Staff writer

The Tradewinds Café may be a small restaurant but it boasts a big eating challenge that brought a Travel Channel personality to the Arundel eatery.

Adam Richman, host of “Man v. Food,” came to the café to take on the “Mani-meal (Manimal) Challenge,” a four-pound meal of Tradewinds’ food favorites.

During the 20-minute time limit for the challenge, Richman had to consume two coleslaw or sauerkraut hot dogs, an eight-patty cheeseburger stacked sky-high with grilled onions, a one-pound milkshake made of butter pecan ice cream and homemade coffee cake chunks courtesy of Mother Futcher and to top it all off, a can of Moxie soda.

Eleven people have tried so far and only four have won.

Owners Deena “Mary” Eskew and Brian “Hoss” Coddens, have owned the café for two years since they happened to see the “for rent” sign after a day shopping at the outdoor market behind the café.

“We had no money to start it and we both had great jobs but we knew we could do it,” Eskew said.

They opened “on a song and a prayer” three weeks after seeing the sign and each season the restaurant has become more popular.

Local favorites include the all-day breakfast, a haddock sandwich and burgers such as The Hypocrite, a veggie burger with cheese, topped with bacon, The Foghorn Leghorn, a junior cheeseburger topped with chicken fingers and of course, stackable cheeseburgers.

The Mani-meal Challenge originated after some local boys tried to out-do each other by asking Eskew and Coddens to stack their cheeseburgers higher – from four patties to five and so on until one boy said he could outdo them all by asking for an ocho-patty burger, consisting of eight patties, according to Eskew.

“On the menu we have the junior, the triple, the quarter, we’ll always add to it. It just grew up to it, but we usually don’t get ochos,” she said.

Eskew said after a food critic wrote an article in a local paper, she got a call from the Travel Channel asking if she would be interested in having her restaurant appear on the show. Richman happened to be in the area for a wedding and was interested in the challenge.

Richman tours the country looking for food challenges, whether it is some of the hottest wings in the country, called “Suicide Wings” at Buffalo Cantina in Brooklyn, N.Y., or consuming a 72-ounce steak with a salad, shrimp cocktail, baked potato and dinner roll in less than an hour in Texas.

But did he prevail in the Mani-meal Challenge?

“I can’t tell you that!” Eskew said, “You’ll have to watch the show.”

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.