July 31, 2026
Provided Image/Food Network
South Jersey high school teacher Matthew Groark, right, and his teammate Maxwell McGibbon are one of nine teams competing in Food Network's new show 'Pitmasters.'
When South Jersey teacher Matthew Groark showed up in the Utah mountains to compete on Food Network's "Pitmasters," he didn't expect to have to build his own barbecue pit to use during filming.
"I didn't anticipate getting on set and there just being friggin' dirt and nothing to cook on," Groark said. "Knowing, 'OK, here's cinder blocks and stones and cattle wire and hooks and chains,' I mean, it could have been 16th-century torture, it was insane. I've never really built a pit from scratch like that, so going into it and doing that was an absolute mind-bender."
Groark and his friend and competition partner, Newark, Delaware-based Maxwell McGibbon, are one of nine teams competing on the inaugural season of the show, which releases new episodes every Monday. The pair, who also have prominent social media followings where they share their recipes, spent a week grilling, roasting, smoking and cooking unique dishes over open flames in an attempt to win $50,000.
Outside the competition, Groark is known as "The Meat Teacher," where he posts recipe videos on Instagram and TikTok. He's also no stranger to being on TV, having appeared on Fox's "Next Level Chef." In 2025, he released a cookbook called "The Meat Teacher Cookbook: The Ultimate Backyard BBQ Guide for an A+ in Pitmastery." But he spends most of his days at Washington Township High School, where he teaches culinary arts — a gig he fell into four years ago after two decades teaching health and physical education.
Grilling, though, is a particularly special activity for him, having spent 25 years hosting tailgate cookouts in the parking lot with his dad and brothers as an Eagles season-ticket holder. That passion eventually grew into the Hungry Dawgs Tailgate group, a community of grillers and sports fans that gather at the sports complex.
After he was recruited for the show, Groark said he wanted to bring a partner who would complement his skills and bring new ones to the table. McGibbon, a self-taught chef who recently left the corporate world to pursue cooking, was his first call. While Groark specializes in traditional barbecuing, open-flame grills and baking, McGibbon is an avid world traveler who's known for multicultural cooking.
Groark said McGibbon had the ability to come up with incredible recipes "on a whim," which proved to be a big advantage. Almost every dish had McGibbon's influence, Groark said, like the Thai basil pork belly and som tum, a charred papaya salad, that they made during the first episode.
"He was like, 'We're going to make crispy Thai pork belly with som tum' and I'm like, 'What the f--k is som tum?' And then I tasted it, and I'm like, 'OK, I like som tum, that's awesome," Groark said. "It's a really cool partnership in terms of how we were able to marry all those things that we're both good at."
But McGibbon wasn't his only friendly face in the competition. One of the other teams included Al Frugoni, who had been Groark's open-fire mentor. McGibbon had also been the sous chef for fellow competitor Chris Williams during the World Food Championships, and those connections really helped build the community on-set, Groark said.
"Those initial meetings when we saw who our competitors were were so real," Groark said. "The hugs, the hellos were so real because these are people we talk to all the time, but we only get the opportunity to see every once in a while, so it's really genuine, it's really authentic, and that was probably the coolest part, that initial competitor meeting."
Although things started off on a high note, McGibbon said that with the vast changes in temperature from day to night, high altitude of the set and the tight competition led to a lot of "raw" emotions. But while many competition-style shows are scripted or heavily produced, he said this one felt very authentic.
"This is not like any other show, and just being on this earth and watching Food Network as long as it's been around, you can take that with a grain of salt," McGibbon said. "But legitimately, that's the response I'm getting from everyone who's watching it now, and it's good to see that it translates that way, building week after week."
"Pitmasters" premieres Mondays at 9 p.m. on Food Network and is available to stream the following day on HBO Max.
