The Guy Fieri Road Show embraces pop culture with a fusion of the culinary world and rock and roll

With his bleached blond spikes, sunglasses, and more jewelry than your great Aunt Florence, chef, author, and Food Network star, Guy Fieri, is about to change the role food plays in pop culture. He’s created a new recipe and this one’s about to blow the roof off venues across the country.

The Guy Fieri Road Show, a kind of culinary world meets rock ‘n’ roll concert fusion, kicks off November 17 in Massachusetts and will hit 21 locations in 30 days! Guy will be travelling with his culinary crew on two tour buses, rock star style, and wait for it… He’ll be stopping in Raleigh! So fellow Raleighites, mark your calendars: November 21 at 7:00 pm at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium.

What can audience members expect? Well, it’s certainly not going to be the kind of cooking show your momma used to don her apron to watch. Australian-based flair bartender Hayden “Woody” Wood will serve as the opening act – flair bartending being the kind of bottle-tossing, shaker-flipping trickery that Tom Cruise failed at miserably in Cocktail. Each city will feature its own locally renowned chef, followed by the main show with Guy performing unscripted. Highlights are said to include interactive cooking stations, demos, behind the scenes stories from the road and more.

In a recent press release for The Guy Fieri Road Show tour, Guy said, “We’ve been test-driving this concept on a smaller scale and the adrenaline of the crowd is through the roof. Putting on a show for my fans that marries food and rock-n-roll with blow-your-mind entertainment is a dream come true.”

Thanks to names like Paula Dean, Bobby Flay, and Emeril Lagasse (Bam!), the last decade has seen resurgence in culinary style and interest. With inspired shopping lists and shiny new cooking apparatus, people all across America are trading in a few hours on their laptops each week to try their creativity in the kitchen. No doubt Guy has been a large contributor to this food renaissance. When he won The Next Food Network Star in 2006, he burst onto the culinary scene and revolutionized the standard “behind the counter” cooking show with his hearty laugh, charismatic personality, and ostentatious looks, quickly being labeled the “Bad Boy” of Food Network.

Since his foray into our culinary conscience, Guy has been on four Food Network shows, including the three he currently hosts, Guy’s Big Bite, Guy Off the Hook, and Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. He’s the author of two books inspired by his show, the best seller Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip ... with Recipes! and his latest which is set to be released in November, More Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: A Drop-Top Culinary Cruise Through America’s Finest and Funkiest Joints. Guy also co-owns Johnny Garlic's (3 locations) and Tex Wasabi's (2 locations) in Northern California.

Although this kind of success is still new to Guy Fieri, he has always possessed that entrepreneurial drive. Starting at the ripe old age of ten, Guy began his first business and culinary endeavor, The Awesome Pretzel, selling soft pretzels from a three-wheeled bicycle cart. This wasn’t your average childhood lemonade stand; between this and washing dishes, Guy earned enough to study abroad as an exchange student in Chantilly, France, where food began to mean far more than a fuel source between games of backyard Spotlight.

Guy attended the University of Nevada Las Vegas where he earned his degree in Hospitality Management. In a few short years, he worked his way up to District Manager for Louise’s Trattoria, overseeing six restaurants in the chain. In 1996, Guy and his business partner, Steve Gruber, opened their first restaurant, Johnny Garlic’s. In 2003, the duo developed Tex Wasabi’s, a Southern BBQ and California Sushi restaurant, which proved to be a successful paradox.

Guy lives in his native Northern California with his wife, Lori, and sons, Hunter and Ryder. His hobbies might even allow him to keep his "Bad Boy" label outside of the culinary realm, enjoying classic car restoration, dirt bikes, and riding his lifted monster golf cart.

This self-proclaimed Guido has pulled more than a few rabbits from his hat (and then stuck them in the oven with an appropriately seasoned rub) and his road show promises to be no less than magic. In the words of Guy, it’s bound to be “MONEY!”
 

(Special thanks to The Brooks Group, NY for additional information and photographs.) 

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