“We had a group of 10 guys the other day,” Bender says. “They got 10 orders, and they finished maybe 20 wings between them.”
When the episode debuts tonight at 9, Caliente (2922 Park Ave., 340-2920) will be hosting a viewing party featuring wings, but not the stupid kind. (The wings are so hot, the person preparing them wears three pairs of latex gloves.)
While in town, Richman also paid visits to Buz and Ned’s Real Barbecue (1119 N. Boulevard, 355-6055), where he sampled the hickory-smoked spare ribs, and The Black Sheep (901 W. Marshall St., 648-1300) for a couple of battleship sandwiches — the CSS Virginia and the USS Brooklyn.
Kevin Roberts, chef and co-owner of The Black Sheep, says he won’t be watching the show at 9 p.m. because he’ll be serving a private party. But he plans to catch it when it re-airs at 1 a.m.
“We had a pretty big turnout last night,” he says, attributing it to “a pre-viewing kind of buzz. I don’t know quite what to expect from it.”
The restaurant was also contacted recently by Delta Air Lines about being featured in its Sky magazine. “We’re just a little 30-foot hole in the wall," Roberts says. "So it’s pretty cool that this is all happening.”
Roberts isn’t quite sure how The Black Sheep attracted Richman’s attention, but he says, “Nobody else has a fried-chicken-liver sub.” That’s the CSS Virginia, one of the battleship sandwiches that the Man v. Food star sampled. It comes with shredded cabbage, green onions, Granny Smith apples and remoulade sauce.
“When I wanted to put it on the menu, people thought I was crazy,” Roberts says. “Then it got to be really popular. At one point, we were making so many of them, I wanted to take it off the menu.” Nothing doing, said staff and customers. So it stayed.
If you miss tonight’s airings, the Travel Channel’s schedule shows the Richmond episode airing again Saturday, July 3, at 10:30 a.m. and Friday, July 9, at 7:30 p.m.
