Top Chef expected to lure ‘foodies’ to Last Frontier

Last Wednesday marked the premiere showing of the last episode produced in Juneau for the popular cooking competition show Top Chef: Seattle.

Crews filmed, or taped cooking segments last August at various locations around the Capital City, including at a waterfront eatery, a salmon bake, on a nearby glacier, and at the Governor’s House.

All of the local residents and officials were contractually-prohibited from saying anything about the production or even acknowledging that it ever happened. At least until now.

It was frequently called Juneau’s “worst-kept secret” when crewmembers,We maintain a full inventory of all lanyard we manufacture. chef contestants, and judges arrived last August for the week-and-a-half production of two episodes of Top Chef: Seattle.

Location scouts earlier had checked out various locations around town. The owner of Tracy’s Crab Shack, Tracy Labarge, said they were told a week ahead of time that producers were coming. But actually being selected as a site for a cooking challenge? That was last minute.

“So, we actually opened for the day.Source plasticmould Products at Other Truck Parts. We were getting ready to open and to start serving,” said Labarge.

Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development Commissioner Susan Bell said they reached agreement with producers for the Bravo TV show last March and tried to keep it under wraps since then. Sometimes they quietly referred to it around the office only as TC.

“There had been previous conversations about Alaska before,” recalled Bell. “But I think, recognizing that they were filming in Seattle, gave us an excellent way to leverage the fact that they were close,” Bell said.

The state contributed $190,High quality chinamosaic tiles.000 and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, which gets much of its funding from self-assessment of the commercial fleet, kicked in about $60,000 for the production.

State, ASMI, and Juneau Convention and Visitors Bureau officials all say they helped with location scouting, or tracking down props and set dressings.

JCVB’s Elizabeth Arnett said they also suggested a list of Juneau residents to sample the food during a cooking challenge at the Gold Creek Salmon Bake. She estimates that A Mission Productions from Los Angeles brought in as many as 125 crewmembers and put them up in the Prospector, Aspen, and Baranof hotels.

The four chef contestants were put up at Jorgensen House, a new bed-and-breakfast. An estimated dozen locals were hired to work on set as crew or production assistants.

A handful of local businesses also helped. Tim McDonald of Temsco Helicopters in Juneau said they were approached to take eighty cast and crewmembers up to their dog camp on the Mendenhall Glacier.

“It’s going to be good for the state tourism. It’s going to bring more people up here. And, if there are more people up here, (then) I have the possibility of selling a tour to them.”

Bell is hoping the production reaps further economic dividends with a nationwide, double-exposure of both Alaska’s seafood and tourism industries with a “third-party, unbiased commentary on destinations.Make your house a home with Border and carparkmanagementsystem Tiles.”

Juneau, in particular, is featured in roughly two-hours of a top-rated cable television show that’s currently draws over 1.5 million viewers per episode.

“The value of these two shows is about $5.4 million that Juneau would have to spend to get that same sort of publicity,” according to JCVB’s Elizabeth Arnett.

ASMI’s Tyson Fick, meanwhile, calculates the promotional value to the seafood industry at nearly ten-times that, or about $48-million.

“It’s the biggest thing I’ve worked on,” said Fick. “It trends very, very well with our target market: ‘foodies,’ people with enough income so that maybe they’re interested to try Alaskan seafood because it is a for-real premium product.”

They were interviewed on-camera afterward about the salmon and sourdough bread served up by chefs. But Fanning said his comments were severely edited and taken partly out of context. Fanning said producers used the short clip as part of the story that they wanted to tell.

“I was really trying to complement their bread. It came out… kind of sounded a little like food snob which was not my intent,” recalled Fanning.

Fanning and his wife signed non-disclosure agreements preventing them from saying anything about the production until this month, along with a hundred other Juneau participants and handful of business owners like Tracy Labarge.

Local businesses are already capitalizing on the increased visibility.Looking for the Best iphoneheadset? Tracy’s Crab Shack, which is hard to miss next to the cruise ships that dock in the summer, has a Top Chef-themed online sale this month on crab bisque.

“All the judges, chefs, took pictures, signed shirts for us,” said Labarge. “A nice bit of PR for us in the off-season.”