{"id":7439,"date":"2025-07-23T14:21:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/23\/celebrity-chef-brian-duffy-returns-to-judge-2026-southeastern-bbq-showdown\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T14:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:21:12","slug":"celebrity-chef-brian-duffy-returns-to-judge-2026-southeastern-bbq-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/23\/celebrity-chef-brian-duffy-returns-to-judge-2026-southeastern-bbq-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity Chef Brian Duffy Returns to Judge 2026 Southeastern BBQ Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"261\" data-end=\"458\"><strong data-start=\"261\" data-end=\"279\">COLUMBIA, S.C.<\/strong> &ndash; Food Network personality and &ldquo;Bar Rescue&rdquo; star Chef Brian Duffy is heading back to Columbia for the 2026 Southeastern BBQ Showdown, once again serving as a celebrity judge.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"460\" data-end=\"727\">&ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited to welcome Chef Brian Duffy back to Columbia,&rdquo; said Miriam Atria, President and CEO of Capital City\/Lake Murray Country. &ldquo;He brought incredible energy and barbecue know-how last time, and we&rsquo;re thrilled to have him back as part of our Showdown family.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"729\" data-end=\"1015\">Known for his fiery personality and live-fire cooking skills, Duffy is a seasoned restaurateur, consultant, and star of &ldquo;Opening Night.&rdquo; With more than 100 restaurant launches and appearances on shows like &ldquo;BBQ Brawl,&rdquo; he&rsquo;s a fierce advocate for bold flavors and chef-driven innovation.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1017\" data-end=\"1175\">&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so stoked to be back in the South for some AMAZING BBQ!&rdquo; Duffy said. &ldquo;The hospitality, the food, the competition&mdash;it&rsquo;s going to be another great weekend!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1177\" data-end=\"1357\">The 2026 Southeastern BBQ Showdown will take place April 24&ndash;25 at Gamecock Park in Columbia. More celebrity judges will be announced soon, and tickets go on sale this fall.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1359\" data-end=\"1478\">For updates, follow Southeastern BBQ Showdown on <a href=\"https:\/\/thenewirmonews.com\/iwp\/ebook.com\/southeasternbbqshowdown?mc_cid=dcad544b4f&amp;mc_eid=69578578e6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/southeasternbbqshowdown?mc_cid=dcad544b4f&amp;mc_eid=69578578e6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a>, or visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lakemurraycountry.com\/listing-categories\/dine-entertain\/southeastern-bbq-showdown\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SoutheasternBBQShowdown.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COLUMBIA, S.C. &ndash; Food Network personality and &ldquo;Bar Rescue&rdquo; star Chef Brian Duffy is heading back to Columbia for the 2026 Southeastern BBQ Showdown, once again serving as a celebrity judge. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited to welcome Chef Brian Duffy back to Columbia,&rdquo; said Miriam Atria, President and CEO of Capital City\/Lake<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/23\/celebrity-chef-brian-duffy-returns-to-judge-2026-southeastern-bbq-showdown\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[366,96,744],"class_list":["entry","author-john-griggs","post-7439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-events","tag-food-and-drink","tag-lake-murray-country","tag-southeastern-bbq-showdown"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gpstrianglenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Chef-Duffy_2025_630x350.jpg?fit=630%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}