When TV Makes Your Diner Shine

Guy Fieri leaves his mark on places he visits for “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” “The day after it ran,” Mr. Young said, “was the only day we were ready for the next two months.”

Such is the yin and yang of Triple D, as it is known to many of its viewers, whose numbers, according to the show, reach 30 million a month. This 3 ?-year-old program, with its spike-haired, high-octane, everyman-eater host, Guy Fieri, showcases affordable and unusual mom-and-pop food.

Guided by the information on flavortownusa.com, an independent Web site started by a Minnesota-based fan, Triple D devotees have packed the nation’s hole-in-the-wall eating places, including 5 in Connecticut that have been lucky enough to be among the more than 400 profiled.

In the two years since the first of about two dozen showings of his segment, Mr. Young says business has doubled for his Venezuelan beach food specialties of arepas (cornmeal cakes) and empanadas (pastry pockets), both stuffed with everything from simple queso blanco to pernil (Venezuelan pork).

“What could be bad about that?” Mr. Young asked. But his own answer highlighted the flip side of what happens when longtime local customers who bring a restaurant to prominence are forced to compete with legions of travelers armed with information from Mr. Fieri’s show or his book, methodically trying to go where he went and to eat what he ate.

“There were times we had to close,” said Mr. Young, whose restaurant seats 24 at small tables. “We had to close for an hour and a half and get our heads back together.”

With a high Zagat rating as well as the television publicity, the restaurant had lines that were at times 100 people long. Mr. Young is now exploring expansion opportunities. In the meantime, strategic dining is a necessity.

David Smith of Wilton, picking up three Venezuelan hot chocolates for office mates in Greenwich one weekday morning, has been coming to Valencia since it opened in 2003. While he was thrilled to see Mr. Young on television, he said, it has made getting in “definitely a challenge.”

“We come at off-times as much as possible,” Mr. Smith said. “And we do a lot of take-out.”

Mr. Smith can thank people like Phil Chimblo of Norwalk and his friend Don Lynn of Stamford for his predicament. As fans of the show who have tried all the Connecticut locations it has covered, the men can attest to the mob scenes.

This day, they were polishing off a lunch of wings and burnt ends at another of the Triple D locations: Wilson’s Holy Smoke BBQ in Fairfield.

“Word of mouth is subjective,” said Mr. Lynn, who had tried Wilson’s for the first time a week and half earlier after seeing it on a rerun. “If you actually see how they’re making it and you can see the way the environment is on TV, you can kind of gear whether it’s your kind of place. I like to see how the food’s made.”

And, Mr. Chimblo added, “who makes it.”

It is “all good,” said Ed Wilson, whose indoor smoker now sports Mr. Fieri’s tie-dyed-looking insignia “Guy Ate Here.” Mr. Wilson and the other restaurant owners in Connecticut do not know who recommended their places for the show, though the network says it does exhaustive research before showing up for a grueling two-day taping.

“Somebody called and said ‘Would you like to?’ ” Mr. Wilson recalled, adding, tongue in cheek, “I said, ‘Noooo, I don’t want to be bothered with the Food Network.’ Yeah, right.”

Now, travelers often take photos, and some even ask for Mr. Wilson’s autograph. “It’s humbling,” he said.

It also has him thinking about opening another restaurant and trying a television show of his own.

“I don’t think we’d be on the map without it,” he said of Triple D.

O’Rourke’s Diner in Middletown was on the map well before its star turn with Mr. Fieri, already accustomed to long lines of customers devoted to its upscale diner fare, which includes countless egg dishes, gourmet hash combinations, French toast, pancakes and signature steamed cheeseburgers.

What changed after December 2008, when O’Rourke’s became the first featured Connecticut diner on the show, was who was on those lines.

“At one time, everybody who walked in here, I knew something about them,” said Brian O’Rourke, who in 1977 took over the vintage 1920s diner his uncle bought in 1941. “There’s days when there’s 40 people in here, 30 people in line. I don’t know anybody.”

Mr. O’Rourke is not complaining. “In today’s economy,” he said, “it was a gift.”

That is also Pete Aitkin’s view. The owner of the Black Duck in Westport, a bar-restaurant on a barge under Interstate 95 and the last of the five Connecticut restaurants featured so far, he knew from his predecessors to expect a run on his giant cheese-stuffed burgers, steamers and clams casino — all featured on the show.