The Mistake People Always Make With Supermarket Stakeout
There are a lot of moving parts to any show on Food Network. Videomaker shared a look inside the production of just one series on the network: "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives." There's managing all the equipment required to film, communicating with the talent about what the show needs, and handling crowds that can sometimes form around the shoots happening in public. Then, those processes happen all over again with each individual episode.
And, "Supermarket Stakeout" a Food Network show in a public setting. IMDb explains it as a cooking competition show in which four chefs jostle in a "pop-up kitchen" outside a grocery store. The unique spin to the show is that the chefs must acquire their own ingredients from shoppers as they leave the store. Each chef gets the same amount of cash with which to buy carts of groceries from shoppers leaving the store. Chef Alex Guarnaschelli hosts the show and recently shared the most common issue on the set.
Curiosity killed the cast
Alex Guarnaschelli is no stranger to adjusting on the fly, as her endeavors have included appearances on competition shows like "Chopped" and "Alex vs America." However, she probably could do without one adjustment that "Supermarket Stakeout" constantly has to make. Guarnaschelli explained the problem on Twitter, stating, "You would not believe the number of people that walk in to the middle of the set as if they are in a street fair or parking lot tailgate party? Shoppers are always so bewildered & ask if Bobby Flay is here once we tell them it's a Food Network show."
It's natural to be curious about what's going on when they see the production happening in their parking lots. Large parking lots are common settings for events in the United States. Obviously, though, people who aren't part of the production walking on the set can disrupt filming. "Supermarket Stakeout" isn't the first or only show to deal with this issue on its "closed" set. Videomaker says the producers of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" have to manage crowds around their set, too.
A Reddit thread lays out how producers of "Supermarket Stakeout" don't leave everything up to chance, as the competition is a television show, after all. For example, each shopper who has been featured in the filming signs a waiver, and all the groceries that are part of the production are in bags ready for the chefs to grab. It's impossible to control everything, though, to Guarnaschelli's lament.