Plenty of food and travel TV series have visited Pike Place Market to toss around fish. But USA Network’s “Everything on the Menu With Braun Strowman” (10 p.m. Fridays) may mark the first time a WWE wrestler-turned-epicurean has made the pilgrimage not only to Pike Place Fish Market but to two other Seattle foodie destinations.
Strowman — real name: Adam Scherr — visits Seattle in the Friday episode as part of the second season of “Everything on the Menu,” which airs following “WWE SmackDown.”
“We actually wanted to get to (Seattle) in Season 1, but it just didn’t work out in the mapping, because I was still with WWE at the time, wrestling on the road,” Strowman recalls. He filmed half of Season 1 while flying to Europe to wrestle for WWE, then flying back to the United States to film the food show. “It was just a little out of reach to get to Seattle doing all that. We made sure that we got it in in Season 2, and it was the first stop when filming Season 2.”
Strowman and a small crew filmed in Seattle for two days. In addition to throwing fish with Pike Place Fish Market co-owner Jaison Scott, Strowman dined at Sushi Kashiba and interviewed chef Shiro Kashiba, and he ordered “everything on the menu” at Taurus Ox, where he shared a meal with Seattle Fire Department Chief Harold Scoggins.
Strowman had been through Seattle for WWE events, so he’d made it to the Market before visiting with the “Everything on the Menu” crew. His visit to Sushi Kashiba made the biggest impression.
“What an honor it was to meet chef Shiro Kashiba,” Strowman says. “I know his legacy and what he has done in the culinary arts and sushi and that style of Japanese cuisine and culture and what he’s done in the city. He’s like the grandfather of figuring out the delicacy of the geoduck clam.”
Unlike some TV food show chefs who have a practiced, unsurprising response to their experiences, Strowman seems genuinely starstruck by his meeting with Kashiba.
“I was homeless 13 years ago. Now I’m sitting at one of the most world-renowned sushi chefs’ private tables, eating with him,” Strowman says. “I have this realization of, like, holy cow, how did I get here?”
Strowman says a decade ago he never could have hosted “Everything on the Menu.” It was his experience traveling for WWE that got him more interested in food beyond everyday staples.
“I never went to school for it, but I was blessed to travel the world and get to eat food from so many different walks of life,” Strowman says. “My saying is, ‘I’ll try anything twice to make sure I don’t like it.’ Now there’s not much that I haven’t eaten, even though there were two dishes in Seattle I’ve never eaten before.”
That would be Sushi Kashiba’s geoduck and its firefly squid.
“My mission is to get people to step outside of their comfort zone to try new foods,” Strowman says. “Almost every guest on every episode of Season 2 that I had on, I got them to eat something they’d never eaten before. That’s the fun thing about food: Getting over some of these phobias and how your palate develops and matures with age. Things that you used to hate as a kid, all of a sudden, you love them.”
The idea for “Everything on the Menu” came about after Strowman broke his neck wrestling in 2023 and wondered if he’d ever wrestle again and what else he could do.
“I’m good at putting smiles on people’s faces, and I enjoy doing it,” Strowman says. “If I’m feeling bad about myself, making someone else smile instantly makes me forget about whatever I’m dealing with. My therapy is making other people happy when I’m miserable.”
While dining with his agent one night at a hibachi restaurant, Strowman ordered four entrees and the waiter began to leave thinking that Strowman ordered for the table and not just for himself. Later when recounting the dinner to another friend, Strowman explained he usually orders multiple entrees because he likes trying different dishes and because, as a wrestler, he needed the high caloric intake.
“I wish I could order everything on the menu,” Strowman said during the conversation.
“Right then, lightning sparked,” Strowman recalls.
Strowman and his team shot a pilot on their own, filming Strowman eating a 96-ounce prime rib and everything on the menu at the Great Outdoors Supper Club in Kewaskum, Wis., near where Strowman owns a farm.
“I picked up the prime rib like it was a loaf of bread and just started eating it,” Strowman says. “I think that’s what sold the show.”
Strowman originally envisioned “Everything on the Menu” as a streaming series, but USA Network executives saw it and had the idea to pair the show with “SmackDown.”
“My mission is giving people an opportunity to see these amazing restaurants that this country has to offer and giving the restaurants the chance to show their entire Rolodex, here’s my deck of cards, this is everything that we do,” Strowman says. “Food is a vessel that brings people together. It brings you together for a conversation, to meet new friends, to rekindle old relationships, to fall in love, to catch up on old times, and it’s all surrounded by food. … With food there is no color, religion, race, creed, sexual orientation — nothing. It’s all equal. Everybody needs food, and everybody loves food.”
Correction: The episode premieres at 10 p.m. Friday, not 11 p.m.
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