High school friends see an alternative to fast food with the "submarine" sandwich, but they are quickly met with fierce competition from a new submarine joint that will go on to be the biggest restaurant chain in the world.
In the late 1800s, German immigrants Joseph Schlitz and Captain Frederick Pabst find themselves in a battle for beer dominance. In their fight for one-upmanship, they will help create the most popular alcoholic beverage on the planet.
When a commercial caterer realises his two best selling items are doughnuts and coffee, he joins forces with his brother-in-law to create a revolutionary doughnut chain. Soon a rivalry starts with a beloved Southern-based doughnut shop.
In a quest to dominate the growing commercial bread industry, Lee Marshall bets on a new kind of white loaf, unwittingly inspiring a homemaker named Margaret Rudkin to come up with a healthier alternative.
Hollywood agent Wally Amos transforms his professional life when he decides to make and sell his own gourmet chocolate chip cookies, and opens America's first cookie store; housewife Debbi Fields opens her home-style cookie shop in a mall.
Small town farmer Orville Redenbacher has a lifelong dream of creating the perfect popcorn kernel leading to the first significant development of popcorn in thousands of years which he sells nationwide.
Restaurateur Glen Bell works to create a burger alternative for the overcrowded fast-food market and after several setbacks goes on to help introduce the taco to America with his namesake restaurant; while two brothers also look to beat the burger by betting that a roast beef sandwich can compete with the national burger chains.
In New York City, former Olympic wrestler Rocky Aoki and a perfume salesman become the unlikely fathers of a casual dining revolution when they open wildly different establishments in the heart of the city: one of America's first Japanese restaurants, and a swinging singles bar that will go on to become one of the country's most iconic restaurant chains.
Martha Entenmann takes the reins of her late husband's baking company and grows it into a national powerhouse; a married couple bankrupt one bakery, but succeed their second time around with a revolutionary way to sell snack cakes.
Hector and Mario Boiardi open an Italian restaurant in Cleveland in 1924 and soon introduce Italian food to Americans; the brothers eventually find themselves in competition with James Kraft and his newest offering, macaroni and cheese.
