STEVENS POINT – You can now watch the America’s Best Restaurants episode featuring a Stevens Point restaurant.
The America’s Best Restaurants episode featuring Legacy Family Restaurant is a few years in the making. The restaurant was just 6 months old when the America’s Best Restaurants team reached out to highlight the restaurant on its social media channels and websites. The restaurant owners then worked with the team for about a year and a half on details before filming the episode Sept. 23.
The episode dropped at noon Jan. 9. Legacy Family Restaurant posted the episode on its Facebook page and asks guests to share their favorite parts when they watch online.
America’s Best Restaurants is a national media and restaurant marketing company that travels around the country, highlighting local restaurants and unique food as part of its ABR Roadshow. The team filmed from 2-5 p.m. Sept. 23 at 5110b Main St. in Stevens Point, getting shots in the kitchen, arranging dishes with the best lighting and talking to customers in the dining room. A Stevens Point Journal reporter was on site during filming and talked to some of the restaurant owners and the host of America’s Best Restaurants.
More about America’s Best Restaurants
Amanda Valentine, the host of America’s Best Restaurants, told the Stevens Point Journal reporter her team looks at restaurants that have been nominated for certain criteria. She said the team looks for locally owned and independent restaurants, the restaurant’s involvement in and connections to the community, food made from scratch and reviews left by customers.
Valentine said as she talked with customers, she could tell Legacy Family Restaurant means a lot to its customers and has a good, comfortable atmosphere. She said she liked the display of pies, all made from scratch.
America’s Best Restaurants, based in Florence, Kentucky, spends about three hours at each featured restaurant, shooting photos and videos of food, chefs making dishes, and interviews with a few people at each site. In addition to the episode produced, the team puts together a media kit for each restaurant with photos the restaurants are able to own and use however they want in advertisements and marketing.
More about Legacy Family Restaurant
While Legacy Family Restaurant celebrated its two-year anniversary a week before America’s Best Restaurants filmed the episode, the restaurant carries a few decades of history with it.
Ann Ananiadis, one of the restaurant’s co-owners, told a Stevens Point Journal reporter Sept. 23 she and her husband, John, have been restauranteurs for the last 33 years, running Olympic and Park Ridge restaurants. They were about to retire when their cook and manager wanted to open a restaurant, so they stayed to help.
John and Ann Ananiadis and Heather Ruland and Efrain Jaimes opened Legacy Family Restaurant in September 2023. The owners say their success is due to the staff and customers who have been like family.
For more information, find Legacy Family Restaurant LLC and America’s Best Restaurants on Facebook.
Legacy Family Restaurant remains open
Legacy Family Restaurant is still open and is not impacted by an order from the Stevens Point Fire Department that forced University Inn at 5110 Main St. to vacate by 4 p.m. Jan. 8 due to unsafe conditions that presented a hazard to safety.
While the restaurant operates at the same property, the restaurant is up to code and the building does not present any safety concerns, according to a news release from the Fire Department.
Contact Caitlin at cshuda@usatodayco.com or follow her on Twitter @CaitlinShuda.
This article originally appeared on Stevens Point Journal: Watch this Stevens Point restaurant on America’s Best Restaurants now
Reporting by Caitlin Shuda, Stevens Point Journal / Stevens Point Journal
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