Guy Fieri

Fieri has a passion for collecting vintage American car models. He owns a 1968 Pontiac Firebird, a Chevrolet Impala SS (1969) and a Jeep CJ-5 (1976), and many other classic cars.

Guy Fieri was born on 22 January 1968, in Columbus, Ohio to Lewis James Ferry and Penelope Anne Price. He spent his growing up years in Ferndale, California. He had a sister, Morgan Fieri, younger to him, and who succumbed to cancer.

He was drawn towards food as a child and started charting a roadmap for becoming an acclaimed restaurateur in the future. His father extended full support for constructing a special cart for ferrying and selling pretzels when he was just 10.

Apart from vending pretzels from a cart named, ‘Awesome Pretzels’, he also did dishes for building a nest egg while still in high school. After six years, he had saved enough money to finance a trip to France for enrolling in a one-year culinary course.

After coming back, he found a job in an inn in Eureka, CA which he did until he started attending University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Armed with a Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel Management in 1990, he started looking for entry-level restaurant jobs.

The extensive experience that he had garnered after working in different restaurants, gave him the confidence to apply for a managerial position in a restaurant in Long Beach, California. Three years later, he was appointed as the district manager of ‘Louise’s Trattoria’ where he was put in charge of six restaurants.

Guy Fieri had six years of professional experience behind him when he made up his mind to open an restaurant along with Steve Gruber, his business associate. Towards the end of 1996, he and his business partner started, ‘Johnny Garlic’s’ in Santa Rosa, California followed by two more in Windsor and Petaluma, in 1999 and 2000 respectively.

The ‘California Pasta Grill’ address in Petaluma downed its shutters subsequently and in 2008, they opened their fourth restaurant in Roseville. Afterwards, they diversified into sushi and barbecue fare, opening ‘Tex Wasabi’s in Santa Rosa in 2003 and added a second location in Sacramento in 2007, which eventually closed down.

The business partners opened a ‘Johnny Garlic’s’ restaurant in a new avatar in 2011 in Dublin, California. Fieri took the initiative of opening a diner in New York City, a risky move, considering the fact that Big Apple was the most competitive market for restaurants in the US.

He named the restaurant, ‘Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar’ that threw open its doors in New York City, in 2012. The restaurant received negative press reviews with New York Times scathingly criticizing the restaurant’s opening. Guy Fieri defended his restaurant’s launch by rebutting that the New York Times reporter’s pessimistic report was more of a self-propelling stunt.

He decided to close his New York City restaurant by 2017 end, even though the diner featured on the ‘top 100 independent restaurants’ in the Restaurant Business’s listing in terms of sales.

Guy Fieri qualified as a contestant for the second season of ‘The Next Food Network Star’ cooking show and went on to win the competition. As a winner, he bagged a deal for promoting his culinary program, ‘Guy’s Big Bite’ on the Food Network in that very year.

’Guy’s Big Bite’ which was first broadcasted in June 2006 still continues to be aired on the Food Network channel. Another gourmet show of his, ‘Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives’ that saw him crisscrossing America, interviewing local cafes went on the air from April of 2007. This program is still being aired as well.

In 2008, from February 17th onwards, he started hosting ‘Ultimate Recipe Showdown’ along with Marc Summers as co-host. The program broadcasted for three seasons successively, was dubbed more of a reality show than a culinary event by The New York Times.

His next show, ‘Guy off the Hook’ broadcasted since September 2008, had a more conventional setting where an audience witnessed him rustling up mouthwatering dishes. However when the program’s TRP ratings’ did not increase noticeably despite the staging of live spectators, the show was pulled off the air.

Guy Fieri has hosted as well as made guest appearances on numerous other culinary series and episodes of Food Network including ‘The Best Thing I Ever Ate’, ‘Ace of Cakes’, ‘Phineas & Ferb’, and ‘Ridiculousness’.