For a guy who's never cooked in a restaurant, Justin Warner held his own.
The former Hagerstown resident walked away with $10,000 for winning an episode of Food Network's "24 Hour Restaurant Battle."
The food-themed competition aired Wednesday. Two couples had 24 hours to transform an empty, New York City TV studio into a thriving restaurant. The team that wows the panel of judges gets the cash at the end of the episode.
Warner, 26, is a South Hagerstown High School graduate who lives in New York City. He worked at Roccoco and Bentley's Bagels in Hagerstown before taking on flashier front-of-the-house jobs at high-end restaurants in Colorado and New York.
Warner made it clear in interviews before the show aired and throughout the episode that he had never cooked food professionally -- at one time he even referred to himself as the "antichef."
Despite that, Warner and his girlfriend, J.J. Pyle -- a waitress whom he met on the job -- beat Philadelphia couple Zach Gaynor and Lisa Fernandez, who's retro-comfort food theme fell short.
