Camera crew from ‘America’s Best Restaurants’ descend on Wichita burger restaurant
A little northeast restaurant that has been quietly flipping burgers and frying fries for nearly 13 years was filled with a film crew Monday afternoon, and Wichita was invited to watch the proceedings.
From 2 to 5 p.m. Monday, a crew from America’s Best Restaurants — a national media and marketing company known for featuring independent restaurants around the country on its social media pages — was at Fizz Burgers & Bottles at 7718 E 37th St. North to capture footage for a piece it will later produce and post.
Troy and Rebecca Hertel, who bought the restaurant in 2021, had hoped customers would stop in and see what’s happening “behind-the-scenes” while the crew films the piece.
“Everybody’s always welcome,” Rebecca Hertel said.
America’s Best Restaurants, Rebecca said, is sort of like Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” in that it travels to well-regarded, locally owned restaurants across the country producing video features, only the packages it produces air online instead of on television. She said she and her husband were contacted by the company, who said they’d heard about Fizz and wanted to show what they could do to help the Hertels market the restaurant.
The company charges the restaurants it features, but the Hertels decided it was worth it.
“They’re just out to help the local small restaurants, where people in our own community may not even know that there’s this great little restaurant around the corner,” she said.
The Hertels are always looking for ways to get the word out about Fizz, Rebecca said. They bought it as fans: The previous owners were selling, and the Hertels were regulars who loved Fizz so much that they couldn’t stand seeing it go to someone who would change what made the restaurant special.
The new owners have tried to keep the restaurant the same as it’s always been but have added a few of their own touches, including featured monthly burgers and more specialty sodas and root beers. They also added peach cobbler to the menu, and they use Rebecca’s grandmother’s Depression-era family recipe.
America’s Best Restaurants has two crews that crisscross the country featuring restaurants. So far, they’ve visited 28 states and published 842 episodes on their Instagram, Youtube, Facebook and TikTok accounts.
Among the other Kansas restaurants the company’s crews have visited: High Tide 21 in Perry and Waudby’s Sports Bar and Grill in Russell.
This story was originally published July 31, 2023 at 12:00 PM.
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