Food Network makes a ‘Pit Stop’ in Merrick

One of Merrick’s most popular eateries will soon be put in the national spotlight.

The Pit Stop, on Sunrise Highway, is scheduled to be featured on an episode of Guy Fieri’s hit show on the Food Network, “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.”

Fieri and his production staff took the show to the restaurant in early October, spending two days cooking and filming with Pit Stop owner Tony Rubano.

It all started a few months ago when Rubano was sitting in his restaurant with a customer, booking a catering party. One of his staff told him that he had a phone call, and that it was someone from the Food Network.

“My immediate response was, ‘Who’s kidding?’” Rubano said. “I thought it was a friend of mine playing a joke on me.”

It was no joke. It was the producer of “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” on the other end, who told Rubano that the Food Network was interested in featuring his restaurant on the show.

According to Rubano, the producers looked into their viewership files for the area and pulled out restaurants that had been recommended the most by viewers. The Pit Stop came up as one of the top restaurants. After seven phone interviews, said Rubano, the Pit Stop was finally selected for the show.

Said Rubano, “They called us one day and said, ‘[Fieri] really likes what he sees in your store with the diversity of it, and with all the different things you do on your menu, so we’re going to come and do two shootings.’”

The show, which debuted on the Food Network in 2007, features Fieri taking “road trips” around the country as he searches for unique restaurants to visit.

“He features places that are either little diners that specialize in crazy foods that you wouldn’t expect, or drive-ins, or even a hole-in-the-wall type of place,” Rubano said. “It’s always somewhere that’s off the beaten path, and that has a little bit of a different edge to it.”

Fieri and Rubano cooked three meals: a Teriyaki salmon salad, spaghetti squash primavera parmigiana and a hot Cuban sandwich.