It’s a twisted world we live in.

All kinds of misfits are attracted to the Service Industry. Those that like attention often serve in the Front of the House -- they’re your servers, hosts, and bartenders. Those that are less relationship driven and more focused on tasks usually find themselves in the Back of the House in dish, prepping, or on the line.

This beautiful, simple, and perfect paradigm changed in the mid-’90s thanks to the TV Food Network.

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Food Network started out humbly in New York with only a few shows, and grew once it acquired Julia Child’s library of episodes. Even though celebrity chefs have always been a thing, see this print from the 1500s of Chef Bartolomeo Scappi, Food Network catapulted the occasional personality onto the main stage of network TV. And it changed everything.

In my opinion, it’s safe to say that if Emeril and Mario weren’t dancing with knives and fire on TV, the world would not have received Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential in the year 2000 with anywhere near as much gusto. Not to say that Tony’s book isn’t a masterpiece as both the line cook’s Bible and a testament to how things used to be (right or wrong). As much as he hated Food Network, the interest wouldn’t have been there without it, and who knows what Tony’s fate may have been, had that been the case.

Nevertheless, Food Network set the stage, and for the ne’er-do-wells that hated it, Tony Bourdain took up a saffron-scented cross. The end result was that Celebrity Chefs had become a thing.

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The next big player you’re more than likely holding in your hand. As social media became ubiquitous thanks to smartphones and rampant availability, wanna-be celebrity chefs began dancing and setting things on fire left and right. The litmus is no longer talent. The gold standard has been written with clickbait, friends. And we’re all players in that game.

I know, because I swim deeply in these waters. Some of it I enjoy. Some of it is a necessary evil. But as I said the other day, it became apparent to me when I opened my restaurant that I had to get people’s attention to survive.

As my career and goals have grown, I’ve seen the power of having minor “celebrity chef” status, and I’ve leveraged it whenever possible. I have goals. Big goals. Audacious goals. What I don’t have is a lot of resources. I bootstrapped the restaurant and everything I’ve done. When we first opened, I sunk the last of everything I had saved into it, and then I began to leverage credit cards. When I won Guy’s Grocery Games, I used the money to pay off credit card debt that surely would have sunk us otherwise.

My personality has become a tool I can use to help grow what I do. I’ve cultivated ease in front of the camera to better communicate and tell the story of my food. I’ve actively used any shred of celebrity I can claim to advance my audacious goals.

There are a lot of things I would do to succeed, and relatively few things I wouldn’t. I have a lot of tattoos, but I’ve never been a fan of getting words tattooed on me. I broke that rule several years ago when I got the words “true grit” tattooed on my bicep. That more than anything else has kept us going. Just sheer determination -- in the face of downtown Wheeling struggles, staff shortages, equipment failures, global pandemics, and million-dollar street resurfacing projects.

I seek to be a rally point for all of us in Wheeling, in West Virginia, in Appalachia. I work to represent you -- us.

You can’t pay me enough to work a job I don’t like, but when I’m committed to a mission, I’ll let nothing stand in my way. And I’m committed to doing my part to make my home better. I’m committed to represent myself and my people the best I’m capable, and at the very least changing some minds about what West Virginia is.

That’s why, when it’s time to turn the spotlights and the cameras on, I can grit my teeth, find a smile, and step into that light and say, “Look at me!” -- Chef Matt BE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL