Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Guy Fieri

Episode Date: March 14, 2021

Guy Fieri and his famous red Camaro have been a staple of the Food Network for over 15 years, as he built a vast collection of shows, products and restaurants around the world. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist talks to the star chef about building that empire and his fundraising efforts over the last year to feed frontline workers and help restaurant employees during the pandemic.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Got a really fun one this week, I think you're going to enjoy, with superstar chef Guy Fietti. Yes, that guy Fietti. The donkey sauce and the flavor town and the spiked hair and the 75 restaurants and all that personality and diners and drive-ins and dives and the food network. You know and love the man. But do you know and love the fact that he also, during the time? this last year of pandemic has been out personally feeding frontline workers at hospitals,

personally feeding firefighters on the front lines of California wildfires, and perhaps most impressively pulling together all of his contacts, all the people he knows, work in the phones to raise $21 million for food service workers, people who work in restaurants who've just been straight up out of work for the last year, reached 43,000 of them with this initiative he dreamed up and you'll hear him talk about. He's a great dude. Here's the setup. I'm in that room above my garage you've become very familiar with. He is at his home in Sonoma County, California in the heart of wine country. The man's busy. He's got a lot going on. He was shooting guys grocery games, one of his many shows, at his house. His son Hunter was helping him shoot it. He's got this crazy outdoor kitchen,

as you can imagine, does everything big. Just a fun guy to listen to and to dig into his backstory, I think most people don't know how he fell in love with the food business when he was 10 years old, started a pretzel cart, a successful pretzel cart, as you can imagine, with his drive and his optimism. And it grew from there. The full story with Guy Fietti and details about all the effort he's been putting in for the last year to help people, to help people climb out from this tough year in the restaurant industry. Guy Fietti right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Guy, it's great to see you, my friend.

Absolutely. It's a different way to hang out, but it's, I enjoy the hang. Yeah, I was going to say, we're used to being next to each other in a kitchen with about three and a half minutes to make an entire meal on live television. And it just got cut to 250. Okay, now go and talk about everything you're supposed to talk about. And we're saying, right, right, right, and we're racing into the finished product so we can take a bite. You know how that works. Yeah. So half we do the dish, we're going to take a bite and. Goodbye. This is happening. Well, that was fun. I should see you guys. Glad I flew in for this.

I don't know how you keep the tempo up, by the way. You guys, I mean, it is like, it's like fourth down, you know, goal line stance every minute. But you all make it look easy. I'll tell you that much. We nudge it along and it helps to have somebody like you who knows what he's doing. So speaking of what you've been doing, let's talk about the last year. I want to get into the Restaurant Relief Fund that you worked on and did such, frankly, heroic work with, raising all that money.

But what have you guys been doing around the house? What's it been like for you? Well, we're a nonstop project of construction. I have to have, as my wife says, it's my, it's my therapy. I have to have something being built or doing something or planning something or organizing something. And that really is a truth. Maybe it's a car. Maybe it's a barn. Maybe it's fixing a tractor. Maybe it's whatever. But in the world of television, you know, when the pandemic hit, I knew, you know, I've got so many guys on my team, so many great players on the knuckles, on the knuckles sandwich team, on the diners, drives and dives team, on the guys' groceries

team that I knew we had to design some way to make this work. And I was, you know, I called the network about two weeks into it. I said, I've really got an idea how we can do diners, drive, and dives at home. How about we call restaurants that we know do really well and people like and that they understand the concept of the show? And we have them send us a new dish they've been working on or give us some update on what's taking place. And the first week, it was not really received with as much applause as I anticipated. But about a week went by and they said, you know, maybe you have something here. So we shot 25 plus of the diners drive and the dives takeout, as we called it, where the restaurant sent us the food. And then my son Hunter and I cooked the food,

kind of like how you would get a gold belly delivery or these food deliveries. Partially prepared, partially you cook it. And my son Ryder, we had like five GoPro's, so my son, Ryder's filming it with the stick. He learned a lot in the first few weeks. So we did that. Then I had an epiphany in the middle of summer. I said, wait a second, guys, grocery games will reverse it as opposed to them setting us the food. We'll package up the food and send it to the chefs at their homes. They'll get a box of groceries and then we'll give them these games that they've got to play. like you can only use five items out of the box and you have to make an international fine dining dinner, you know. So we did that. That took off and we shot that at home as well. So I think between

the, I think between the two shows, we shot 50 plus shows in this last year, which is awesome because editors are working from home, producers were working on, you know, on the video conference. We just kept people working. And more importantly, along with that, we kept people. We kept people entertained, hopefully, and gave people something to watch because these have been some difficult times. It probably would have been easy for you to roll out reruns. Your shows are so evergreen. You could watch them, but you don't strike me as the kind of guy who does well sitting still. Yeah, that wasn't going over so well. You know, fortunately, I have to have something happening. And we did. We made a lot of things. We did a lot of things. We had a, you know, we have so many

frontline workers. We have like three, four major hospitals here in, and I live in the wine country, in Sonoma County. And we have so many frontline healthcare workers that were just giving it their all. And we said, wait a second, you know, we got to take care of them. We got to show them some love, give them a hug, do something. So we put together, we put together a big group and we went out and fed the different hospitals. We took, we have this big gigantic rescue trailer that I built back in the day, 45 foot long commercial kitchen. And we haul it with a big freight liner semi. And we pull up there to the hospital and we're feeding 3,000 people in a day. And we gave them these frontline healthcare worker t-shirts that look like a Superman symbol. And we just went hospital to hospital and did that.

So we had a lot of little projects. And unfortunately, we had fires. You know, there's nothing like having some COVID, you know, pandemic going on. And now we have people losing their homes. So we were feeding firefighters. So we stayed busy. We did. And I'll tell you something when you, when you kind of ring the bell and tell folks that here's a project, let's go get after it and help our community. I mean, people out of the woodworks to do that. So surrounded by awesome people. Yeah, well, and the restaurant fund that you developed that is sort of built from something like I'm going to help in the neighborhood. I'm going to help in my town.

I'm going to help in my area that grew into this $21 million behemoth that helped 43,000 restaurant workers or whatever it did. Where did the idea come from? How did it begin? It started. Well, when we knew the pandemic was coming, when we heard the restaurants were getting shut down, I can't remember the night that it was, but it was in the evening. And I was standing out front and I'm like, this is going to be bad. People don't know, you know, everybody loves restaurants,

but they don't know that so many restaurant owners are living week to week. I mean, there's just, there's not a big coffer of money. I mean, you're in the restaurant business because you love the restaurant business. And I just knew it was going to hit hard. So a week had gone by and I was already hearing the rumblings of what was going on. We were closing our restaurants, our concepts. We have, you know, variety of partners that we do restaurants. with. And I was on the, it's on the treadmill. And I called my team. I said, I got an idea.

Going to go by $50,000 for the gift certificates all around and we'll have the gift certificates and we'll wait to the restaurants reopen. Then, you know, then we'll have money to go. I said, well, that only takes care of our area. Okay, we'll do it statewide. So I called the president of the California Restaurant Association, Jock Condi, wonderful guy. I said, Jot, I got an idea. We're raised money, give it to the California restaurants. He says, great idea. Okay, get the team on. And I'm like, wait a second, I'm pacing back. You can see where I wore the path out over here where I paced in the backyard, you know,

nowhere to go. And I said, wait a second, we do diners, driving and dives all over the country, all over the world. We can't just say, you know, we can't just do this to Cali. So we got the National Restaurant Association on board. And really the way it went very quickly, Riley Larson is a great attorney of mine that does all kinds of fan tag from Davis-Dright-Tremaine. He does all this fantastic work inside of the industry and blah, blah, so we talked with Riley, and Riley said, I said, I want the names and the cell numbers,

you know, the text numbers to the big CFOs, CEOs, COOs, presidents of companies that have direct contact to the restaurant industry, okay? Because I want to ask them for some help. Everybody is, I mean, you and, well, I'm saying, looking at you, like, something's wrong. He's spending too much time by himself. Send some help. I said, no, I've got this idea. I'm going to send them a personal message explaining to them. Tens of thousands of restaurants or 10 to000 employees are without jobs.

Thousands and thousands of restaurants are closed, and this is the beginning and we need help. There's going to be so many people that can't get support, can't get unemployment, can't, don't know how to do it. Let's get money into people's pockets. The employees. So I made these messages in the kitchen, put the phone up, talk to it, my kids or my wife are laughing. I mean, like, you are crazy because I'm doing them individually to Uber Eats and to Pepsi and to, you know, Jeff Bezos. I'm doing, I'm reading them individually

and making it personal about how their business correlates the restaurant business. So I send out 41 of them that night. The next day, I'm driving to my ranch and I'm driving along and my manager Reid calls me. He's the CEO of my company and he says, you got to second. Now that means one or two things, really. You got a second means we got a rum or you just, I need your attention. I said what? And he goes, pull, he goes, you drive and he says pull over. I'm like, oh gosh, what now? And he goes, Pepsi just gave a million dollars. Wow. It still puts the goosebumps on my aunt. I said, what? And he goes, I got him on the other line. They want to talk to you. Okay. I had visions of this going. So my dad said, how much you want to raise?

I said, I want to raise $100 million. He goes, that's a little steep, isn't it? I said, you got to go somewhere. You know, nobody says they want to fly a plane, you know, two feet. They want to fly, you know, they want to, right brothers went for it. So I'd have the talk with Pepsi. Pepsi's over the top. They're in this.

And I take, I would get down in the conversation, I have to drive an hour to the ranch out of cell service. By the time I'm driving into the ranch, Reed calls again. You got a second. Oh, now what? They take the million back? He goes, no. Uber reach just calls.

They want to give you two million. Wow. And by the end of that week, we raised $8 million. And it still, it's still to this day, I think I've had a very optimistic, scared, but optimistic opinion of how we would come through this because I watched great people step up at difficult times to help mankind. And I love the restaurant business. It's all I know.

It's all I've ever been. And I do the TV thing a little bit. But I'll tell you what, the restaurant employees in this country are the fabric of their communities. These are folks that are working two jobs. These are single families. These are military. These are teachers.

These are people. I mean, there's just so many different people that are in this. And if you want to talk about the seven degrees of separation, everything, I think, goes back to a restaurant some way, shape, or form. Someone's first job. Someone's second job. Whatever it may be. So it was a, it was a.

amazing to see the folks that rallied and got involved in the money that was raised. And the National Restaurant Association, okay, now this, I hadn't even figured this part out. It's kind of like getting over your skis. Okay, we'll raise the money. How are we going to get the money? How do you send out 43,000 checks, $500 checks to random people throughout the country? And this organization not only got in and got behind it, and we're still doing more fundraising. We got a huge new project.

We're getting ready to launch soon to continue. to continue to support the restaurants. Now, this time we're going to do it for the owners to help them in inspiring people to be entrepreneurs. But they started taking in these. I mean, we were getting 40 requests a second for money. Wow. Did I explain that enough?

No, I wanted the whole story, but it's because it speaks to who you are, which is a guy who I think is grateful for everything he's achieved, a guy who lives this big life but knows where he came from to get to it and tries to give it back when he can. Is it a cool thing to use the platform that you've worked so hard to get to push that stuff back out to people? It is, and I think you probably have that same feeling of appreciation,

that you know what, I've been so blessed. Yes. And I'm surrounded by so many amazing people. I've got an amazing wife and family and kids and parents and best friends and crews and that there is no. nothing better in the world than taking the opportunities that I have and being able to just turn it and shoot it out and help with others because there are so many people that don't have that. So many people that weren't raised by Jim and Penny, you know, crazy parents. So many people

that don't have the opportunities. And that's what we're supposed to do as people, as, you know, taking care of one another. And as Americans, we live in the greatest country in the world. And we should definitely, you know, if everybody just turned their profile 10% and you did 10% more, 10% more for their community, what could that generate, you know, and how does that change the paradigm? And all this other stuff gets a little too deep. But no, it's my favorite thing in the world to do. And while, and when you get that, it almost becomes, you know, it almost superseded anything else we were doing. I mean, I don't think we did a construction project for five months. because we were so focused.

Well, hey, for me to slow down on the construction, you know something had to be built. So we're making up for it now, of course. So something else had happened right at the same time. And this was right at the same time that we were raising the money. It was kind of like a split. I said, okay, let's raise money and we're going on that train. But you know what?

Hang on a second. We got to do something here. We got to capture what's happening. We got to capture what's going to have. happen to these restaurants because nobody's going to believe us if we tell them. Okay, it's kind of like the Bill Murray effect. He's going to eat your French fry and he's going to take off. He's going to look at you. He's going to say, nobody knew it. So I called Courtney White, who's our president of the Food Network, and she's amazing. And I said, I have an idea. And they're starting to believe in it now. They're

starting to think that maybe he's not as crazy as he sounds, or as he is. I said, I want to capture what's happening during the pandemic to restaurants. And I want to do it in a documentary. They said, how much this is going to cost us? I said, I have zero idea, but I'm not worried about it. You shouldn't be either. And I got the player.

So I went to Antonio LaFaso, unbelievable superstar chef, the warrior princess in Los Angeles. I went to Christian Petroni in Brooklyn, the great Hambino, full on character. I went to Manit Shohan in Nashville, the Dancing Spice Queen,

who has a brewery in five restaurants, three breweries, four restaurants, and I went to Marcus Samuelson, renowned James Beard War winning chef in Harlem. And I said, on a conference call, I said, I'm going to send you a camera equipment in mics. And will you record what happens? Now, this is the equivalent of asking somebody on a sinking ship. Could you pen a memoir for me? Could you jot down a few notes of what's taking place in the middle of this horrific thing. And these four, I'm not kidding, you, blow your mind, stepped up and recorded it as diligently as maybe like a movie, like, you know, what are the space movies when someone's doing their recording? Today is day 57 and I'm, you know,

I've run out of whatever. We put it together to a two-hour documentary called the restaurant hustle all on the line 2020. and we aired it, we first aired it at the documentary festival in New York. And now it's gone to the Food Network and now it's on Discovery Plus, which is a new platform that Food Network uses. And you got to see this. And you got to see these four warriors and what they gave and how they describe it. It's the only documentary to my knowledge that focuses on a industry going through the pandemic

from the high highs to the low lows to the rebounds to the lows to the so forth. Yeah, no, it's, and those are the prominent chefs who have some resources, right, to recover from this. We were talking before we got started here about our local diners, where you go in and, as you say, they have no margin for error to begin with. They're not making millions of dollars every year running a diner. So how are you feeling about the future of an American diner, of American restaurants now that it's been, you know, a full year of them, the ones that have.

have been able to survive, just keeping their heads above water. What does the future look like for an American restaurant? Before I get, there's a diner by you that serves an eggs Benedict on a pan, on a potato pancake. What's the name of that? The early bird cafe in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The early bird cafe, I see, I got to keep these. Look at you. I got to keep this and make a note on it because I'm coming your way. Well, you're good. You're good. I got to remember. Anyhow, the climate in the restaurant industry, as we know, it will change forever. It's going to change. Has changed. But this is what's so amazing about restaurant owners and chefs and people that love this industry is we adapt and overcome.

I've told people a million times, the only thing that would ever prepare you for the television world would be the restaurant industry because it is about adapting and overcoming. I've been with you on set and all of a sudden something happens and everybody's got to change gears and we're shooting outside with the camera now or in here. And we have to be able to adapt and overcome and change with the times. I mean, look at the things that we've adapted to. We've become so much more aware of vegetarian and vegan cooking and hormone-free and organics and on and on. And those are the things that are, I think, perceived as positives.

Now we're looking at, you know, the dining and the separation of the six feet and the mask and the training and so forth. You know what? Right now it's super foreign and it's super difficult. and it's not in the financial makeup of how we designed our restaurants. We designed with X amount of seats to X amount of volume to da-da-da-da-da-da, and that's how we built the economic pro forma, the profile of how we're going to run our restaurants. A lot of going back to the drawing board. A restaurant's going to go away?

No. Are people still trying to open restaurants in the middle of this? Yes, crazy. But it's because we love it. If you love what you do, you stand out in the, snow and report about it. If you love what you or drive back from the, you know, if you love what you do and people that are in the restaurant industry love what they do. And as chefs, we love, it's what we do. So it will change. It's going to take some time to understand. We are going to

lose more restaurants. This is, we're coming out of it into, you know, thank goodness. We've got the, the, the vaccines happening for people that are taken off. My, parents to Mexico. But we have that. But you know what? There's so many that are so deep and so gone now that they can't recover. There is a lot of morale that's broken. But will we recover? Will the industry come back? We will. It'll be different, but we will. You're famous for giving that triple D shot to a lot of those diners and dives and drive-ins that if you go and bring your cameras and you bring your big guy personality to them on the food network, it changes their lives, it changes their business.

Will you be ready and focused on jumping back into, let's be honest, save some of those places here when you can? It is like a tactical mission at this point. We have, now we did, I'll be honest with you, right in the middle of a blue sky that we saw in the pandemic, my team and I've got I mean you want to talk about renegades these are this is the greatest group in the world this citizen pictures a match cup production I called these guys and said listen south dakota's open let's go so we all shot off the south dakota and north dakota and

went and shot triple d and we hadn't shot we never shot one of the two states or maybe it was both of them but that rounded out our 50 so we'd then shot every state in the country and we went shot triple D in the middle of all this. So we had some fresh shows to air. And those restaurants, of course, were super thankful. But yeah, we've got about, we've got about four big shoots already planned that we're getting ready to go do. It's much more difficult. I mean, it doesn't give us the same timeline and the same flexibility when we go to shoot no matter what state it is and how they're handling the pandemic. But we are on it. We are already out. And I think we'll be shooting in two weeks. So we're going to do it. We're going to continue. We're close to 1,500 locations,

close to 500 episodes of this. And, you know, I think I'm training my son Hunter to kind of start filling in maybe a little bit for me. There you go. You can cover. There you go. You can be two places at once, right? I'm telling you if I could make it work, buddy. Speaking of new shows, tournament of champions, season two, very cool idea. People love the concept. You got the bracket. You get it down to the final four. How much fun is that show? Oh, I tried to get this show going for a year. Again, I've had these, you know, I have these ideas. Lots of them.

And, yeah, I'm an idea guy. I definitely have. But I loved it. I mean, that's to me what keeps me up at night. Fortunately, it's good stuff. But so a big, big basketball fan, went to UNLV when we won the NCAA. That was the time. Oh, yeah.

Come on. They're running rebels. So here's one of the things. And this is really one of my past. about being the guy in the position that I'm in. My brothers and sisters that are chefs, TV chefs, restaurant chefs, mom and pop restaurant chefs, diner chefs, whatever it is championing them and recognizing them and supporting them is one of my favorite things to do.

We just touched on it. And what I was seeing is a void as a necessity. I think Iron Chef was one of the greatest things we ever saw on culinary television. I think Food Network did a great job with it. But as that went away, and there's a lot of competition shows, I have one of them, guys grocery games, which I love. There's cutthroat kitchen. There's a variety out there.

But I wanted to do something. I wanted to be that, I wanted to have the Dana White of culinary. I want to really create a platform where the best of the best could come in. No questions. Straight up the middle. Who is the one that can, who is that chef this year that's the best, the best. that's the best of the best. That's the idea. Brackets.

Not everybody understands how a bracket works, single elimination. How are we going to do this? So what we put together, first we're going to make the criteria completely, what's the word I'm looking for, completely, come on, Willie, what's it? Random. Okay, it's completely random. Because the thing's called the random I. There you go.

Okay. We're ready to shoot the show. it's 15 minutes till we start, and they go, what are you calling the machine where you spin? And I'm like, it's random. It's the randomizer. Dumbus name in the world. Yeah, but it's stuck. It works. But we have a wheel that spins what protein they get, a wheel that spins what vegetable they get, what equipment they use, what style of food they use, and how much time they get. So no two competitions will ever be the same. The variables are, it's impossible. So they spin, you know, beef, they spend, you know, top sirloin,

They spend Ruta Bega. They spend Chinese. They spend smoking gun and they spend 35 minutes. And now these two chefs in 35 minutes have to run in there, grab whatever they want, go to their stations and cook. Okay, so that was it. I got everybody's attention with that. Like, this is ridiculous.

There's no, this is impossible for people to do. How are we going to judge them? I said, well, we can't have all of our other friends that are chefs and judges and competitors judge them because there is a little bit of a, this chef knows how to make Asian food. Oh, that chef is a real barbecue guy, though. So I said, we're going to do blind tasting. It's never been done. You can't do blind tasting. Nobody ever has ever done plain tasting. I said, we've got to do blind tasting so nobody knows anything. The chefs don't know who the judges are and the judges don't know who the chefs are that they're competing.

So as we started putting these tiles together, and I have a great partner in crime, this guy named Brian Landau, who's just awesome. He's my assignment to my garf uncle. You know, I'm not kidding. Yeah. I say, hey, it should go. like this. He's like, I got that. We go like, so we put this together. We did season one during the pandemic. It blew up and we just shot season two. It's going to start March 7th. And I will tell you, it is edge of your seat competition and you are going to see the best of the best of the best, getting faced against the worst of the worst, because that randomizer is a terrible thing. It's just flat out mean, Willie. It doesn't have, there's no regard. You just watch people spin things.

you're like, oh, that seems like a good choice. And then all of a sudden, you just watch people just fireballing across the competition, across the stage. I'm imagining being a chef who has no idea to say cook Chinese, like you just spun the wheel and they go, I'm out. Well, I'll tell you what, though, and this is really the truth. So this year we had so many chefs that wanted to do it, so many write-ins, so much social media influence.

And that's what we really want. We went, just like in the NCAA, we want to see who the people want to see compete. Who do you think is the toughest chef out there? Who do you think has the biggest repertoire of recipes and styles and methods and so forth? So you'll see some chefs you've never heard of. You'll see some chefs that you thought had retired. You'll see some chefs that placed really good last year. And it's a seating.

They get seated in. Well, then we had so many chefs. We had to have a play in. We had to have a playoffs to get to the last seat. I mean, this thing just continues. It's like a whirling dervish, man. It's just out of control. But I will tell you what,

We shot it and it was the craziest thing. And we give away a car. We give away. And here's, oh, this is a great one, really. So I told you my relationship with the network. I have the greatest, the folks that run this, Courtney White and her whole team and Erika Slavin and all these guys, all these girls, they, they, I called them. I said, listen, this is really weird. We're competing.

We have a pandemic. We have restaurants closing. I'm taking chefs from their restaurants doing the show. I said, we got to give some money. They said, okay. I said, what's your idea? I said, how about every time somebody wins a competition, they move on in the bracket, but we give $10,000 in their name to a restaurant in need. Now, we like that. So every competition, so we gave out $250,000. Wow. To 25 restaurants got a $10,000 grant, or not grant, it's not a payback. Just, you know, a chef says,

I really love this restaurant. They're going through tough times. I would like that $10,000 donation in my name to go to this restaurant. And we talk about the restaurant. We highlight the restaurant. That's amazing. But that's awesome. You leverage your clout at the food network and say,

here's what we need to do. And they go, all right. I like you use a positive word like leverage and clout versus, you know, any of the other misinterpreted terms of strong out. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Guy Fietti right after the break. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with Guy Fietti.

So I don't think a lot of people know. They know Guy. They love Guy. They watch all the shows. The entire backstory of where this young chef was born and this exact kind of energy and this exact kind of, I don't know, pushiness is the word, but he's at a pretzel cart in Lake Tahoe. No, when you clout.

You used clout. But you didn't have it when you were 10 at that pretzel cart at Lake Tahoe. Yeah, there was no cloud in that day. So what's the story of that vacation when you first realized, oh, there's a business to be had out of making and selling food? So I don't know who your research team is, but they would definitely work for the FBI or the CIA because you're digging deep, pal. So I grew up in this little town called Ferndale, which is an unbelievable place. And if you've ever had a chance to go visit it, you'll never forget it. It's amazing.

We still have our family home up there. and as a kid, my parents had a couple of businesses in the town. One was in a leather store called the Abraxas. And the other was a Western clothing store called Dave Sattlery. And so in this town, we have one main street. We have no stoplights. Back then, we only had one cop car. I mean, it was just, it's a tiny little town. Fourteen hundred people still is fourteen hundred. So I had a Kool-Aid business. I had a selling painted back. You know, I was a little kid, I was a little entrepreneur. And I was little. I mean, we're like five, six, seven years old. And I always had a job or a something. I was always making some money. I always had a deal.

You know, I'd go buy candy across the street from the candy store and then get a cardboard box and cut the window out of it and make my own candy store. Well, how can you not buy candy this little kid? You know, so on jolly ranchers. Huh? You marked it up a little bit from the candy store? You could buy the Jolly Rancher for a penny across the street at sweets and treats, but it was a quarter at my camp. That's a big markup. The tourists, there's a little bit. There's a tourists would go, oh, look at the little kid. Oh, here's a quarter, here's a dollar, you know. I have this handful of money. My parents would just like, where did you get the money? You know, for sure I had taken it, you know, robbed somebody. So any of, going on and on and on.

And I'm about in fourth grade and we're skiing in Tahoe in Swah Valley. And that's back in the day when your parents would say, here's your lift ticket. Go. Yeah. You know, take your sister. and go. See when it's dark. And yeah, where are those days? So at the end of the day, my parents are sitting in the lounge talking with their friends and everything, but he's hand. My dad says, do you eat lunch today?

I said, yep, ain't lunch. He said, what did you have? He said, pretzels. And he goes, yeah, what else you have for lunch? I go, pretzels. He goes, pretzels. I gave you five bucks. I go, 10, 10 pretzels.

My dad's like, wait a second, what kind of pretzel? I said, it's a soft pretzel that's steamed and they put salt on. on it. And this guy down here named Jerry, and then you put mustard on it. You can also get cheese. He's like, you ate all your lunch money and pretzel. I said, they're so awesome, dad. I still love my mouth watering talking about it. So that went on for a few days. My dad's finally at the end of the trip, he says, why don't you open your own pretzel business? I go, where am I going to get pretzels? I never even, by the way, I'd never seen a pretzel before. I never seen a soft pretzel. We're in Northern California. That's a New York thing, right? Yeah. So I go to the guy.

It's the last day. I go to the guy and I said, hey, and he knows me. Hey, guy. I said, could I get the address of the pretzel people? And all of a sudden, he changes. No. Okay, I'm 10. This guy's 25 or something. He had a beard. I said, no, can I get that? And he goes, why? So you can get pretzels and open your own pretzel business and put me out of business? I'm like, I'm 10, dude. I don't even live here. He said, no, I'm not giving it to you. So completely defeated. This was a life-changing moment for me. Completely defeated. I walked back to my dad and he goes, do you get the address? I said, no. And he goes, why? And I said, the guy won't give it to me. And he said, so that's it? You're going to quit. I'm like, well, what am I supposed to do? And he says, you go down there and you wait until that guy throws that box away. Okay? Then you go get that box and you bring it back to me. So I staked the guy out for a couple hours, waited until he closed up shop. I did go dumpster diving. I'll be honest with you. I dove into that, got that box, brought the whole box

with me. Not the address, the whole box. My dad's like, the whole box, tears the address off. And we go home. So I write a letter to the people, because back then it was no, you know, 800, any of write a letter to the people. So I want to sell pretzels. They said, you know, here's what you need to do. So I found a place that I found a building that had a freezer, the meat company in our town, the butcher shop in our town, had a freezer because you needed, you know, big boxes. And then for a year, my dad and I built a pretzel cart on the back of a three-wheel bike with a little stove in it that made steam and little half pans in it with racks and I would steam the pretzels. Well, nobody in my town had ever seen a steamed pretzel. I mean,

everybody said pretzel and they expected to have crunch. Right. And for that was fifth grade when I got it done. And from fifth grade till a sophomore in high school, I sold pretzels at the rodeo at the fair, whatever, and saved my money and saved all my money up. And then this crazy opportunity or idea came in my mind when I was 15. I wanted to go to France and be an exchange student, but I didn't speak French. And I didn't have an exchange student program, but I had money. And that's a whole other story. And the name of the pretzel business was called the awesome pretzel. And when I first got on TV and started to put money into my foundation, I built pretzel carts and gave them to kids' organizations so kids could get an opportunity

to have some of that entrepreneurial involvement because there's no more walking dogs and paper routes and mowing lawns. You know, that stuff's gone. And that's the short version for you, Willey. And the star was born, the businessman was born too. But where did a France idea come from? From Ferndale, California. You say, I need to go to France.

Was that a cooking thing? Was that a culture thing? What was it about France? You didn't have this one in your in your dossier, did you? Chantilly, I know that. Oh, come on. You did have it. Okay.

Someone's throwing cue cards. Someone's got a great trash race. We found it. We found it. It's online. So we had, my mom was, my parents were hippies, not dope smoking hippies. My mom always makes sure that I say that to people. Because when you say hippies, everybody thinks in the 60s, you know.

So we had a green, Oconnelline van. My dad did leather work. They made candles. My mom was a school teacher, long hair, you know, dad, big beard, the whole thing. So we moved this town, Ferndale. But my parents were always community, super community people. That's it. I think I'd get all that from my mom and dad.

But my mom was the director or the area director for the EF, which I think, I don't know what the termina what it meant, but it was about the exchange student program. So she was placing students all the time from different countries. with families. And so we had an exchange student from Norway, an exchange student from Sweden, who we still keep in touch with. And it was awesome. They came over for like nine months. You got to learn this whole new culture. And that's what my mind really started to expand. Like, wait a second. You don't know who Abraham Lincoln is. You know, what? Where are you from? And they spoke different. Going to McDonald's was this crazy adventure for them. I mean, just weird

stuff. So I always had it in my mind. This would be so fun to do. but in my high school that I went to, you couldn't take a foreign language until you were a junior or senior. So that wasn't going to happen. How am I going to get to France? Or how am I going to get to any country? I didn't care if it was France or not. Our family's Italian. I thought Italy would be great, but I'm going anywhere I can get out.

So a friend of a friend tells a guy, and it's Thanksgiving, and we always had people at our house for dinner. My parents never let anybody not be somewhere for a holiday. It's like a soup kitchen. My house is the same exact way. I can tell. And so we have this guy sitting at the dinner table with us. It's Thanksgiving. And his name is Pierre La Chou.

And Pierre's talking, speaks great English. And I'm telling Pierre, kind of like as a side conversation, hey, can you get me to France? And he's like, what? And I'm like, I want to go to school in France. And he's like, why? And I'm like, because baguette, I don't know. I've made up something. So I corresponded with him through, you know, to writing letters for,

about a year. So I was younger than 14. May I was 13. And he said, yeah, I know a gentleman named Monsieur Peltier, who's the principal of a high school outside of Paris, who's a huge American fan, and you could go to his high school if you wanted to come over. Check, I got the high school. Now I got to figure out where to live. So I wrote Monsieur Peltier, and I said, this is what I want to do. Monsieur Peltier says, you can, I know a boarding house that you could live in that you could go close to the school. Housing. now to sell the parents. So I went to my parents and I have my money, my pretzel, my awesome pretzel cart money, so I can get a plane ticket, I can do all these things. And my dad says,

all right, you speak French? I said, no. I don't, of course I don't speak French. He says, if you can pass conversational French at the junior college for one year with a beer better, you can go. So at lunch, my mom would pick me up at high school, drive me to the junior college, I would take the French class with Monsieur Brewer, Samuel Brewer, and then I would race back to school and go back to high school. And then over the Christmas break, I got my license so I could drive myself. So I took a year of conversational French, passed with a beer better, and I was off. Now, granted, I couldn't speak a word of French. I passed a class with a beer better, but there was no, I mean, I remember being at the airport in San Francisco

buying one of the 100 phrases you need to know. I'm a dead man. I flew these guys laughing. I flew to France. Pierre LaSho picked me up, dropped me off of this boarding house. I was free. There's a few words to use of how freaked out I was, but I got it quick.

And it was probably day two of being in France. that I wrote my parents and I said, I got it. I'm going to be a chef. And I was already a cook at home. I cooked, in our family, whoever cooked, didn't do the dishes. So I cooked all the time. But I got there and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Simple food that we would have in the States is a whole other level.

This baguette, this bread is out of, I mean, I couldn't get the bread fast enough. And that's where it all started. So I spent a year there and I came back, never finished high school. school, went directly into college, went down to UNLV, got my degree, and da-da-da. I love the story because it was college for me, but I went to Exum Provence and the south of France, and I was there for a semester, and all of a sudden, guy from New Jersey is walking through the markets and he's squeezing vegetables, you know, food, it's there. You can't avoid it. It's beautiful. And it's the center. You know what I love about it is, and it's still that

way, although I did see more processed food. I took Hunter, my oldest son, we went, when he graduated graduated from high school. I took him through seven countries, 14 cities in 30 days. And we filmed the whole thing. So he cooked in every country and did something iconic of each one of the foods. But it's the same thing for him. The food bug, the food culture, mindset is so ingrained in all of those European countries that they really stopped down in the middle of their day still and have that awesome lunch. Yes. And everything, all businesses close, and everybody goes and pays their time and attention

to really enjoying great food. And I really appreciate to see that the food revolution is happening in the United States. And I think all my brothers and sisters, all the great chefs, and everybody that writes about food and supports food, because it really is, it's amazing. It's an experience in so many levels deeper than I think some people really get. Like when people say I don't cook, I don't, I look at it and go, boy, you're really missing, even if you're not that great a really missing a chance to be with people you love and work with them in the kitchen and produce something to get it for sure.

Exactly. I promise I won't do this as your life because we'd be here for six hours because it's so interesting. But you get through UNLV, you and Larry Johnson and Stacey Ogman and all those guys, you know, hanging out, winning national titles. Yeah, nobody was allowed to go to the fraternity parties except fraternity brothers and And, you know, of course, all the girls are invited, and all the basketball players, you know. And Larry Johnson was, you know, come on, dude, we're going to a small school. And these guys are crushing the NCAA.

And I remember the day they built the gigantic red and silver number one in the front lawn of UNLV, which was maybe 10 buildings at the time. Hunter ended up, my oldest son just graduated from UNLV. But, yeah, what a great time. glorious time with great, you know, Shark Jerry Tarkany. That's my favorite college basketball team of all time. Oh, they were so fun to watch. I got stories, buddy.

And the thing was, is the school, here's the funny thing. The team was good and the team was getting better. But somehow the fraternities had been rolled and sororities had been rolled into the ticket lottery. So every once in a while, you'd be playing a big time school, Oklahoma State. And all of a sudden, all the ATOs, I'm an ATO, were on the floor. Yeah, yeah. We're all sitting on the floor for the game and be like, how'd you get those tickets? Incredible.

Effectively watching the NBA team, too. It's amazing. It was back of the day. Jumping way ahead, when the food network thing happens for you, when you win the competition as the next Food Network star, you get your own show, it all starts to take off for you. And you achieve a level of fame that you probably never could have imagined. People know you, they want to work with you. What was that adjustment like for a guy who went on a food competition and now you're Guy Fietti and everybody knows you?

People ask me, is it a dream come true? I said, I dream big. I couldn't have ever dream this big. This is beyond my scope of where I thought things could go and how things could become. I did the show because I was kind of. prodded by my friends. I still, to this day, believe they just wanted to see me go on TV and get beat so we could have a good laugh about it. But I did the show and I thought, you know what, I'm always telling my kid, Hunter and my friends and my young chefs, and I have four restaurants at the time,

you got to go outside of your comfort level. You got to go, you got to play outside of your boundaries little. You got to go, you got to figure, you got to go experience this. I had done it in Europe and, you know, done it going to UNLV and opening my own business. So I kind of done, but I'd kind of lost that. I mean, here I was my own rest on maybe five years later and I hadn't maybe gone to that next level on something. So I said, okay, I'll do this. I'll do it. At least I'll get a free trip to New York and I'll get to meet Emeril and I'll go see this food network, you know, TV station or whatever there's going on. So I did it and never anticipated at all ever, ever, ever that I was going to win this thing. And when, excuse me, when I did win, I thought, wow, if I'm going to get this opportunity,

I shouldn't squander it. So I really, really became a student. And I had this amazing producer, a guy, still a really great friend of mine, executive producer guy named Mark Disson. And Mark Disson was, it was the equivalent, I don't want to rip off Stallone and Rocky, but movies made us. I mean, they developed these images in our mind, but it was a Rocky Burgess Meredith type thing. You know, I didn't know anything. Disson knew everything. And he would make me do things. We would go in this train, like this stuff. And I'm like, this is crazy. But I did it. And I did it. And I

followed the regiment and I followed the tutelage and I followed the curriculum and I did what he and I really to this day and I tell him all the time we still produce a show together called guys ranch kitchen but he was such a great mentor and I thought if I'm going to get a shot to do this I really shouldn't waste it I should really try to see if I could do anything with it never believing it was going to happen by the way I mean believing not believing but I did it and I learned about producing if you can learn how to produce to some degree if you understand what your camera guys go through understand what your audio team goes through and understand what your culinary team goes through. Then when you do your job as the presenter, you get a little bit better perspective.

It's kind of like you can't be the chef of a kitchen if you don't know how to wash the dishes. You know, those are the kind of parallels that I try to give stuff. And so no, it's turned into something and I'm so thankful. Fortunately, I have a family that really stands by me and a very understanding wife and and amazing friends, you know, great friends that are backing me up and getting involved. and stuff. I just texted everybody and said, hey, how about a big friends and family RV road trip up the coast of Oregon and we film it? And everybody's like, yeah, we're in front of my case. I'm crazy, you know? But how cool to be in a position where you could just have an idea

texted and it happens? I mean, you put yourself in that position, obviously, is that I just look at your sort of portfolio of shows and restaurants and all these ideas you have every five seconds that You're texting off to people. Like literally as a practical question, how do you keep track of this empire and make sure it all runs well? Coffee is your friend. No, I, you know what is? I'm surrounded by great people. I've got a really amazing team from the culinary side of it to the management side of it to the agency side of it.

You know, WME's been phenomenal for me, Jason Hodes and Jeff Google. These guys have been, you know, they really, you know, Hotis? Oh, you know, Hotis? Yeah. Just the best guy in the best guy in the world dealing with a very sad situation right now. I just lost his mom. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, heartbreaking.

But, you know, I've got a really amazing executive chef, kind of Anthony Hoyfong was been for a long time, Reed Stratharne, who runs the majority of knuckle sandwich, and then just an army of great people that all know how to go the next level and have the never say die attitude. And just, I mean, I have a guy that's working with me now that's been a, he started with me as a dishwasher when he was 17. And now he's the, you know, now he's the executive chef for the west coast of, you know, all the programs that we have for knuckle sandwich. You know, a young guy named Cesar. So it's, you know what it is. And I will a thousand percent say this, Willie. And I think you probably get this as well as anybody. None of it can happen without the team. It doesn't matter how many great ideas you have. It doesn't matter how much energy and enthusiasm you have, no matter how hard you want to work. you're not going to achieve any of it to the level that you want or even close to it if you don't have a great team. And I'll give it the Tom Brady scenario that you have a great team around you and you win Super Bowls. You have great team around you in New England, you win Super Bowls.

You have great team around. You go to Tampa. You win Super Bowls. But Tom will probably be the first thing. You're not going to do it if you don't have a great team. And great team, I think, is from family to coworkers to conf, to supporters, to producers, to mentors. It's being surrounded by great people. I'm going to ask you a question that might be uncomfortable to answer, so maybe I'll help you with it.

But why do you think people... Well, that sounds like going to the doctor. No, it's not bad. I promise, this is going to turn out well. I'm going to put on my rubber glove, guy. Anyhow. Why do you think people are so drawn to you? Why do you think people watch whatever you put on the air?

Why do you think people come to your restaurants? What is it about Guy Fietti that... is appealing to people. From where I sit, it's your enthusiasm and your passion and your generosity and you're an easy guy to root for. But how do you see it? You know, I'll tell you, well, it's a very funny thing. I'll be walking through the airport, go to a ballgame. And I think for a few of my friends, the first time they saw this and my wife and my kids see it all the time is people will come right up, throw their arm right around. My dad. neck, slap me on the back, just start, you know, talking to me wherever it might be.

I mean, you name the most awkward places when you're standing there and they're talking. Hey, you're the guy. Yeah. I've been there in the bathroom. Yes, I know what you're saying. Thank you very much. And then want to high five or maybe shake a hand. Let's not do that now if that's okay.

Let's do that. I've been there. But you know what I'm saying? Love your stuff. I know you can go and air this, but I had a guy one time. change hands to give me the, I'm like, bro, no offense. He's like, I'm just really excited. I love your show.

Is the Camaro here? Yeah, it's an over in the stall too. It's the Camaro's here. I'll be on an airplane. So I'm going to say, this doesn't look like a diner or a driving or dive. No, you're right. It's not. I'm doing airline food now.

Are you really? Where's the camera? I think what it is, is I'm not, and hopefully all my friends will tell you, And I think they will. I'm no different than the way I was the day before I got on the Food Network. I've always been a little out there. I've always been as enthusiastic and as excited. And I've always fought for my friends and helping other people and charity's always been big to me.

Philanthropy's always been big. Family's always been really big. I don't think I've changed. I mean, I think that I probably got a little bit louder microphone. But I don't really think I've changed. And I think that what has always, and you've got the people that love you and the people that hate you. I mean, I'm not going around and trying to convert people.

I mean, that's just the way the world is. Some you like, some you don't like. That's just what it is. But I try to be as what you see is what you get. And if I don't like a thing, if I don't like something, I don't really have a big, I'm not a, I don't know why people go on social media and talk about people they don't like or talk about things they don't like. Focus your attention to something you like.

Go positive. We got positive energy prevails. So to me, people say, well, do you like everything you do on diners, driving, and dives? I said, if I don't like it, you don't see it. Why do I want to do? Do a whole show, don't go to this place. That's not my style. That's not my energy.

So I think that it's the what you see is what you get. All American, do I have my faults in my failures? And am I too loud? And do I get too much? And I, you know, but I go by the beat of my own drama. I'm not, I didn't get tattoo. using bleached hair because I was going on TV. I didn't know I was going to be on TV. And I probably wouldn't have done it if I knew.

But I don't know what it is. But I really appreciate that it is because I love having the opportunity to do. I think I've done more with what I've been given than I could have ever expected. And doing, and that is what is the real sweet spot of this whole career. I work a ton. You work a ton. I mean, if you love it, you, it's not work. You do it because it's great. Every day that we shoot a show, somebody's getting something out. Someone's getting entertained. Somebody's getting paid.

Somebody's getting recognized. Someone's getting their moment in the sun. All those things to me far supersede what I'm getting for it. What I'm getting for it, I'm getting already. That's great. That stuff, that's the icing. That's the cream on top. That's the moment.

And I think that those, that's where, what inspires me all the time. And Lori and I were talking about it last night. She says, boy, you work hard. You really, I said, look at how many people got to be on the show this week. Look at how many people we've highlighted their restaurants. Look at how many chefs won $15,000, you know? How do you make $15,000 in today's industry in the restaurant business?

Well, you just made it on guys grocery games, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I don't know. I hope that it's because people read that it's real and it's genuine. And like I said, what you see is what you get. And as you say, it drowns out. I don't understand, as you say, like the not being trying to convert everybody, but the people who don't see it or whatever it is.

I remember whenever that was, that New York Times review came out. We did a show with you. I don't have to remember the next morning. The next day. Yeah. I flew home. I had flown to Santa Rosa. The article came out.

I flew right back to New York that same day. But I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's get into this. I was amazed by the extent to which it didn't bother you, right? It was a thing to other people, but it didn't seem like it was getting you. I think you have to. And again, I use Tom Brady. I think Tom's a great guy. We used to do this big charity event together, best buddies.

And Tom is as great of a guy as you see on the field, I think is a great guy off the field. Genuine. So I use Tom as the example because I'm so happy. Gosh, I'm blown away that he won. You know, I'll say what it is. How do you recover in the middle of a football game? throwing a critical interception. How do you recover losing the game? How do you recover losing a Super Bowl? How do you pick yourself up? You're not playing based upon losing. You're playing

based upon winning. I don't even know where this philosophy is coming from, but this is what's going on in my head. I don't play worried about what happened. I play worried about, I play focusing on what's going to happen. I play on taking the next step and building the next opportunity and create, I mean, that happened. That's a blip in time. That's something that took place. Do I mean, do we want to get into? Do I think it was right? Do I think it was fair? Whatever. Whatever. It's not even worth wasting time about. What's worth wasting time about is I have 75 restaurants now. Okay. That's what that because you're not going to take, don't let things keep you down, take things and make them your energy to do better and go forward.

And I think that we have to get out of, I mean, I think social media is awesome. I participate. all parts, but the negative side, the shaming, hating, hurting, dragging people downside. I just don't get it. We are a country made of warriors and creators and developers. We all came to this country for a new opportunity. Don't make it this. Don't turn the ship around in the middle of all the great things we have the opportunity to go to be in the middle of to go highlight who does what you don't like and what they wear or eat or drive or say or craziness. Take all that energy, put it in another direction.

We would change the trajectory of everything. But that's what hippie parents teach you. That is awesome. On that note, I've taken way too much of your day. You're so generous. This is a good egg, man. I wish you were sitting out here. I did too.

give some wine and having this chat. We've got to do that next year. I was going to say, I think we'll do that a year from now. Let's count on it. That'd be good. Invite myself over on your next construction project. It's a formal. I don't make shallow invites, man.

It's great. And I think you guys, you know, you and I don't think that we take enough time to also reciprocate the appreciation and the admiration. But having the little bit of time that I spend in front of the camera and knowing what motivations I have to find to keep myself up and going, how you all do it. And again, I was talking about positive energy. The reference that you give to the world and all the positives that you guys bring and you taking the time on a Sunday to share this with folks.

I thank you so much. But that is the heartbeat and the drive line and the energy and the locomotive that we need. And we got to keep this thing going because this is not a dress rehearsal. And we get a chance to make the impact on the world that we want to make. Do you want to make it a positive impact or a negative? and I think that what you all do is amazing. And every time I'm invited, like we were trying to figure out how to make this timeline work because we're shooting.

And I said, make the timeline work. I don't care what time they're getting here. Make the timeline work because this is an important opportunity. So I really thank you for having me. This has been great. You make it easy, man. And I'm grateful for you. I know you got a lot going on to fit this in.

So guys like you, as I say, you light the fuse and let them go and it's already good. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to do anything. With that. Keep the fire extinguisher around. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Great to see you. Awesome, brother. Thanks for having me. My big thanks again to Guy for a great conversation. Man, he's got a lot to tell. You can catch new episodes of his show Tournament of Champions every Sunday on the Food Network.

And my thanks, as always, to all of you for tuning in again this week. If you want to hear more of my conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And of course, don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.