'Beard Meats Food' star wins calzone challenge at Tre Ragazzi's

Competitive eater and YouTube personality Adam Moran was in Glencoe Wednesday, lured by the challenge of eating a 6- or 7-pound calzone (depending on the choice of toppings) within an hour's time at Tre Ragazzi's.

Moran, from Leeds in the United Kingdom, was there to record a segment for his YouTube channel "Beard Meats Food," an endeavor featuring Moran taking on food challenges from restaurants across his native country and various continents.

The most recent post on the "Beard Meats Food" Facebook page features Moran, a few months ago, diving into Ippon Ramen's spicy ramen bowl challenge — to finish a dishpan-sized bowl of spicy ramen in 9 minutes and earn $70 at the eatery in Whitby, Ontario. According to the post, it had been done only once before Moran proved up to the challenge.

Tre Ragazzi's challenge — something one of the restaurant's owners, Chad Napper, said started at the Italian restaurant's former downtown location — requires the diner to consume its super-sized calzone with at least three toppings, including two meats, within an hour.

Many people gave it a try at the old Broad Street location, Napper said, but fewer have at the Glencoe restaurant and the Gadsden Mall location.

"It's basically an 18-inch pizza folded in half," he said. "It's a pretty big calzone."

The challenge, he said, was something the Napper family thought would be fun for customers. He estimated that over the years about 70 or 80 people have attempted the challenge, and about 10 or 15 have succeeded.

Some of those have been competitive eaters like Moran.

According to celebsages.com, Moran, 37, worked as a banker in England before he became a full-time YouTuber. He set what was then a world record for most chicken nuggets eaten in a sitting during his "victorious run at the 2015 Yorkshire Pudding Eating World Championships."

Major League Eating ranks Moran as No. 15 among the top 50 competitive eaters, but notes that someone else now holds the chicken nugget record (Sonya Thomas, 80 nuggets, in five minutes).

So how did Moran handle the calzone challenge? He ate it all, Napper said, in 17 minutes, 10 seconds.

"And he asked for the dessert menu," Napper said. He ordered five cannolis and ate them, too.

Napper said competitive eaters apparently learn about challenges from other competitive eaters. Another competitive eater is scheduled to come to Tre Ragazzi's later this month, he said, to give the calzone a go.

Napper said he didn't know when the Tre Ragazzi's challenge would be posted on Moran's YouTube channel and Facebook page. An email to Moran seeking information was not immediately returned. A post on his YouTube channel indicated that he'd been traveling in the South.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Beard Meets Food star downs TreRagazzi's huge calzone