“You guys have this hustle and this spirit — you guys are professional through and through,” the show’s host, Tyler Florence, told the Dayton-based team after delivering the bad news of their elimination during Sunday night’s segment. “It’s been a pleasure rolling this far with you.”
“We’re proud, but at the same time, we’re extremely disappointed. We’re losing a part of our life right now,” team member Travis Day said in the show’s episode 7, which was taped earlier this year but aired Sunday night.
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Drew Ballard — head chef at Carvers Steak & Chops who applied to be on the show with a team consisting of his fiancee, Jess Sarra, and his Carvers colleague and roommate Day — said the three were “living with a dream, a goal of taking over the world together in food trucks, and bringing happiness and smiles and flavors to everybody we can.”
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Ballard, 27, worked his way up from Carvers busboy and server assistant at 17 to head chef, with restaurant stops in California, Colorado and South Dakota along the way.
The Carvers chef said earlier this year, before the series launched on air, that he and his teammates were “proud and humbled to represent Dayton on a national stage, especially since our local culinary and brewery scene is so awesome right now.”
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If you’re wondering why you’ve never seen or heard of the Rolling Indulgence food truck, that’s because Ballard and his team created the brand specifically for the show. It has yet to make its local debut.
“But all three of us would love for Rolling Indulgence to have a future,” Ballard said earlier this year.
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The winning food truck team takes home a $50,000 cash prize. The two remaining teams will decide the winner next Sunday, July 29.
*** PREVIOUS UPDATE (July 15, 2019)***
The “Team Rolling Indulgence” food truck operated by three Carvers Steaks & Chops employees have made the final three of the Food Network series “The Great Food Truck Race.”
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The team survived Episode 6, the show’s stop at For Lauderdale, Florida, and will now compete with the two other remaining teams in the show’s next episode that will air on Sunday, July 21. The team with the lowest sales is eliminated each week.
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The winning food truck team takes home a $50,000 cash prize. The show was taped earlier this year, but participants are sworn to secrecy as to what transpired until after the show’s conclusion later this summer.
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Team Rolling Indulgence struggled a bit in the show’s first episode, but its sales in comparison to the competing teams rose in Episode 2 and then topped the field in Episode 3, which aired June 23.
The Great Food Truck Race airs at 9 p.m. Sundays on the Food Network. The final episode that crowns the winner will air on July 28.
*** PREVIOUS UPDATE (July 1, 2019)
The “Team Rolling Indulgence” food truck operated by three Carvers Steaks & Chops employees survived — barely — the fourth episode of the elimination Food Network series “The Great Food Truck Race.” The episode aired June 30.
The team placed second-to-last among the teams in dollar sales during the show’s stop at Tampa, Florida, meaning they will move on to the show’s next stop, Fort Myers, Florida, to compete with four other remaining teams in the show’s next episode. The team with the lowest sales is eliminated each week.
***PREVIOUS UPDATE (June 24, 2019)
The “Team Rolling Indulgence” food truck operated by three Carvers Steaks & Chops employees — including the head chef — not only survived the third episode of the elimination Food Network series “The Great Food Truck Race,” they placed first among the teams in sales during the show’s stop at Daytona, Florida.
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That means the team survived the cut for another week and is headed to the show’s next stop, in Tampa, Florida, where it will compete against five other teams. The food truck team that sells the least is eliminated at each stop, and the winning team takes home a $50,000 cash prize.
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Team Rolling Indulgence struggled a bit in the show’s first episode, but its sales in comparison to the competing teams rose in Episode 2 and then topped the field in Episode 3, which aired last night, June 23.
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The Great Food Truck Race airs at 9 p.m. Sundays on the Food Network.
***UPDATE (June 14, 2019)***
“Team Rolling Indulgence” — which consists of three employees, including the head chef, of Carvers Steaks & Chops in Washington Twp., — survived the first cut in Episode 1 of the Food Network series “The Great Food Truck Race,” meaning it will return for the show’s second episode, which airs at 9 p.m. this Sunday, June 16 on the Food Network.
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The local team survived despite somewhat disappointing sales at the show’s first stop and despite its food truck being run into by one of the other competing teams.
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***ORIGINAL STORY (June 6, 2019)***
The head chef at Carvers Steaks & Chops in Washington Twp. and two of his, well, closest colleagues were chosen to compete in this year's Food Network series, "The Great Food Truck Race," which airs its first episode this Sunday, June 9.
Drew Ballard, head chef at Carvers Steak & Chops, said he has always had a concept for a food truck in his head, so when he saw an online casting call for “The Great Food Truck Race” several months ago, he responded by submitting an entry for “Rolling Indulgence,” a 1950s diner-like food truck concept freshened up for 2019.
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And on Feb. 3 of this year — the day he had planned to propose to his now-fiancee and Carvers head cocktail server Jess Sarra — he got a call back from the network. They were interested.
Ballard went ahead and proposed. Sarra said yes. And the couple and their roommate, Carvers head bartender Travis Day, started refining the food-truck concept and assembling a more detailed pitch to the cable network’s executives.
“Feb. 3 was a day that changed our lives,” Ballard said.
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The Food Network approved “Team Rolling Indulgence” as one of the contestant teams for the 2019 season (Season 10) of the cable network’s show. After Ballard persuaded Carver’s owners and its general manager to grant him and his two colleagues time off from the restaurant (the head chef praised his Carvers crew for stepping up and filling in while they were gone), the three-member team participated in the shooting of The Great Food Truck Race earlier this year.
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Here’s how a Food Network release describes Season 10 of the show:
"The Great Food Truck Race celebrates summer with a Tyler Florence-hosted culinary beach battle along the Atlantic coast, with nine teams of aspiring food truck owners with unique concepts competing for a $50,000 grand prize. Each week, the caravan of competitors hits a different seaside town for high-stakes food challenges that test their cooking chops, business skills and selling strategies, and the least successful truck is sent home until the one team left standing is awarded $50,000.
The Great Food Truck Race kicks off in Myrtle Beach on Sunday, June 9th at 9 p.m. and then hits Hilton Head, Daytona Beach, Tampa, Fort Myers, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, culminating in a Key West finale on Sunday, July 28 at 9 p.m."
Ballard, Sarra and Day are now back at work at Carvers, and of course are forbidden to discuss how they fared in the show’s competition or even disclose how long they were off work, since that might provide a hint about the show’s ending.
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Here's how the Food Network describes the Rolling Indulgence team from Dayton on its web site:
"Drew Ballard has traveled the country and worked his way up to become head chef at a high-end steak restaurant, where he works with his fiancée Jess Sarra, who he met in high school, and best friend Travis Day. The trio have a family dynamic — they not only work together, they live together. They are ready to hit the road and win it all to create their own path in the food industry."
Ballard worked his way up from Carvers busboy and server assistant at 17 to head chef a decade later (he turned 27 just a few days ago), with restaurant stops in California, Colorado and South Dakota in between.
The Carvers chef said he and his teammates were “proud and humbled to represent Dayton on a national stage, especially since our local culinary and brewery scene is so awesome right now.”
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If you’re wondering why you’ve never seen or heard of the Rolling Indulgence food truck, well, that’s because Ballard and his team created the brand specifically for the show. It has yet to make its local debut.
“But all three of us would love for Rolling Indulgence to have a future,” Ballard said.
There are still details to be worked out, the Carvers chef said, but, “Hopefully you may be seeing it in the Dayton and Cincinnati area soon.”
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