When Guy Fieri was growing up, his parents took him on a ski holiday which sparked an idea that set him on a path to fame and fortune.
It was the late 1970s and each day of the trip Fieri, who was around 10, treated himself to a soft pretzel for lunch.
He regaled his parents about the flavour goodness of the steamed, salted knot. Then his father offered up an idea.
Today, Fieri is one of the world’s richest chefs, with a net worth of $US100 million (about $150 million).
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A budding foodie
“I never knew what a pretzel was. I thought a pretzel was crunchy,” Fieri told Variety in a 2020 interview.
“My dad says, ‘If you’re such a fan of these pretzels, why don’t you own a pretzel business when we get back home?'”
The idea interested Fieri’s burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit.
He returned to the pretzel stand in the Tahoe ski field armed with questions for the owner, mainly who made the delicious snack. Yet the owner was unyielding, refusing to give the young Fieri the name or address of the manufacturer.
“Why do you want to get the address?” Fieri recalls him asking. “So you can start a pretzel business? I said, ‘How’d you know?’ He goes, ‘I’m not giving them to you.’ I said, ‘I’m a kid!'”
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Fieri left feeling defeated, but still had one chance up his sleeve. He waited for the stand owner to pack up for the day before fishing through a nearby bin. He found what he was looking for – a pretzel box with all the details.
When he returned to the family home in California, Fieri and his parents, Jim and Penelope, set about building on the idea.
His father built him a pretzel box on top of a three-wheeled bicycle and soon they were in business.
The family spent the next six years selling the pretzels from “The Awesome Pretzel Cart” at local events.
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‘A light in my head went off’
At 15, Fieri was keen to expand his knowledge. He was too young for a student exchange abroad, but he had enough savings for a plane ticket.
A chance dinner with a French cork salesman, a friend of the family, set the ambitious teenager’s mind for adventure into gear.
“We’re sitting there, having dinner with this French dude, thick French accent, and a light in my head went off,” Guy told Brian Koppelman on his podcast in 2018.
“Bing! This is my ticket to France.”
After a series of letter correspondence, Fieri was on a plane to the City of Lights. It was a transformative experience.
“The click went off, and I said, ‘That’s it, I’m a food person’. That’s what I want to be – I want to own my own restaurant.”
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Fieri returned to the US and studied a degree in hospitality management from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.
While studying, he created his signature dish – blackened chicken in a creamy alfredo sauce.
At 26, his parents mortgaged their home to help him fund his first restaurant.
He then teamed up with an entrepreneur named Steve Gruber and the pair opened Johnny Garlic’s, a family-friendly California “pasta grill”, in Santa Rosa. Later, they opened a sister restaurant.
By 2006, Fieri filmed his audition tape for the Food Network’s Next Food Network Star competition. He won.
The show gave him his own series, the Emmy-nominated Guy’s Big Bite.
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Since his TV victory, Fieri has transitioned from entrepreneur to chef, restaurateur, TV star and New York Times Best Selling author.
Late last year he signed a new deal with the Food Network worth $100 million. The deal will see more episodes of his three popular shows – Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Guy’s Grocery Games and Tournament of Champions.
“I got to be honest – no way, shape or form would any of this ever happen,” Fieri told People.
“I come from great parents, got a great family, great wife, surrounded by awesome friends, and my teams, the teams in Guy’s Grocery Games and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, my Food Network family, my agent, it’s all these people – it’s a collective.”
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Despite his fame, the mayor of “Flavortown” has never forgotten his roots.
During the California wildfires he served thousands of meals to first responders fighting the blazes. He did the same during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also helped raise more than US$20 million for out-of-work restaurant workers.
“I started sending out personal video messages to all the CEOs that had any connection to the restaurant association: Pepsi, Coke, Cargill, Keurig, Dr Pepper, you name it,” he said.
“I’m standing right here and I’m doing it. My wife, my kids are sitting here having dinner and they’re like, ‘You’re really losin’ it.’
“And so anyhow, the next morning we have a conference call. And they said, ‘Pepsi just sent us a million bucks.’ I’m not kiddin’ ya, I had to pull over to the side of the road!”
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