2 SC restaurants to be on Food Network show and you can be part of it. Here’s what to know
Four years ago, a Greenville cafe owner contacted the Food Network show Restaurant: Impossible to see if they’d film an episode at his business.
This is the show where chef Robert Irvine comes in and tells you how to fix a failing restaurant, from menu to furnishings to staff development. He doesn’t pull punches.
Mike Bliss, who started Runway Cafe on what was once part of the apron at Greenville Downtown Airport in 2000, said he would prefer to say the restaurant needs “freshening up,” especially after the turmoil the coronavirus unleashed on the industry.
This month, Bliss’ request will be honored.
Restaurant: Impossible crews will be at Runway Cafe in Greenville Oct. 26 and 27 and at Big Cliff’s BBQ in Central Oct. 22 and 23.
The schtick is Irvine spends two days looking over the business and making changes. A design crew gets to work immediately on the decor. The budget is $10,000, the show has said. On the second day, locals are invited in to sample the fare. Go here to sign up to work on the renovation or to eat.
Bliss said before he opened Runway Cafe, he owned a cafe in the main branch of the Greenville County Library and then another at the Open Book.
When the bookstore closed, Bliss was looking around for what to do next. A patron told him the Downtown Airport board was looking for someone to open a restaurant in a building formerly used by a flight school.
He made a presentation and that day got the go ahead.
He knew the trend of private pilots flying into an area to have a good meal — sometimes called the $100 hamburger — was not to be counted on. If Runway Cafe were to be a success, it needed to be a place where locals come to eat and to see the planes.
Greenville Downtown Airport is South Carolina’s busiest general aviation airport. Until 1962 when Greenville-Spartanburg Airport was built, it handled commercial flights as well. It opened in 1928.
Bliss said the menu has been through various iterations, including offering dinner service, to meet customer demand. At one time, the restaurant had 70 seats inside, 120 outside and a conference room. Now, after COVID, only counter service is offered and hours have been shortened.
The interior design has remained largely unchanged with a plethora of air-related items displayed. A prized possession is a flag that a customer flew over a military mission in Kandahar during Desert Storm.
Bliss is curious about what Irvine might do to the interior, but hopes he’ll keep the flag.
He also hopes Irvine will see the congeniality of what’s left of the staff, five employees who have been together for years.
“This is a family,” Bliss said.
Big Cliff’s BBQ is a family business as well, named for J.C. Smith’s father. He opened the restaurant just last year after several years operating a food truck that started as a fundraiser for one of his children.
Smith declined to be interviewed., but the website says, the restaurant enabled him to turn “passion and dream into reality.”
A spokesperson for the show could not be reached Wednesday for comment. No air date has been announced.
