Despite other teams ganging up on them, Wichitans advance to top 3 on ‘Food Truck Race’
The Wichita food truck team competing on Season 17 of Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race” is in a good position heading into the final episodes.
At the end of Sunday night’s episode ”Mardi Gras Moola” — the sixth of eight that will air — the Argentina’s Empanadas team had finished in the top two for a third consecutive week. Not only that, but it was the champion of one of the episode’s sales challenges and will be one of the final three teams competing for the $50,000 grand prize.
But the episode was more than a little uncomfortable as the remaining teams threw out accusations about each other and host Tyler Florence had to intervene, kindergarten teacher style.
The teams were cooking in Mobile, Alabama, where Mardis Gras originated in 1703, and they were challenged by Florence to create a dish that incorporated local crawfish. Whichever team won the challenge would get extra money plus access to a “personal shopper” who would go to the grocery store and stock up on supplies while the team continued to sell food.
Argentina’s Empanadas won the challenge, selling 30 items in an hour. It was clear that the news frustrated some of the other teams, who appeared to be tiring of the Wichita team’s dominance.
“What is it going to take to beat Empanadas?” a member of one of the competing teams, Fishnet out of Baltimore, said in an interview.
“It feels like a joke,” added another member of the Fishnet team
Not long after, the Fishnet team decided to employ a new tactic to try to steal business from Argentina’s Empanadas. Using a megaphone, the Fishnet team began announcing that all of its ingredients were homemade and implying that the Wichita team used boxed or pre-made ingredients to make its food.
“Don’t listen to that nonsense,” Chad Freeman, a member of the Argentina’s Empanadas team, told the gathered crowd.
Later, Freeman texted members of two of the other teams to let them know that a customer had told the team that Bao Bei from Washington, D.C., had cheated by offering his daughter money to buy food from its truck. The teams that sell the most food by the end of each episode advance to the next round.
But this aggravated the other two remaining teams — Fishnet and Wally’s Waffles from Chicago — who said they didn’t believe the Bao Bei team would cheat. They declared that they’d stand by Bao Bei and align with them against Argentina’s Empanadas.
When Florence later visited the trucks individually, the tattling began. First, the Wichita team told him about the accusations being shouted over the megaphone. When Florence went to confront the Fishnet team about its actions, team members told him about the cheating accusations from Argentina’s Empanadas.
So Florence went back to the Argentina’s Empanada’s truck and asked them about starting the rumor — though the screen then cut to actual footage of the customer sharing this information with Argentina’s Empanadas team member Paola Mentis.
Florence told the Wichita team members that they should have brought the information to producers rather than spread it to the other trucks.
“You know what’s happening now?” he said to the Wichita team. “All three of these teams are forming a squad of their own to try to get you guys out.”
At the end of the episode, the teams gathered to find out who’d won and lost the Mobile leg of the race. Florence addressed the “dirty laundry” and assured teams that he’d reviewed the footage and that Bao Bei had not cheated.
Bao Bei was named the champion of Sunday night’s episode, and Argentina’s Empanadas finished in second place — selling $3,699 worth of food.
Fishnet was eliminated, meaning that Argentina’s Empanadas, Wally’s Waffles and Bao Bei are the final three teams and in the semifinals.
Next week, the teams will be in Panama City, Florida. The finale, filmed at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in Miami, will air on Sunday, Aug. 18.
This story was originally published August 5, 2024 at 11:48 AM.
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