Stuph’d Beignets & Burgers did not enter the final stretch of The Great Food Truck Race Season 19 looking like the team most likely to win. By the time the competition moved toward its decisive taste challenge in Louisville, Kentucky, Hele Rolls had already built the stronger position. Stuph’d had finished the sales portion with $2,930, more than $600 behind Hele Rolls, and that gap translated into a five-vote disadvantage heading into the final showdown. Yet the New Orleans family team of Duana, her daughter Dionne and Dionne’s father Sherman was still alive because Season 19 had changed one crucial part of the finale: sales would no longer decide the champion by themselves.
Food Network explained that in previous seasons, the final sales totals could determine which team won the title and the $50,000 prize. This time, sales only produced an advantage. Taste would have the final say. That distinction became especially important because Hele Rolls had enjoyed a strong opening position outside the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. After earning Pole Position at the end of the Top 3 competition, Hele Rolls was allowed by host Tyler Florence to keep its truck open for a full hour after Stuph’d stopped selling. Hele Rolls was also already prepared and taking orders while Stuph’d was still trying to get organized. The burners were not ready, the menu was unfinished, the shrimp was not complete and customers were arriving quickly.
Once Stuph’d settled down, the team leaned into the food that had defined its identity. Its final sales menu included Creole Crawfish Beignet, Grilled Shrimp Beignet, Kentucky Hot Brown Beignet, Traditional Beignet, Cheesecake Beignet and the Big Easy Flight, along with a new Sweet Potato Pie Beignet. The last item was especially personal to Duana, who called it one of her favorites. Even before the championship round arrived, Stuph’d was already showing a willingness to introduce something new rather than simply repeat what had worked before.
That instinct was tested again at the Muhammad Ali Center during the “Pack a Punch” Taste Challenge. Tyler gave both teams four fiery ingredients to choose from — wasabi, horseradish, kimchi and habanero — with $300 available to the winner. Stuph’d chose habanero. Duana immediately connected the challenge to the concept behind the business, saying, “We’re called Stuph’d. Here’s the opportunity to stuff the peppers.” She created the Habanero 911 beignet, leaving some seeds in for extra heat and filling the pepper with shrimp, turkey, grilled onions, peppers and shredded cheese before adding house-made shrimp sauce on top.
The dish hit Tyler hard. “Oh my God, it’s hot. It’s hot. It’s packing a punch,” he said after tasting it, pointing out the tear on his face. But he also praised the flavor profile and the shrimp sauce, eventually telling Stuph’d, “I’m so glad you guys are here in the finale. You deserve to be here.” The team won the challenge and added $300 to its total, but even that success was not enough to catch Hele Rolls in sales. Stuph’d remained more than $600 behind and entered the last round down five votes.
The championship would be decided at Churchill Downs, the famous home of the Kentucky Derby. There, 500 local diners would taste the final dishes and vote. Tyler controlled five votes, while guest judge Damaris Phillips — a Southern comfort food chef, cookbook author and Food Network Star winner — controlled another five. For Stuph’d, the situation was clear: one final dish would have to overcome the advantage Hele Rolls had earned earlier.
Instead of relying on something already established, Stuph’d created an entirely new dish called the Creole Queen, inspired by New Orleans flavors. The decision fit the larger story of the team better than it may have seemed at first. Duana’s business had been built around the idea of taking a New Orleans classic and doing something unexpected with it. Ten years earlier, she had started stuffing beignets and burgers even though many people doubted the idea. “Everyone thought, ‘How are you going to do that in a beignet?’” she later recalled.
At Churchill Downs, that same willingness to reshape something familiar became the team’s biggest weapon. The Creole Queen won over both Tyler and Damaris. Stuph’d received all 10 judge votes, erasing Hele Rolls’ five-vote advantage and giving Stuph’d its first lead of the afternoon. At that point, everything depended on the 500 ballots from the local tasters.
The final margin was almost impossibly small. Stuph’d Beignets & Burgers won Season 19 by just 19 votes, securing the $50,000 prize and the championship. Duana broke down in tears and embraced Dionne and Sherman. Her reaction reflected more than relief over a television competition. “I don’t have any formal training,” she said. “I didn’t go to school for this.” Instead, she credited the women she grew up around — her grandmother, mother and aunts — all of whom cooked and loved to cook.
Duana said she never imagined that food she had prepared for her family would one day be enjoyed by so many people. The victory also gave new meaning to the skepticism she had faced 10 years earlier. “They thought we couldn’t put a twist on the New Orleans classic,” she said. “But you know what? We did, and we perfected it.”
Dionne saw the result as the moment the family business had been waiting for. After 10 years, she said, they should not still feel like a small “mom-and-pop” operation. Her words captured the emotion of the win: “This is our moment. This is Duana’s moment. This is Stuph’d’s moment.”
In the end, the Creole Queen did more than win a taste challenge. It connected the final minutes of Season 19 to the same idea Duana had been defending for a decade. Stuph’d did not erase Hele Rolls’ advantage through sales. They erased it by returning to the creative instinct that built the business in the first place — and on a finale decided by taste, that was enough to turn a five-vote deficit into a 19-vote championship.
