It’s December, and the bakers at Uppercrust Bakery are gearing up for a busy holiday season. But on Dec. 14, at the height of the holiday season, Uppercrust was closed. A cherry red 1968 Camaro was parked outside.
A few weeks earlier, Uppercrust owner Ben Iacomini-Guzick received an email he was almost sure was a scam.
A producer of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” wanted to know if Uppercrust would like the chance to be featured on the show, but Iacomini-Guzick said skepticism was the first thing to creep into his mind.
“Both our office and I, at first, were like ‘There’s no way,'" he said. “I mean, in the age of spam, this has just got to be wrong.”
But the email was real, and on April 18, Uppercrust Bakery will be featured on a new episode of the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” a TV show exploring America’s best local and lesser known eateries. Uppercrust’s episode will highlight the artichoke barigoule rose, a croissant topped with Gruyère and white wine braised artichokes; and reine de saba, a French chocolate almond cake.
The show will also feature five other Gainesville restaurants across different episodes. These include Bingo Deli & Pub, Fehrenbacher’s Meats & Eats, Germain’s Chicken Sandwiches, Humble Wood Fire Bagel Shop and The Paper Bag Deli.
Iacomini-Guzick said the experience has been “surreal.” After the first email, he had to answer a series of questions from the production team in what he described as the audition process. He guessed “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” discovered the bakery through Reddit and Instagram.
Shooting the episode took place across two days in December. A cryptic Instagram post from Dec. 6 revealed Uppercrust’s main location would be closed twice for a “private event.”
In truth, a production crew of five men visited the store Dec. 10, where they got footage of the bakery and went through every step of the recipes Iacomini-Guzick presented.
On Dec. 14, Guy Fieri visited Uppercrust. Although he was only there for about an hour, Iacomini-Guzick said it felt like a “blur.”
“There was so much adrenaline and nerves that I just remember things in flashes,” Iacomini-Guzick said.
Shanna Phu was one of two servers present while Fieri was at the bakery. She was there to help set up the store like a normal day and assist Fieri’s production crew if they needed anything.
“I got to watch the process of them filming Guy, and it was so cool, because you could tell they worked with Guy for a very long time,” Phu said. “You could see that they really love seeing him work his magic.”
Some of Uppercrust’s customers were also involved, whether as extras or interview subjects.
Amanda Allen is a 42-year-old director at Yoga Pod, a yoga studio in the same shopping plaza at Uppercrust, and a frequent customer for over a decade. Allen plans to tune in to the April 18 episode not only to see how the menu comes to life, but also to see her coworkers as extras on the show.
Many members of Allen’s family pick up baked goods from Uppercrust, she said, and her dad even rides his bike to the store.
“The people that work here are super nice and friendly, like they remember your name,” Allen said. “The food is really great.”
Her favorite thing to order is the “cragel,” or croissant bagel.
For Iacomini-Guzick, the spotlight on Uppercrust is “vindicating.” He said he is a longtime fan of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” and hoped it will recognize the work his team does each day.
“I just think it’s so cool what the show does — celebrating these independent small businesses doing this heroic work behind the scenes and the fact this show has a really unique lens and spotlight to showcasing that effort,” he said.
Contact Corey Fiske at cfiske@alligator.org. Follow him on X @coreyfiske7.
