That creative flexibility helped Brown build Good Eats into the kitschy powerhouse it became over two decades as its host, writer, and director—but it's also why he decided to put the show aside in 2012. “Quite frankly, as a filmmaker, I was getting bored. So I wanted to wait for technological changes,” Brown says.

On July 13, 2021, the final episodes of Good Eats: The Return aired on Food Network; Brown commented on his Facebook page that these episodes would not only be the end of Good Eats: The Return but the conclusion of all Good Eats programming.