‘The Great Truck Race’: Tyler Florence on ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Season 18, Savannah Bananas & Road Life

It’s time to rev up your taste buds and appetites for Season 18 of The Great Truck Race: Truckin’ Awesome. The high-octane Food Network series returns August 3 as nine teams hit the road in hopes of leading the pack and winning $50,000. This journey won’t be easy with a number of pitstops across eight cities along the way. They’ll have to put the pedal to the metal in showing off their culinary creativity right from the start with a banana-themed challenge given by the phenom known as the Savannah Bananas baseball team. 

From there, guest chefs Kardea Brown and Rodney Scott stop by to lend their expertise in Charleston, South Carolina. The food truckers also get the chance to dash around the Darlington Raceway and cook for NASCAR’s Mamba Smith and Todd Gilliland. Also, on the travel itinerary is a secret surveillance challenge in Newport News, Virginia. It will all come down to the final destination where the top two teams compete in a sales frenzy finale on September 14, feeding the sailors of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in port at Naval Station Norfolk. In the end, only one walks away from the high-stakes environment with a big payday and coveted title. 

The thrill of competition never fades for host Tyler Florence as the show finds new ways to level up. We caught up with the chef, restaurateur and TV personality to preview some of the ‘jaw-dropping’ moments what’s to come.

What are your thoughts on the show’s longevity and impact it has on creating visibility for these businesses on wheels?  

Tyler Florence: This is my 29th year on the network. I started in 1996, and I think The Great Food Truck Race is my biggest contribution and impact to the restaurant community and hospitality industry. We’ve shown there is a new route. What was a trend back in places like Los Angeles and Portland back in 2009 or 2010, we’ve really blown it out to an industry. There are now over 57,000 active food trucks in America. The Great Food Truck Race has shown that if you hustle hard, you can put six figures a year in your pocket. We created an epic fanbase for the genre. 

Now food trucks are beloved all across America. They are building food truck parks. Food trucks are invited to be part of downtown festivals, carnivals, street fairs and all kinds of stuff. Now if you’re in the restaurant industry or are a chef, raising millions of dollars for a brick and mortar place is always hard. Here you can just jump in and lease a food truck and get started with 50 grand. We’re really proud of the contributions we’ve had to opening up this world of food trucks. The show is also fun. 

Host Tyler Florence and members of the Savannah Bananas baseball team on The Great Food Truck Race, Season 18. (Food Network)

What do you make of the lineup of competitors this time around? 

American street food has arrived. Make no mistake. This is the best group of chefs, best group of food trucks we’ve ever had. Everyone is bringing their A-game. The food is phenomenal. You really see the impact of what the show has brought, the awareness, and what the chefs have brought. They have fully embraced four wheels and food truck culture. They own it like it’s their home. They are great competitors. They are great castmates. They all become good friends. There are some rivalries sometimes, which I think makes the show really exciting. 

Tell me about what stands out for Season 18. 

This season we go back to my old neck of the woods. We go to the American South. I’m from South Carolina. We went to Savannah, Charleston and up to Myrtle Beach and went over to Darlington, South Carolina to do something with NASCAR. That was fun. We went to North Carolina with the finale in Virginia Beach, which is so much fun. Personally, I had such a great time. I had the best fried chicken and soul food and grits and great seafood and all the stuff I grew up with. It was good to be back. You’re going to get some insight into some of the most beautiful parts of America. 

You’re going to see this whole new generation of food trucks. This food is legit, real, delicious. The competitors are outrageous and funny. When the show kicks off, there is always someone you want to root for. This is a rock n’ roll business show. Everything you learned in kindergarten and business school where it’s buy low, sell high, location, location, it shows itself here. These day-to-day decisions these operators make, you at home watching get to play armchair quarterback. Sometimes the trucks make knucklehead mistakes or good decisions. We start with nine and end with one with $50,000 on the line. 

How was it having the Savannah Bananas involved? Much like food trucks, they started grassroots and have evolved into such a big draw. 

The show has never been bigger. Fans know our catchphrase, “Let’s get rolling.” People scream it to me in airports. It’s hilarious. I’ll blast out the locations and 5 or 6,000 people will show up. The crowds are insane. They absolutely love it…The Savannah Bananas were super fun. It’s not just a baseball team. They put on a show. You have these amazing baseball players that jump into the character of being a Savannah Banana. The routines they do before the wind up and pitch and in between innings. All these things. They were hilarious. They also play amazing baseball on top of all of it. I’m glad they got to jump in for the Savannah episode. We did a banana challenge. They were just a riot. 

What can you tell us about the surprises and twists and turns to expect? 

The challenges are always to me one of the most exciting things about the season. Critical Content, the production company, does a great job thinking outside the box. They are just incredibly original and thought-provoking. There are challenges as a food truck operator you’d face on a daily basis, but amplified a bit. We’re not going to just hand out $50,000. You have to earn it. One order or portion you serve, you can make a mistake and go home. It happens a few times this season. The competition gets so tight, especially when we get down to four teams because they are all just really good. 

The surprises are always jaw-dropping. We made them stop in the middle of service and make them do things that they would face outside the show. We’ve done our homework and research. Problems that would pop up do. It’s a lot of good fun, but the challenges keep the pace high and keep them sharp. The banana challenge where they had to add a banana dish to the menu they were working on.  All of a sudden, for them, they do some incredible stuff with this ingredient. You see how creative they are, and how fast they think. 

What’s one thing viewers don’t see during production on the road? 

We try to find the best dinner place. We’re always on the hunt for what the locals are talking about. I got the chance to find some really great restaurants. Williamston, North Carolina. I was super impressed with that city. They had some great restaurants. The favorite place I went to was when we were in Virginia Beach. One of my restaurants, Walker Tavern in San Francisco, that’s where fried chicken is our signature dish because I’m from the South. I’m always on the hunt for good fried chicken. I bumped into this place called BoBo’s in Virginia Beach. I have a radar for food, I call a “food-ar” where I’ll go past a place that may look like a shack but there is something about it there is amazing food in there. I will hit the gas, turn around, and I’m always right. 

BoBo’s Fine Chicken has the best fried chicken I have had in my entire life. They brine it. It’s batter fried and not dredged. Then they fry it in pork lard, which is just wild in this day and age. It was insanely delicious. So that’s a personal thing behind the scenes that I always like. That and looking for a really great coffee shop. As a chef, I think that’s the difference between an okay chef and a great chef is their worldliness. How often they travel, what they are experiencing and tasting. Show me what you collected. One of my favorite things about the show is that we’ve been everywhere. 

Some of my favorite food experiences came from The Great Food Truck Race. It’s the same production, so it’s going on this road trip with your friends. I hope people pick up on that too. We have a great time shooting the show. It’s such a blessing. We always shoot in the spring and then clock out and go out as friends. We’ll text with each other deciding where we’re going to have dinner. We literally have a ball. It’s so much fun. 

Is there a place you want to see the show go next? 

There are three dream trips. One would be Hawaii. I would like to see The Great Food Truck Race in Hawaii. I don’t know how we would make it happen. We have a steakhouse at the Four Seasons called Miller & Lux Hualalai. I’m in Hawaii six or seven times a year. There is such a great food truck culture there. We would make it work. Maybe put the boats on a ferry and take them from Kona to Maui or something. I’m putting it out there in the universe now. 

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The other thing is to have an international version of the show. Like if we said we would go from Montreal to Mexico City. Then we have three teams from Canada, three teams from the United States and three teams from Mexico. We literally stay in Montreal and go straight down the Mississippi River and make a beeline to Mexico City. Then we have the finale there. 

The internationalism of all of it would be huge. We also talked about doing the Great Lakes race where we would go from Green Bay to Buffalo. That would be a beautiful drive. I’ve never done that. It’s also a high-density Food Network area. We also kicked around doing a tribute to the military. If we had the Marines versus the Navy versus the Army versus the Air Force versus the Coast Guard. Something like that I think would be fun too. There is always another good season for us to kick around. We’ll start planning for Season 19 around October or November. We’re looking forward to that too, but this season coming up will be a blockbuster season.

The Great Food Truck Race: Truckin’ Awesome Season 18 premiere, August 3, 9/8c, Food Network (Next Day on HBO Max)