What Kentucky Restaurants Have Been Featured on Food Network, Travel Channel, and Others?

Long before the Internet, social media, and hundreds of channels from which to choose on cable or satellite TV, scoring those "15 minutes of fame" which everyone was believed to enjoy, at some point in their lives, was a little more difficult.

Now, thanks to YouTube, Facebook, and myriad networks devoted to very specific themes, you may actually start to worry if you HAVEN'T had yours yet.

Restaurants across this great land of ours have no such worries.

Enterprises like Food Network, Travel Channel, and the Cooking Channel have made it possible for eateries that lie off beaten path to become targets of online searches for foodies or just travelers who want something more than just the next available national franchise.

I've certainly done MY fair share of clicking when I notice a KENTUCKY restaurant or diner that's made its way onto national television.

So I thought I'd take a look and see which ones have done just that.

It's really a huge list and Louisville takes up the majority of places on that list, so I'm going to leave it out and focus, instead, on four places that don't require a trip to Derby City.

Places like:

Gatton Farms

Featured on a 2011 episode of Food Network's Crave called "Bacon: the Magical Meat Stick," (according to tvfoodmaps.com) Gatton Farms is listed as a LEXINGTON restaurant, but we know it's where we get those delicious Father's Country Hams. We also know that it's in BREMEN and that State Route 81 doesn't stretch all the way to Lexington. Hmmm...

Claudia Sanders Dinner House

The name "Sanders" should perk up any Kentuckian's ear when associated with food, especially fried chicken. Yes, Claudia was the wife of Colonel Harland Sanders and her Dinner House is one of Shelbyville's most popular dining spots. It made an appearance on a 2013 episode of the Travel Channel's Food Paradise called--what else--"Fried Chicken Paradise."

Rick's White Light Diner

Heading to the state capitol? If so, Guy Fieri recommends a visit to 114 Bridge Street. It's about a block away from the Kentucky River in downtown Frankfort and it's tiny, so I'm assuming you should be prepared to wait. Of course, when Fieri and his Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives crew were there in 2010, I bet they didn't.

Old Hickory Bar-B-Q

Old Hickory was featured on the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods. It was the seventh episode of the first season. The Channel's features multiple video selections FROM that episode.

And, now for an interesting one...

WhaBah Steakhouse

This Bowling Green steakhouse was featured on the Food Network's Restaurant Impossible in 2015. If you're familiar with Restaurant Impossible, you know that host Robert Irvine and his team go into a restaurant suffering from dysfunction and turn it around and make it the desired destination its owners wanted it to be. Well...I clicked on the link to its website and got this. That's because the Whabah Steakhouse, featured on the series' 11th season premiere has closed.

Sometimes, the Irvine magic just doesn't pan out.