Time for episode 2 of “The Great Food Truck Race” season 18. The seven remaining teams make their way to Charleston, all while competing to win the $50,000 grand prize. Host Tyler Florence has a special connection with Charleston, as he is from South Carolina and got his culinary education in this city.
‘The Great Food Truck Race’ 2025 Premiere
If you missed last week’s premiere, then you missed the nine new teams kick things off in Savannah, Georgia. The entire episode seemed to showcase how strong of a team Rising Tiger was, winning both challenges of the night.
In the end, Eat My Biscuits sold the least amount of food and was eliminated. However, Rising Tiger then stepped forward and said they had some personal things to attend to at home. They were leaving the show, so Eat My Biscuits could take their spot.
The relief only lasted a short amount of time, as Tyler said, the rules are the rules. The team with the lowest sales each week has to go home. Despite Rising Tiger offering up their spot, both Eat My Biscuits and Rising Tiger were eliminated on “The Great Food Truck Race” 2025.
Kicking It Off In Charleston
The teams make their way to Charleston and meet with Tyler, who is accompanied by Chef Kardea Brown. For this challenge, they will take a classic Gullah Geechee dish and make a new dish for themselves. The teams all get to choose one of the dish-inspirations in front of Tyler. The team with the best dish will win an extra $300 for their till. While making these new signature dishes, they will also be opening up their trucks for sales.
For the challenge, Nishaan took the shrimp & grits, even though they had never made grits before. Chef Kardea comes around and says it’s the first time she has had Pakistani grits, and it’s got great flavor. She seems to be impressed.
Cooking With Que is up next, and they are making Hoppin’ John for their dish. They make vegan food, and want to bring healthy food to the hood. Chef Kardea comes over and enjoys the dish, but says the only thing she is missing is rice.
G’s Cheesesteaks chose fried corn cakes, but wish they had gotten shrimp & grits instead. They are putting together their best effort on this dish, though. Chef Kardea said it’s very different from what she grew up with. They didn’t skip on flavor. She wished they had put some of that meat on top of it, but they said they didn’t want to disrespect the dish.
Rice, Rice, Rice
Burger Walla picked red rice for their dish on “The Great Food Truck Race” 2025. They only have one burner in their truck, and they are selling a bunch of shrimp. He can’t make rice properly and doesn’t want to disrespect their culture, so he said he can’t do this challenge. They had to forfeit the challenge, but Chef Kardea came over still. They didn’t want her not to eat, so they served her a patty melt they make, and she loved it, so she wished they had been able to do the red rice dish.
Fat Kid Food Co. chose Carolina crab rice. They don’t have the proper burners, so they just used the flattop to make the rice. Chef Kardea said this is good eatin’. She said the dish had a ton of crab, but she did want more sausage.
Stop Drop N Roll picked okra soup, so they will be making the Vietnamese version of it on “The Great Food Truck Race” season 18. It’s normally made with catfish, but they used shrimp instead. Cher Karea said this isn’t traditional okra soup, but the challenge was to put their twist on the dishes, and they did. She just wanted more salt.
Good Fortune Company picked perloo for their dish. Chef Kardea said she is getting so much flavor in the dish. This is definitely filling, but she wanted a little more sausage and less cook on the shrimp.
The Results
Chef Kardea said they all brought the flavor and the tastes she grew up eating. However, the winner of this challenge on “The Great Food Truck Race” 2025 is Fat Kid Food Co.
For winning, they will get $300 added to their till.
The Selling Continues
While the winner of that challenge was crowned, it’s time to move on and sell more of their food. One of the members of Fat Kid Food Co. is walking around, hitting a spoon on a bowl to bring in customers. This happens to upset some of the other teams.
Meanwhile, Good Fortune Company is missing part of its food processor. Nishaan can help them out with the part they need. The teams seem to get along well, and said they’d love to work together if a challenge makes them collaborate.
The teams get a text from Tyler, which says it’s time to shut down for day 1. Things are about to get more difficult, as the teams will be tasked with picking the spot they will be selling from. Week 1 and day 1 of week 2 consisted of selling as a group, but the location is key this time.
Day 2 Kicks Off
The teams are all making their way to their selling spot when Tyler calls them. He is adding a challenge for this day, which is to create a lowcountry boil-inspired dish. The team that sells the most of these dishes will get an extra hour of selling at the end of the day.
There is a long line for propane for the food trucks. Good Fortune Company picked a coffee shop area to sell at, so they know they close early and their peak selling hours are right now. They don’t have time to sit in line for half an hour for propane, so they decide to skip filling up the propane tanks and will risk making it as long as they can with the propane they still have.
Good Fortune Company gets to their spot and is using fewer fryers to save on propane, as they start selling. G’s Cheesesteaks headed to a brewery, but it’s dead and knows they won’t get the sales they need, so they are heading somewhere else. Fat Kid Food Co. picked a popular distillery, but it’s off the beaten path and not busy, and they trust it.
Battle for Spots
Now it’s a battle for spots, as we have food trucks checking out the same areas. Burger Walla is settled into a spot and selling, but then G’s comes along and is still needing a spot. They pick a place nearby, as they know they have to start selling soon.
Good Fortune Company is struggling with their dumplings since they don’t have a fryer to cook them in. This is putting them behind, as they have five orders on the board, as the coffee shop is bringing in lots of customers. They were able to set up a makeshift fryer on the flattop, so crisis averted.
Nishaan gets set up, and they’ve had some customers, but low foot traffic. Vidya decides to go check things out and sees a ton of people at Burger Walla, so he goes over to try and poach some customers, which upsets Burger Walla. He is trying to sell them Dubai chocolate, and he thought they had some people, but he ends up walking back with no one.
G’s Cheesesteaks found a park to place their truck, and it was busy. They thought they had found the best spot, but then the park ranger came over and told them to close up shop. The guys don’t have the proper permits, and now they have to go find another spot.
They get a call from the brewery they started at, and they said they had 100 people there, so they head back to the brewery. However, Stop Drop N Roll is there too, and they both set up shop. However, it’s too dead for them, and G’s Cheesesteaks leaves again and heads to a school to wait for it to get out.
Day 2 Results on ‘The Great Food Truck Race’
While school is done for the day and G’s is having no luck with sales, they have sold one special all day. Meanwhile, Fat Kid Food Co. said they just sold 13 specials in two minutes.
Tyler texts, and the challenge is done. The winning team was Good Fortune Company, which sold 41 specials. They had just one more special sold than Fat Kid Food Co., which sold 40 specials. That means Good Fortune Company gets an extra hour of selling, as the other teams must shut down immediately.
The teams will be heading to Folly Beach the next day, but there could be rain for the day, so pay attention to that.
As Good Fortune Company is on a busy road for the coffee shop, they are out holding signs and trying to bring in more customers for the extra selling time. Then, all of a sudden, a car crash. No one got hurt, so time to make the last 30 minutes count. The final orders come in, and despite no fill-up on the propane, they made it the whole day.
Rain, Rain Go Away
Day 3 has arrived, and the rain is coming down. Tyler joins them, and he said they can’t come to South Carolina without having barbecue. The teams will be getting barbecue pork from Chef Rodney Scott and have to incorporate that barbecue into a dish. The dish he loves the most will get all of the sales they make on the pork dish doubled, so if they sell $100 worth of the pork dish, then they get an extra $100 for winning.
Since Nishaan is halal, they can’t have pork on their truck. They decide to make a deal with Fat Kid Food Co. They will give their pork to Fat Kid Food Co., but then they will split the sales for this pork dish. Fat Kid Food Co. will get 70%, but then Nishaan will get 30%. A good deal, since they wouldn’t have gotten anything otherwise.
However, Good Fortune Company notices that Nishaan has no pork dish, so they try to go over and get their pork. Nishaan tells them they gave it to Fat Kid Food Co., so Good Fortune is upset and thought they had a good partnership going on.
Meanwhile, G’s Cheesesteaks had to run out and get more bread. They drove what seemed like forever to a bakery, which was closed. Without the bread, they are screwed. The baker was inside the store, so they got the bread and headed back to get some sales.
Ticket, Ticket, Ticket
Vidya is out working the crowd and bringing in sales for Nishaan. It is ticket after ticket after ticket. At the same time, he is also working it for Fat Kid Food Co. and selling their pork dish to help with their sales.
Tyler and Chef Rodney make their way around to all the trucks to try their pork dishes. They both definitely seem to be enjoying the dishes from all of the trucks.
With three hours left to sell, the weather is getting worse. It’s super windy, and a tornado watch is in effect. It’s definitely slowing down business for the trucks.
Taste Challenge Results on ‘The Great Food Truck Race’
Chef Rodney Scott has tasted all of the dishes. His two favorite dishes came from Bruger Walla and G’s Cheesesteaks. In the end, his favorite dish came from G’s, and they won this challenge.
For winning the challenge, G’s will get all of the sales they made for the pork special doubled.
The winner was announced, and the teams had a little more time to make their final sales. Time runs out, and the trucks close up shop for the day and now wait for Tyler to deliver this week’s results.
Episode 2 Elimination on ‘The Great Food Truck Race’ 2025
Time to see how sales went for the second leg of “The Great Food Truck Race” season 18. For the last taste challenge, G’s Cheesesteaks earned $182, so they got $364 for that challenge.
For a complete rundown of the teams and their sales for this second leg:
- Nishaan – $3,778, so the top team for the second week in a row
- Good Fortune Company – $3,259
- Cooking with Que – $3,147
- G’s Cheesesteaks – $2,832
- Fat Kid Food Co. – $2,794
- Stop Drop N Roll – $2,510
- Burger Walla – Eliminated tonight on “The Great Food Truck Race” 2025
There was some tension, as Stop Drop N Roll and Burger Walla were announced as the bottom two teams. Burger Walla had the least amount of sales this week, so they had to turn in their keys, and they have been eliminated tonight.
The road trip continues, as the teams will be making their way to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Tune in next week with us for our live recap.
Comments
‘The Great Food Truck Race’ Live Recap & Spoilers – 8/10/2025