America’s Best Restaurants to Showcase Wilmington Restaurants

America’s Best Restaurants (ABR), a national media and restaurant marketing company, spent two days in Wilmington last week filming at Beer Barrio, Hieronymus Seafood Restaurant & Oyster Bar and Platypus & Gnome for upcoming episodes of “ABR Roadshow.”

“ABR Roadshow” travels the country telling the stories and highlighting the food of locally owned independent restaurants. The episodes are featured on ABR’s network of social media channels and website and on each restaurant’s Facebook page. To date, they have filmed over 1,500 episodes, according to ABR representative Suzanne Hale.

Restaurants featured on the “ABR Roadshow” are selected based on customer reviews, menu items, social media presence and level of involvement with the community. They are found through customer nominations, internal vetting or by a restaurant applying to be featured.

Hale said the episodes typically air six to eight weeks after filming, but restaurants are allowed to promote their participation leading up to the premier.

Hayley Jensen, who co-owns Beer Barrio with husband Stephen Durley, said she was contacted by ABR earlier this year.

“I didn’t know what it was until they reached out,” Jensen said.  “But after looking into it we thought that it seemed reputable, and we thought their content was really high quality.”

Jensen said ABR originally planned to film in January 2025 with the episode airing in March. When Jensen asked if they could move up the timeline so the episode could air in January, which is typically the restaurant’s slowest month, ABR agreed.

“It was just a really positive experience all the way around,” Jensen said. “They were really professional, and it was very streamlined, but they were also very friendly and complimentary which made us feel confident.”

Jensen said she considered this a marketing expense like any other but with a greater return on investment.

“I was very impressed with the added value of what we learned about marketing and media promotion and how to get more engagement,” Jensen said. “It’s already been a worthwhile investment for the promotion they did for the filming party and the fact that they haven’t put any restrictions on us promoting the episode before it airs.”

Matt Danylec, owner of Platypus & Gnome was also approached by ABR earlier this year. He said he felt that it was a good opportunity to tell the story behind the restaurant and some of the unique menu items they serve, including wild boar, elk, rabbit, bison and kangaroo.

“I thought it gave us a place to talk about what we do and what we serve here,” Danylec said. “There’s so much to talk about that a lot of times I don’t get to do that on a mass scale to reach potential customers.”

Danylec said his episode is also likely to air in January of next year.