Cable food show visits Chick & Ruth's Delly

Chick & Ruth's Delly got a colossal bump in business Sunday, as the Travel Channel show "Man v. Food" visited the Annapolis eatery.

Host Adam Richman was there to take on the restaurant's "Colossal Challenge," which consists of consuming a 6-pound milkshake and 11/2-pound burger or sandwich in an hour.

"I know it's one of the hardest challenges he's had," said delly owner Ted Levitt. "There's no way I could do that."

By agreement with the show, Levitt is keeping mum about how Richman fared, but there were lots of witnesses. The footage will be part of the show's Washington, D.C., episode, which will premiere in October.

A spokesman for the Travel Channel said Chick & Ruth's was chosen because its sandwiches and shakes are "both delicious and tremendous in size."

Levitt said the Main Street delly was packed Sunday night when Richman attempted to down a giant vanilla shake and enormous turkey and corned beef sandwich. Richman opted to have a pound of turkey and a half-pound of corned beef, Levitt said.

"You could not move," he said of the crowd. "Even upstairs it was packed. It was full."

Undoubtedly, so too was Richman, who travels the country taking on all varieties of food challenges - from the hottest wings to the biggest steak.

Levitt said in the eight months he has sponsored his challenge, only two people out of a couple hundred have conquered it. Many others just attempt one part of the challenge, opting for either the sandwich or the shake, and find that insurmountable on its own, he said.

The episode is slated to air Oct. 21 at 10 p.m. on the Travel Channel, a spokesman said.