South Jersey food truck owner to cook on ‘Live with Kelly and Ryan’

When Mary Hilbert got the email on July 7 that she’d been selected to appear on “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” she was utterly ecstatic.

The local chef, who has a food truck called Mary’s Mobile Diner based in the Pennsauken and Merchantville area, will appear on a segment airing on Friday (9 a.m. on 6ABC) called “Live’s Hometown Chefs Summer Cooking.” 

The segment is part of a series which features neighborhood chefs who show off their cooking skills on national television.

“It was amazing,” said Hilbert, a Pennsauken resident. “It was really pretty cool. I didn’t expect it at all. It was something out of the blue.”

South Jersey chef Mary Hilbert, right, is shown on the set of the 'Live with Kelly and Ryan' show with hosts Kelly Ripa, center, and Ryan Seacrest. Hilbert has a food truck Mary's Mobile Diner, and appears on 'Live’s Hometown Chefs Summer Cooking' series which showcases a different chef each Friday.

Each summer, according to a press release from the show, “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” co-hosted by Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest, offers weekly cooking segments, which feature things like grilling, barbecue, food trucks and celebrity recipes.

This year, they turned the focus “to restaurants and establishments from across the country that are getting back to the business of food as pandemic restrictions across the nation start to lift.”