The Outrigger Pizza Co., a food truck based in Kihei, is already enjoying the success of being featured on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” show, which was televised Friday.
Five more Maui-based eateries and food trucks are slated in the next month or so to be featured on the national show, which showcases popular, locally owned restaurants from across the country and Canada. Bleached-blonde, spiky-haired chef Guy Fieri hosts the show and has his own brand of restaurants across the United States and in Mexico.
“This morning, I was busy as can be. Everyone was talking about the show,” said Outrigger Pizza Co. co-owner Kevin Laut on Monday afternoon.
Loyal regular customers were contacting him after the show aired on Friday, saying, “Oh my God, I saw you on the show,” he said.
“Being a small business on Maui and getting national exposure, it’s just unreal what it’s going to do for our business,” Laut said.
The yellow food truck carries a pizza oven and is mostly parked at the Kukui Mall in Kihei. It is co-owned by Big Island resident Eric Mitchell.
The other Maui businesses include Da Kitchen, Fat Daddy’s Smokehouse, Like Poke . . . ? and Star Noodle, a Food Network spokeswoman confirmed when she released dates for when those eateries would be featured on the TV show. It had yet to be determined when Miso Phat would be featured, though co-owner Joy Steadman said it would likely be televised sometime in August or September.
Fat Daddy’s Smokehouse will get a double dose of play on the Food Network because its chef/owner, Chris Schobel, will be on “Chopped Grill Masters,” a competition for chefs, to be televised on July 12.
The episode with Outrigger Pizza will replay at 4:30 p.m. today and again at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and 1 p.m. Saturday.
Laut said he had a lot of fun several months ago when the episode was filmed with Fieri.
“He’s very energetic. Fun. He knew a lot about pizza, which made it a little more interesting for me,” Laut said. “The things I look for in pizza, he was looking for the exact same things. It was just fun with the (kiawe) wood-fired oven.”
The pizza truck business started seven years ago at Azeka Place, but for the past two years, the truck has been mostly at Kukui Mall, though it also travels to Maui Brewing Co. in Kihei and to Pukalani Longs Drugs on some days of the week.
The truck features 10 different pizzas. Its most popular pizza is the lilikoi (passion fruit) pork, Laut said.
Like Poke..? food truck owner Danny Kalahiki agreed that being featured on the show would help business.
But he’s already busy with his local “loyal” customer base as well as tourists, who learn about the food truck (now stationed with other food trucks near Costco) via social media and review sites such as Yelp. The business began in 2009.
“We already sell out every day,” Kalahiki said. “I don’t know how I’m going to do more at the same time.”
Still, he is grateful to be on the show, which features an old buddy and fellow chef Reno Henriques of Oahu, who appears with Fieri on the Maui segments. Henriques befriended Fieri when the show visited restaurants on Oahu.
Kalahiki worked with Henriques at his Fresh Catch restaurant. The two also attended Western Culinary Institute in Oregon together.
Kalahiki’s raw poke, fried poke and baked poke were made for Fieri.
Kalahiki said Fieri complimented his business and offered words of encouragement.
“When it was all said and done (Fieri) said, ‘You got an excellent product. Keep doing what you are doing.’ ”
At Da Kitchen nearby, co-owner Mariah Brown is pleased that Maui eateries will get their chance to be on the national show.
“It’s great that Maui has a voice,” she said. Da Kitchen also has a location in Kihei.
“It was an amazing experience,” she said of the tapings that took place in March over two days. She also called it an “honor.”
To accommodate the filming, Da Kitchen Kahului closed on a Friday, one of its busiest days, when the restaurant serves 1,200 to 1,500 customers. Brown explained that for the restaurant and the crew, it would have been difficult to film with the heavy crowds that fill the eatery, which oftentimes has people waiting outside for an open table.
And, Brown said that if the crew wanted to film on a certain day and to close the restaurant, “I wasn’t going to tell them no.”
Co-owner and chef Les Tomita “was the star” and showed Fieri how Da Kitchen cooks make their teriyaki sauce from scratch. Fieri was shown the Notorious B.I.G. Moco, which is hamburger, chili, two eggs, mushrooms, onions, Spam, cheese, bacon, Portuguese sausage and fried rice.
Brown said that during the taping, the restaurant invited some of its regular customers to sit in and eat, as well as talk to Fieri.
At Fat Daddy’s Smokehouse at the Kihei Kalama Village, Schobel said the presence of Fieri on the restaurant’s Facebook page has driven up views.
When the restaurant posts a photo, he said to have 250 to 700 views “is big.” When the restaurant announced and posted photos of the “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” promotion, that post received around 6,000 views, Schobel said.
By comparison, a post about Schobel being on “Chopped Grill Masters,” which takes place in Napa Valley, Calif., received 3,500 views, he said.
Schobel said he enjoyed the filming. He added that when Fieri walks into a restaurant, he does not say a word to the interview subject; a producer told Schobel that if Fieri and a chef were to “hit it off” the show producers want the moment on camera.
For the show, Schobel, a former chef at Hula Grill in Kaanapali, made St. Louis ribs and “burnt ends,” in which he uses the cap of a brisket that has already been smoked. It’s smoked again for a total of 15 hours, he said.
Schobel bought the restaurant in November 2013, which had been open for 5 years under previous ownership. He changed the menu and remodeled the restaurant. He said the restaurant’s most popular menu item may be the sampler platter.
Miso Phat, which has two locations on Maui – one at the Kahana Manor and another at Kihei Azeka II – featured its “TNT Roll” (Miso the Bomb) and lilikoi ice cream on the show.
“I think it’s a wonderful compliment and great accomplishment,” Steadman said of being on the show. “Getting our name out to people all over the world, letting them know we are serious about serving the freshest high quality fish that we can get, whether its from our own boat the Shiso Phat or from local fisherman and divers.”
She owns the restaurants with her husband, Shawn.
The restaurant’s biggest sellers are its sashimi and poke. Its first location opened in July 2013 in Kahana, and the second location in Kihei followed in November 2015.
Star Noodle in Lahaina showed off a Vietnamese crepe along with noodles to Fieri, said Michael Moore of Na Hoaloha Ekolu, the West Maui restaurant group that owns and operates Star Noodle and other Maui restaurants.
Chef Dylan Montano showed Fieri how to make noodles the old-fashioned way. The restaurant has a vintage noodle-making machine.
Moore said the show is watched by many, and it’s a “powerful vehicle” to showcase restaurants.
“We are really fortunate to be a busy place already,” Moore said of Star Noodle. “It’s sort of a celebration of success.”
Star Noodle’s episode, titled “Creole, Cold Cuts and Crepes,” will be televised July 15.
The episode featuring Da Kitchen, Fat Daddy’s Smokehouse and Like Poke..? is scheduled to run July 1. It is titled “Soakin’ Up Maui.”
Viewers should check their TV listings for times.
* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.
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