Christmas in September: Sugarland to appear in new Food Network show

On Saturday, if you had walked into Sugarland, a dessert shop on Franklin Street, you might have been a little confused. 

The walls were covered in red and green garlands, the display freezers were full of eggnog gelato and the tables were decorated with gingerbread houses. 

Food Network spent nearly 14 hours on Saturday in Sugarland, filming Christmas-themed content for a new show that focuses on dessert shops around the United States. 

The show remains unnamed in an effort to create an atmosphere of anticipation for the premiere. Not even Doc Ryan, one of the owners of the Chapel Hill and Raleigh Sugarland locations, knows the title.

“We have a pretty good relationship with Food Network,” he said. “We had a show on about five years ago on a Food Network series created by one of the Food Network stars by the name of Adam Gertler."

The show was called "Kid in a Candy Store" and featured Gertler traveling around the country, stopping in various sweets shops — including Sugarland. 

The episode will air sometime in December, but a release date has yet to be named. It will follow the Holderness Family — famous for their YouTube video parodies and original content — as they spend time baking treats at Sugarland.

“They’re a YouTube phenomenon, but I don’t know about any of that," Ryan said. "All I’m told is that they’re famous and sing in their pajamas."

Katie Heuser, a sophomore at UNC who works as counter staff at Sugarland, said the atmosphere in the shop was hectic Saturday. The shop was open for business during filming.

“It was kind of crazy because I walked in not knowing what was going on — there were floodlights and lots of Christmas decorations," she said. "It was exciting — my coworker told me the night before but management didn’t really give me a heads up."

Lauren Norris, a UNC senior, was working the Sugarland counter towards the end of the day of filming.

“I got here at the tail end of it," she said. "We baked a bunch of Christmas things like eggnog martinis, cheesecakes, cupcakes and gelato. By the time I was here, what they were filming was the process of making the martinis and our baker baking some of the things."

Heuser said she, other employees and any customers that came in Saturday had to sign a waiver giving Food Network permission to possibly feature them in the episode. 

“A majority of the customers were actually wearing shorts even though it was Christmas-themed, so it might look a little odd,” she said.

Ryan said there were a lot of UNC students in the shop Saturday.

"It should be interesting to see them in the background,” he said.

Sugarland is no stranger to television appearances. In the past, the dessert shop has been featured on the Martha Stewart Show, HGTV and MTV.

“Six months after our first television appearance, we saw the biggest increase in sales we’ve ever seen," Ryan said. "The power of television absolutely convinced us that getting content on there was important."

city@dailytarheel.com