Famous competitive eating champion Joey Chestnut is heading to Minnesota for an epic hot dog challenge at CHS Field in August, and he’ll be getting a little help from a friend.
Chestnut and international food challenge eater Bandana.eats will be taking on the “Land of 10,000 Calories” food challenge on Aug. 8 ahead of that evening’s Saints game.
The food challenge item, which debuted this season as a new food offering for Saints games, is a six-foot-long hot dog that’s topped with pulled pork, mac and cheese, jalapeños, and barbecue sauce. It also includes six feet of fresh fries and piled next to the giant hot dog on one side of it and jalapeño poppers on the other side of the long bun.
Chestnut is a 17-time Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Champion. His “teammate” for the challenge, Bandana.eats, is originally from Minnesota. The pair will try to eat the 23.5 pounds of food by themselves. They will not be timed, a press release said.
The Saints said that of all the times it has been ordered, it has only been finished a few times, and those times were all with no fewer than a dozen people eating it.
Anyone attending a Saints game can order the “Land of 10,000 Calories” at the Dog Park concession stand. It costs $135, and while fans can order one at any time, it takes about 45 minutes to prepare. Typically, the Saints said they can only make about five of them per game due to the time it takes to prepare.
Chestnut holds 55 world records, including a World Record he set in 2021 for eating 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes at the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Bandana.eats has participated in hundreds of food challenges and has beaten many of them.
The food challenge will start at 7 p.m. at the Cub A Cabana Lawn Pavilion on the left field corner. The first pitch for the game that night is at 7:07 p.m.
Special ticket packages are available for the game and food challenge. For $76, fans get two tickets to the game, inside the ropes to watch the food challenge, a pre-event meet and greet with Chestnut and a mini ‘Land of 10,000 Calories’ board that includes a one-foot hot dog, all the same fixings on top of it, and the fries and jalapeño poppers. For $30, fans can get a single ticket to the game and a pre-event meet and greet.
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