There goes Justin Coleman of Bake’n Bacon, hamming it up on ‘Guy’s Grocery Games’

Restaurateur Justin Coleman opened his Instagram and saw a message urging him to audition for the Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games. “I thought it was a scam at first,” said Coleman, a partner in Bake’n Bacon, the bacon-theme bar-restaurant in South Philadelphia.

He showed it to his partner, Kelvin Alexander. “We’re like, ‘this can’t be real,’” Coleman said.

Curiosity eventually got the best of him. The story checked out. He learned that the Guy Fieri competition series, which features chefs cooking food with ingredients found in a supermarket, was planning an episode around pork.

Coleman shot a video screen test in his restaurant, got the green light, and flew to California for the taping. The episode, titled “Bad to the Bacon,” premieres at 9 p.m. Wednesday. The winner brings home the bacon: up to $20,000.

Coleman said he did the episode “for exposure, of course, but also I am a fan of Guy. I’ve watched his shows for a long time. When I was in Hawaii, I went to a restaurant [featured] on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I’ve been on Carnival Cruises and he has restaurants there.”

The episode’s challenges and its outcome are closely held, as is typical. The Food Network’s blurb reads: “First, they must prepare their signature bacon dish using only the ingredients they can buy with the meager funds in their piggy banks. The chefs then prove they can do ‘swine dining’ by preparing a high-end bacon dish that features the fruit they won in a game of Piggleball.”

Coleman would share only that his takeaway from the episode was that to see Guy in person was surreal. “When you meet celebrities, you never know how they’re going to be in person,” Coleman said. “He was really chill and down to earth, cracking jokes.”

There will be a public watch party starting at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Bake’n Bacon, 11th and Ellsworth Streets.