- Sometimes
there's a man perfectly suited for his time in place.
Other times, there's a Guy:
Host and Entrepreneur, Culinary Democratizer,
Mass Wedding Officiator,
President,
CEO,
and Mayor of Flavortown, USA;
Guy Fieri is the rare multi-hyphenate celebrity accepted
by seemingly every demo.
Immune to overexposure
and pretty much free of scandal.
Ohhh God.. I hope we didn't just jinx him.
January 22nd,
1968,
Guy Ramsay Ferry is born
weighing eight pounds and six ounces with a full head
of frosted tips in Columbus, Ohio.
It's true, Guy wasn't born Fieri,
but in some ways it is his real name.
When Guy's grandfather immigrated from Italy to the U.S., 22 00:00:56,930 --> 00:01:00,610- he changed his last name from Fieri to Ferry
and later in life, Guy took it back.
In the early 70s, the Ferry fam moved to Ferndale,
a rural beach town in Northern California.
By sixth grade, Guy ventures into the food industry
with a small pretzel cart he opened after becoming enamored
with soft pretzels on a family trip to Tahoe.
And young Guy earned so much scratch slinging pretzels
and working other odd jobs over the next few years,
by 16, he saves enough money to go to Chantilly, France
to study cooking.
Vive la Donkey Sauce!
Before returning to the states to get his college degree
at the University of Nevada in hospitality.
In the early 90s,
Guy is a successful restaurant manager
at Louise's Trattoria.
He meets his wife Lori,
after he lays off one of her best friends
and she came in and basically yelled at him.
What a meet cute!
By the mid-90s, Guy and Lori are married,
Guy Ferry officially changes his name to Guy Fieri,
and he and his business partner open their own restaurant,
Johnny Garlic's, in Santa Rosa, California.
They end up opening two more locations of Johnny Garlic's
and a Southern BBQ/sushi mashup
called Tex Wasabi's soon after.
Around this time, Guy won a contest to meet
Van Halen singer, Sammy Hagar,
and presented The Red Rocker with a guitar
topped with sushi rolls,
launching a long-standing friendship
that we'll get into in a minute.
In 2001, Guy has his first foray into television as a
spokesperson for Flowmaster Mufflers
and we can start to see his on-screen personality take shape.
By 2005, Guy was a successful restaurateur with a classic
car collection and famous friends,
but his career was just really getting started.
His friends and colleagues encouraged Fieri to enter
season two of The Next Food Network Star,
which he won, obviously!
In 2006, Guy's Big Bite premiered on the Food Network,
which basically consisted of Guy and his friends
talking closely over grilled meat.
In 2007, Guy's Big Bite was so well-received
the Food Network greenlit another show with Fieri
called Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
If you've been in a coma for the past 15 years,
first off, welcome back!
And secondly,
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives is one of the most popular
food shows of all time.
Featuring Guy traveling across the country,
visiting small restaurants that might have commonly been
overlooked by traditional food media.
The show is a wild success
running 33 seasons and counting
birthed multiple cookbooks,
and is beloved by a legion of loyal fans who obsessively
track and visit the spots Guy highlights on his show.
From here,
the legend of Guy Fieri expands and he's seemingly on TV
more than Ryan Seacrest.
Guy's Grocery Games, Guy Fieri's Roadshow
Guy's Family Reunion, Guy's Family Cruise,
Guy and Hunter's European Vacation.
These are just some of the TV ventures
Mr. Fieri has launched over the years and his influence
permeates all levels of pop culture.
As Melissa McCarthy notably bases her iconic
Bridesmaids character
on Fieri's larger than life TV personality.
However,
there were some members of the food world immune to Guy's
deep-fried charm.
In 2012, New York Times legendary restaurant critic,
Pete Wells, notably torched Guy's
American Grill in Times Square.
And fellow food celebrity, Anthony Bourdain voices
his distaste for Fieri saying,
"I look at Guy Fieri and I just think, 'Jesus,
I'm glad that's not me,'"
among many other public insults.
In 2015, after Florida legalizes same-sex marriage,
Guy Fieri plans and helps officiate the unions of
101 same-sex marriages at a mass wedding in Miami.
In 2017, thousands of revelers dressed like Guy
hit the streets for FieriCon,
an unofficial bar crawl dedicated to
the legend of Guy.
In 2019, Guy gets his own star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame
with an induction speech courtesy of his close
friend, Matthew McConaughey.
All right, all right, al --
you get it.
In 2020, during the first few months of the pandemic,
Fieri starts the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund,
which raised more than $21 million for restaurant workers.
And in 2021, Fieri and Sammy Hagar celebrate their
tequila brand Santo and Thrillist's second annual
Fast Food Awards by playing a fast food-themed
drinking game.
Link in the description!
At any rate,
we salute you, Guy Fieri,
for being a TV host that transcends food,
a choice Halloween costume inspiration,
and an individual that by all accounts has tried to
pay it forward whenever he can.
If we were all just a little more like Guy Fieri,
the world might in fact be a better place.