How to watch
What: NBC’s America’s Next Great Restaurant
When: 8 p.m. Sundays
LIBERTY TWP. — Two guys walk into a bar. A few drinks later, they have an epiphany about toasted cheese. One says to the other, why not open our own restaurant? They next thing they know, their idea is being vetted on national television.
No joke.
Eric Powell, 29, landed himself a spot in the top 10 of NBC’s new reality contest show, America’s Next Great Restaurant, which debuted Sunday night. While he has signed a contract that he won’t spill the beans on the ending, he said this opportunity could mean the financing for three fully-funded restaurants — the prize to the winner — or at least the chance to show potential investors the merit of Meltworks, a chain of “grown up grilled cheese” restaurants he and his Lakota classmate Trevor Snowden first thought of in 2005.
“Anybody can make a grilled cheese sandwich at home,” he said while toasting a BBQ chicken grilled cheese sandwich with smoked Gouda cheese — the same he prepared for judges on the show.
However, not many people take the time to assemble fresh ingredients and study the optimal temperatures and methods of ensuring cheese melts and bread toasts to perfection.
“It’s not as easy as people think,” he said. “Quality and convenience, that’s what fast casual is all about.”
The son of Judge Stephen Powell of the 12th District Court of Appeals, step-son of Interim Superintendent Ron Spurlock and son of retired Lakota principal Elizabeth Spurlock, Powell graduated from Lakota in 1999. The 2003 Miami University graduate said he wasn’t thrilled about where he was working at the time when he and Snowden, a 2005 Miami graduate, came up with their dream.
After extensive study on the restaurant business and plenty of taste tests with friends and families, the two developed a menu of eight signature sandwiches and a business plan. The problem, he said, was securing financing and convincing investors the idea would catch on, especially when the economy went south.
While Powell is the face of the restaurant on television, he said Snowden shares in any success from the show and is the one most familiar with running a restaurant and being in the kitchen.
It is ironic since Powell’s ticket to the final 10 was a cookoff to see how many sandwiches he could make in 15 minutes.
“He did well,” Snowden, 30, said, impressed by 29 sandwiches Powell created. “It was fun seeing it.”
Each week of the nine-week contest, contestants are tested in business and culinary aspects of a business. The toughest part will be convincing the judges of the merit of their idea.
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