. It's amazing. So it was called Butcher's Town. It was called Butcher's Town. So all the cattle that was raised in the San Joaquin Valley was put on to railroad cars and trucked up to San Francisco to be processed and salted and shipped around the world because they salted food back. And so Miller & Lux was the company that had the biggest footprint in the Butcher's Town that is in the same neighborhood exactly standing exactly where the new arena is today.
So it was two immigrants that came from Germany in the middle 1850s. And they started the largest cattle company in the state of California. They were known as the cattle kings of California. So the company went out of business in 1926. And no one's ever done anything with the trademark. I thought the name was just fabulous. I love the story.
So I researched it, bought the domain name, reregistered the trademark. And now that history is with me, which is great. So you get a chance to tell that story all over again. So we're super excited. So Miller & Lux, brand new American steakhouse, it's going to open definitely Q4 2021. And we're on track to have a late September, early October launch. And I just can't wait to do it all over again.
JAYMEE SIRE: That sounds like, I mean, the perfect evening. Go have an amazing steak dinner. Go watch the Warriors. As you mentioned, you're sitting doing this interview from your kitchen studio there. And I know you've created a Wolf it Down, which is this virtual culinary hub. You've got YouTube videos, a podcast of your own virtual cooking classes, recipes. Is it safe to say that you are really trying to inspire this next generation of food-obsessed people?
TYLER FLORENCE: I just love the fact that doing what we've done for the last 25 years has given us a lot of skills, both high and low. So we can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. I mean, we can create the content. And we can deliver world-class food video content on a lot of different levels.
So we're just excited about playing with this new thing we're doing. It's our new foodie hub called Wolf it Down. And we're just having a great time doing it. And so connecting all of our partners and all of our friends that we've been working with for the last couple of years and bringing them into one location and one place where you can find us, and you can see us, and you can pick it up, and you can hold it, you can taste it, you can talk about it. That to me feels important right now.
So we're creating partnerships with olive oil companies in the state of California, knife makers in California, caviar producers in California. We got t-shirts and hats and all kinds of fun stuff. And you can watch videos. And you can join us live for live virtual cooking classes every Thursday, which is super exciting. So WolfitDown.Com/live is the ticket window. The class starts at 4:00 PM on the West Coast and 7:00 PM on the East Coast. And the classes are getting bigger every single week. And the technology today is kind of amazing, right?
JAYMEE SIRE: It is.
TYLER FLORENCE: I mean, it's kind of amazing. The fact that I can be in your kitchen and you can be in mine, and we can cook the same dish together, and you can hold up your sauté pan and tell me, is this what you mean? Is this thick enough? Is it done yet? Is this thing-- I'm like, absolutely. Two more minutes, put it back in the oven. It's great. And that kind of feedback, real-time feedback is kind of interesting.
So starting last March when the pandemic happened and Food Network said, OK, I think we're going to have to shift our production schedule from the first part of the year-- because normally we're shooting about now to the last part of the year. We said, OK, what are we going to do and what can we do? So we just started to pivot-- pivoting into this live virtual thing.
And so we hosted, got over 90 cooking classes last year. And the classes were in the 250, 300. We had a couple of classes over 1,000 people, and partnering up with corporations, grocery store chains, cloud companies, tech companies here in California. And it was just-- it was wild. And we got really good at it really quickly. And so now that's part of our permanent new thing that we're doing now.
And like most things, we were doing what feels good, and then we'll figure out how to turn into a business business later. But right now, we're just having a good time. And I think that's the most important thing. So we're producing great content for the people. We're cranking out. And we're inviting people into our space where we get to be included in theirs. We get to see their kids. You know what I mean? They get a chance to hold up their plate of food every single week and say Tyler, you and I made this together. And it is so incredibly rewarding.
JAYMEE SIRE: That's awesome. No, I think that that is definitely one of the things that-- a positive thing that has come over the last year. This ability to really produce from home. I mean, we've transformed our apartment into a home studio. But it's fun because you can still connect with people in a virtual way. Obviously nothing can replace the in-person experience. But I think that being able to include people from all over the world and the country is really, really special.
So we could go on and on for several hours talking, but I did want to ask you one final question that we have been asking all of our guests on Food Network Obsessed. And you probably know what it is since you said you've been listening every week. But anybody out there who is listening for the first time, here is our final question. What would be on the menu for your perfect food day? So we're talking breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. No rules. You can time travel, spend however much money you want. You can cook it yourself, have somebody in the past cook it, whatever you want.
TYLER FLORENCE: So it's definitely going to have eggs. It's definitely going to have barbecue. It's definitely going to have caviar. It's definitely going to-- so I've got a mix and match thing going on. But I got to tell you, we have chickens. We've had chickens for about 10 years or so. And so every day, we'll get a half dozen or eight fresh new eggs. So we've got-- we've always got a ton of eggs. My 13-year-old, his banana bread during pandemic-- he was learning how to make an omelet. So we've been crushing omelets in the house. And then he's gotten actually really, really good at it. So to me, a perfect omelet with a little bit of just either Monterey Jack cheese melted through. Very, very simple. Or Taleggio or some sort of super creamy high fat cheese that melts, a Havarti, anything that gets really melty, really stretchy.
The magic of two eggs-- because I think three is a little too thick, and one's not thick enough structure wise. Scramble the eggs. Don't put anything in it. You don't put anything that would dilute this protein to keep the omelet from rolling up tightly upon itself because if you add milk to it, it's going to be too soft. And you're going to have a really hard time flipping it over. And you have to get a really, really good nonstick pan. And you have to take care of that non-stick pan. That non-stick pan is not anything that you cook anything else in, and you never put anything metal at the bottom of that pan. It's for omelets only, and you've got to respect the pan. So I think a perfect omelet--
JAYMEE SIRE: And no cooking spray. No cooking spray. I found out several years ago. You're not supposed to do that either because that'll ruin it.
TYLER FLORENCE: Yeah, no cooking spray. I do like a little bit of butter in my toast. So I'll take two eggs, crack them, and mix them really, really well together. I mean, really well so there's no streaks of white, no streaks of yellow, perfectly amalgamated just with a fork. And then I'll take a tablespoon or two of butter, pop it down in the bottom, and then pour the eggs on top of that, turn the temperature down low, and give it a nice stir.
So you want the eggs to start to set like creme brulée. So that happens at about 200 degrees. So it's really, really low, so you've got to be patient with it. And you'll feel like you're not doing anything. It feels like, OK, this is not cooking. But it actually is. You'll start to see a little steam rise to it. And then the proteins will start to set. And then once you're ready to flip it-- so the magic of a perfectly soft egg that tastes creamy with no cream is the technique of perfectly cooking it. So once you stir it together and it starts to set what's going to feel like loose scrambled eggs, put it back into place. Give it a nice big smooth-- and really smooth over with your spatula. And then try not to do anything else to it on the inside. So that custard-like creme brulée texture will reveal itself once you cut it once you're finished. Again, your favorite soft-shredded melty cheese. It could be Brie, could be Boursin cheese, could be Havarti, could be cheddar, whatever is going to give you that really unctuous melty cheese vibe, that's what you want to go with.
And then when you roll it over, so you want to take the omelet pan starting from 6 o'clock where the handle is, you want to revert it back to nine. And then you want to take a rubber spatula and start to pull away with the backside of the omelet facing your hand, and then have it catch the cheese, and then it's two big flips to get down to the bottom. So if you're ginger with it, you run the risk of tearing it. But it's like you want to flip it once so the end of the omelet will hit the cheese and stick, and then it's two big flips to get to the bottom. And then you'd pop it on a plate, boom, you give it a good flip, tighten it up a little bit with a towel if you want to. And then you put some caviar on it. So that's my--
JAYMEE SIRE: Oh, that's the--
TYLER FLORENCE: That's my thing, a perfectly cooked French omelet with a scoop of caviar on it. If you're asking me, you know what I mean? And I think you are.
JAYMEE SIRE: Yeah. I am.
TYLER FLORENCE: If you're asking me, that's my perfect breakfast. And then for lunch, to me, I love being here in Northern California. It's like it's all about being healthy so it's fresh salads, beets, spinach, nice French vinaigrette, sunflower seeds, lots of good texture, lots of good veggies. That to me is always my choice lunch because it sustains my energy all day long. And then at dinner, I'm a barbecue-obsessed person. So I smoke barbecue every weekend. Every weekend, I got my Big Green Egg out. And every weekend, I'm either smoking shoulder, or I'm smoking ribs, or I'm smoking beef ribs. And my wife just got me these two big cowboy cauldrons, these two big outdoor on the range, massive cast iron steel kettle grills.
JAYMEE SIRE: Amazing.
TYLER FLORENCE: Cowboy cauldron, look it up when you get time. They're crazy. I just got two of them for my birthday. I'm just meat obsessed. So really good steaks, really great melty beef shoulder, perfectly smoked beef ribs, that to me, it's just-- it makes my eyes roll back in my head. That's how good it is. And so I would go decadent for breakfast. I'd go healthy for lunch. And then I would just like deep rich melty smoked meat for dinner all day long.
JAYMEE SIRE: And what about dessert? Are you a sweets guy? Or you skip dessert?
TYLER FLORENCE: I usually skip dessert. I'm not a big-- I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I'm what they call pig over cake.
JAYMEE SIRE: I'm same.
TYLER FLORENCE: I'm pig over cake all day long.
JAYMEE SIRE: All right. Well that sounds-- I mean, I'm going to be dreaming about that omelet for a while. And I might have to go make one myself and try my hand at it. That sounds like a fantastic food day. I'm also a big barbecue person. So we're definitely on the same page. And I so appreciate you taking the time to chat and join us on Food Network Obsessed. It's been such a joy chatting with you. And continued success in all of your projects.
TYLER FLORENCE: Jaymee, congratulations on this. Welcome to Food Network. We couldn't be happier. There's so much room at the table. And I wish you nothing but success in all of this. Congratulations.
JAYMEE SIRE: I appreciate that. Thank you so much. So great catching up with Tyler and talking about what he's been up to, which is a lot apparently. And for more Tyler, you can catch new episodes of The Great Food Truck Race: Alaska on Sundays at 10:00/9:00 Central on Food Network and streaming on Discovery Plus.
As always, thanks so much for listening. Make sure to follow us if you aren't already so you don't miss a single thing. And if you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to rate and review. We love when you do that. That's it for now. We will catch you, foodies next Friday.