Last summer, Barbara Apt auditioned to be on The Next Food Network Star and didn't get accepted. But Food Network wasn't done with her yet.

Apt, who lives in the Denton County community of Lantana, received an e-mail about a casting call for a new show the network was doing. The show, 24-Hour Restaurant Battle, pits teams of two aspiring restaurateurs against each other in a race to design and furnish a restaurant, plan a menu and serve patrons, all within 24 hours.

Apt thought it would be perfect for her and her sister, Lisa Sheehan, who lives not far from Lantana in Argyle. Apt didn't have to twist her sister's arm.

"She e-mailed me and said, 'Gee, do you think we should do this?' " Sheehan said in a phone interview. "I told her that if I had been with her when she was down in Austin auditioning for The Next Food Network Star, I would've gotten her on that show.

"I knew that the lady that had just won was a Texas mom," Sheehan said, referring to former Keller resident Melissa D'Arabian, "and that's Barbie's thing – fast, fresh, casual, friendly for your family. I would've talked them into doing two shows."

Sheehan and Apt made a good combination for the show, which airs tonight. Apt is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Sheehan has been a restaurant manager since she was 20 and has worked for a number of high-profile chef-restaurateurs, including Wolfgang Puck. Apt also has worked for Puck, and both have been involved in the opening of several restaurants.

Of course, they had more than 24 hours in those cases.

"The time factor is just overwhelming," Apt said. "To think that you could possibly do that in 24 hours. But I think for us and the gentlemen that we were competing against, who also both had quite good experience ... it was unrealistic. But many aspects of it were totally realistic."

The show does echo the popular "Restaurant Wars" episode that takes place every season on Bravo's Top Chef, but 24-Hour Restaurant Battle features smaller competing teams. The duos (the sisters go up against Erik Ruminski and Ces Lopez, longtime friends from the Chicago area) do get help, but the two-person teams are the only ones who get critiqued by the show's panel of judges.

It's quickly evident, watching the show, that the sisters aren't North Texas natives. They were raised in the San Francisco Bay area, and they've both lived in many places before settling in North Texas. Apt and her family moved here in 2004, and Sheehan followed a couple of years later – almost on impulse. She, her husband and her son had been living in Las Vegas for several years and had tired of it when they came to Texas for a family Thanksgiving visit in 2005.

One of the reasons the sisters did the show was to see whether they could open a restaurant together. They now think they can, although the idea is still in its embryonic stages.

"We're in our early 40s, and we both have a couple of decades of work left in us for sure, and our kids are getting older," Sheehan said. "I would love to have a place for our families, that our kids can work and learn and do hard work like we did."

24-Hour Restaurant Battle

9 tonight, Food Network, 1hr.