There was one stark difference from regular competitions that Tina noticed right away when she started to film American Barbecue Showdown with Netflix: everyone was ridiculously nice. She was overwhelmed by the sheer size of production and said, "Everything worked. And to get that many people to do what you're supposed to do and then be nice to all of us? It was so sweet," she told POPSUGAR.
Tina was also really pleasantly surprised to see such a large number of women working on production as well, something she thinks of often, being a woman in barbecue. "I love it that they employ so many women, and younger women too — the producers, so many of them were young women," she said. She also added that seeing such a large company employing so many women from so many different backgrounds gives her hope for all these industries typically dominated by men — and our country as a whole. "I have renewed hope that our country's not going anywhere in a hand basket, because there were so many women doing it, you know what I mean?"