FIERI
Guy

• 1. Career
• 1.1. Restaurants
• 1.2. Television

Guy Ramsay Fieri is an American restaurateur, author, and an Emmy Award winning television presenter. He co-owned three now defunct restaurants in California.

He licenses his name to restaurants in cities all over the world, and is known for hosting various television series on the Food Network. By 2010, The New York Times reported that Fieri had become the "face of the network", bringing an "element of rowdy, mass-market culture to American food television" and that his "prime-time shows attract more male viewers than any others on the network".

Career

Fieri began his association with food in grade school in Ferndale, by selling pretzels from his "Awesome Pretzel" cart and washing dishes to finance his trip to France to study. On his return to the United States, he worked at the restaurant at the Red Lion Inn in Eureka, California, until he went to Las Vegas for college.

Soon after graduation from college, he worked as manager of Parker's Lighthouse, a Stouffer's restaurant in Long Beach, California. After three years in southern California, he became district manager of Louise's Trattoria, managing six locations along with recruiting and training for the restaurants.

In 2013, Fieri received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Special for the Food Network special Guy Fieri's Family Reunion.

Restaurants

In late 1996, Fieri and business partner Steve Gruber opened Johnny Garlic's, a "California Pasta Grill" in Santa Rosa, California. A second location opened in Windsor in 1999, a third in Petaluma in 2000 or 2001 (since closed), and a fourth in Roseville in late 2008. Subsequently, they developed Tex Wasabi's (barbecue and sushi) in 2003 in Santa Rosa, adding a second location in Sacramento's Arden-Arcade area in 2007 (which was rebranded as Johnny Garlic's, and then subsequently closed). An additional Johnny Garlic's was opened in Dublin, California, in 2011.

Fieri's first New York City restaurant, Guy's American Kitchen and Bar, opened in 2012 to brutal New York Times coverage by Pete Wells that Larry Olmsted of Forbes called "the most scathing review in the history of the New York Times", and "likely the most widely read restaurant review ever." Fieri, for his part, accused Wells, the nation's highest profile reviewer, of using Fieri's fame as a platform for advancing his own prestige. The restaurant's location in the highly trafficked Times Square enabled it to appear on Restaurant Business's list of the top 100 independent restaurants as ranked by sales for four years in a row. It closed at the end of 2017.

In 2011, Fieri partnered with Carnival Cruise lines to create Guy's Burger Joint to sell Fieri's burgers fleet-wide. As of October 2017, there were 19 restaurants on Carnival's cruise ships, including some serving beer-and-BBQ, Guy's Pig & Anchor Smokehouse Brewhouse.

In April 2014, Guy Fieri's Vegas Kitchen and Bar opened in Las Vegas. In 2015, Guy Fieri's Baltimore Kitchen & Bar opened in Baltimore's Horseshoe Casino. In 2018, Fieri collaborated with Planet Hollywood founder Robert Earl to open fast-food chicken sandwich shop Chicken Guy! at Disney Springs in Walt Disney World.

In 2021, Fieri opened Guy Fieri's Flavortown Kitchen, a delivery-only restaurant.

Television

After winning the second season of The Next Food Network Star on April 23, 2006, Fieri was awarded a six-episode commitment for his own cooking show on Food Network. Guy's Big Bite premiered on June 25, 2006, with the most recent episode airing on November 16, 2016.

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, his second series, premiered in April 2007 (a one-hour special aired in November 2006), with Fieri traveling the country visiting local eateries. The New York Times called the series "not a cooking show as much as a carefully engineered reality show". Ultimate Recipe Showdown, co-hosted with Marc Summers, debuted on February 17, 2008, and aired for three seasons. On September 14, 2008, Guy Off the Hook debuted on Food Network. This special studio audience show aired through the end of 2008, but the extra cost of staging an audience show did not result in a ratings bump and the concept was discontinued. For Thanksgiving 2008, Fieri hosted a one-hour special titled Guy's Family Feast. He used the "Guy Off the Hook" set for the special, which was broadcast live, on November 28, 2008. Fieri appeared on other Food Network programs such as Dinner: Impossible in 2007 and 2009, Paula's Party, Ace of Cakes, and The Best Thing I Ever Ate.

In December 2009, NBC named Fieri as the host of the game show Minute to Win It, which premiered in March 2010 and aired for two seasons. On May 13, 2012, NBC announced that the game show would not be renewed for a third season, citing high production costs and low ratings.

In January 2012, Fieri was one of the two team captains (along with Rachael Ray) in the Food Network reality series Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off. A second season of Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off began airing on Food Network on January 6, 2013. A chef challenge show, Guy's Grocery Games, started on October 27, 2013, on the Food Network. It features four cooks who battle through three rounds, and are judged by three judges.

His series, Guy's Family Road Trip, was chosen as the 2017 lead-out show from season 13 of Food Network Star. It previewed on August 13 of that year.

In May 2021, Fieri signed a three-year contract with Food Network worth an estimated $80 million.