The Genius of Guy Fieri – How the Bleached One Created an Empire by Being Himself

It’s supposedly 97 degrees and I’m grossly sweating through my shirt on a rooftop in the middle of Manhattan. From where I’m standing, New York City is all floating buildings and blue skies; no sidewalks overcrowded with tourists bumbling past self-important men in suits rushing to wherever they have to get to. All around me are grand buildings like St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 30 Rock, and the Scribner Building, and the roof I’m on has the greenest grass I’ve ever seen in the city, a little pool, and four huge steel letters that spell out M-E-A-T with unlit light bulbs that I’m guessing will be turned on once the sun sets. I’m on this rooftop with a beer in one hand and a plate in the other that’s piled with Andouille sausage and chicken. That’s when I realize: Holy shit, I’m in Flavortown.

I let that sink in as I take one last sip of the warm beer, and begin to follow a very tan woman who leads me to meet the ruler of this mythical land, Guy Fieri.

AP
Diane Bondareff

I know a fair amount about Fieri. He was born Guy Ferry, and he changed his last name to honor his immigrant great-grandfather. I know he hates eggs—not necessarily eggs in his food, but actual eggs: scrambled, sunny side-up, omelets. I’m aware he’s the subject of a fair amount of ridicule from some of our best restaurant critics and biggest celebrity chefs. Some people confuse him for a member of Smash Mouth or Insane Clown Posse. He’s practically a meme walking among us. I get all that, I do. But I need to put all of that to the side of my overflowing plate for now.

As I start talking with Fieri, who is in town to promote his new BBQ venture with Carnival Cruise Line, I think about all of that stuff, but I try to be a good interviewer and strip away any preconceived ideas I might have about him. He greets me with an enthusiastic fist bump. (Later I notice a nick on my knuckle oozing blood from where I grazed my hand on one of his impressive signet rings.) We strike up a conversation about Sammy Hagar. (“I was even more of a Hagar fan when he was just Hagar and not Van Hagar,” he says.) It’s hard not to look up above the Diners, Drive-ins and Dives host’s face and focus on his famous head of bleached blond hair. It sticks so straight up that you could imagine him lowering his head and charging toward a line.

I have a small rush of panic that shoots through me—like when I worry I left the house with the faucet running or forgot to feed the cats—when I can’t find his famous pair of white sunglasses, usually perched on the back of his head. My eyes dart desperately and I see them resting atop a bag nearby. There they are. The fear subsides and we continue.

Here’s where I admit I’m an unabashed fan of Fieri’s television shows and that I definitely watch several hours of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives each week. “Because you have good taste,” Fieri says when I make my confession. Of course, I tend to agree with Fieri, but when I tell any of my friends how much time I spend watching Triple D, and I see the look they give me in response, I feel the need to also mention that I really enjoyed reading Dan Fox’s Pretentiousness, that I love to work to William Basinski’s minimalist masterpiece The Disintegration Loops, or that my wife and I put money away every few months because we’re on a mission to eat at Blue Hill at Stone Barns at least one time for each month on the calendar.