Where did you get the inspiration for Tournament of Champions? Five years ago, what I saw was a lot of my friends, great chefs, weren’t necessarily getting the platform and recognition for how great they are—and not just as chefs, but as people and as competitors. What makes the show different from other food-competition shows? It’s blind tasting, and no other competition has that where the judges don’t know who’s competing and the competitors don’t know who’s judging. So it’s cook your best dish, put it on the plate and it’s out of your hands. Did the idea for Tournament of Champions come from sports? I’m a huge sports guy. I love any kind of sports. So I kept bringing this [to the Food Network]. I said, “Hey, listen, bracket-style competition would be huge.” Win one, move on. Lose one, you’re done. There’s nothing not to like and it can be done in volume. We did 16 at a time. And then you have the randomizer. The randomizer is another one of these amazing things. Funny insight: We didn’t know the name of the randomizer until about a day before we started the show. I kept calling it the Wheel of Pain. It doesn’t sound very enticing that you’re going to invite people to the Wheel of Pain. But I said, “Well, it is what it is.” And I said, “Everything’s just so random on it. It’s the randomizer!” And we all started laughing and it just stuck. Who makes up a word like randomizer? I don’t know, but it definitely worked. The thing about it was we were going to do it digitally. The wheel would spin digitally and then it would go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and say all the names of the ingredients and equipment. I said, “Who’s going to believe that?” People could believe that we would just program that electronically to come out however we want it. So I said, “I want it to be a real wheel. Go get the people that made Wheel of Fortune or Price Is Right and get them to make the wheel.” So we did. We actually had a real game show company come and make that wheel for us. You created TOC to give the chefs the attention that you felt they deserved, but why do they want to compete? Because they’re crazy. Because they’re gluttons for punishment. There’s a different thing for everybody. Some people are coming to get known, some people are coming to push themselves and be tested, some people are coming to win it all, and some people are coming there to stay in the public eye. There’s a variety of reasons. But what I say to all of them, especially with the 32 that showed up this season—we had hundreds of people, more than hundreds of people, come to us that wanted to compete, or thought they wanted to compete, but weren’t quite understanding what it was going to take. Because you’ve got to stick around. These competitions go hot and fast over the course of weeks. So you’ve got to be ready to give over your schedule to be involved in this. You’ve got to put yourself out there. Because you don’t know who you’re going to go against, and you don’t know what you’re going to be cooking. You need to be well-versed in just about everything. I saw some chefs in this competition, they got some ingredients put in front of them and they were just looking at me like, “I don’t know what to do with this.” It was really challenging. But I think the common thread is we all love food. My two sidekicks, JustinWarner and SimonMajumdar, are food junkies. I’m sitting there watching my closest friends, people that I admire so much, and I’m watching them sweat it out and go through these tough-ass situations and learning a ton as we go. Anybody that says they watch this show and they don’t learn something is either listening to it on mute or not paying attention, because it is a wealth of information all night long. This season has double the number of chefs. Is there anything else that’s different? Oh, my gosh, the ingredients are different, the chefs are different, the judges are different. Rules don’t change. I don’t get into doing that. I want them to have that consistency to know how it goes. Kitchens stayed the same. We did add some new equipment that people got a chance to work with. The live audience is still there. The prize has changed a little bit, that’s huge—the biggest cash prize that’s ever been given in Food Network history, $100,000. No truck as a reward this season? No. Here’s the thing. We were going to do the truck, we were doing the car, but you know what? Having everybody battle through this pandemic and for so many restaurants and so many chefs, cash is the commodity, and everybody needs it. I said, “Let’s just make it easy on them. I don’t want someone getting the truck and then having to deal with selling the truck to get the money. Let’s just give them cash.” I said, “We’ve just got to be big. I’ll split it with you.” Because if that’s what we gotta do, I gotta make sure that these chefs get this financial recognition. Nobody came into the competition knowing what the prize was. I didn’t tell them, “Come and compete because it’s big money this time.” They had to want to compete not knowing what the end result was. Who are some of the judges for this season? The judges include AlexGuarnaschelli, GiadaDeLaurentiis, RoccoDiSpirito, ÉricRipert. It’s a rotating panel. There are three featured on each episode. You were in the food business before, but you launched your empire by winning The Next Food Network Star. These days, though, you seem to be doing more hosting than cooking. How do you think you would compete against these chefs if you were one of the competitors? Well, you’ve got some of your information right. I have 80 restaurants and I cook every day. So I’m not in my restaurants necessarily running the line, but for the number of restaurants I have, the concepts I have, I have to stay very contemporary with my cooking. Would I compete? In a heartbeat. I competed. I did my time and they put me out to pasture. But I will be honest with you, even Tournament of Champions, I’d do it in a heartbeat. And not that I wouldn’t get my ass kicked. Not that there’s any given day you can’t watch the great ones go down. But you really have to love food and you have to love competition, and you have to be willing to put yourself out there. It’s an awesome question you asked. I tell them, “You’re not here for the money. You’re here for the love of the competition. It’s real easy to armchair quarterback and say what should have been done. Go get yourself in there.” My son Hunter asked me the other day if I would ever do it. And I said, “You know what, Hunter? There will probably be a day when you are hosting the show and I have retired. And you call up and do the charity event where we bring in all my buddies who have all competed who have since retired, and we come do that version of it.” So yeah, it’ll probably happen one day. But do not think I stepped out of the kitchen. TV is just what everybody sees. I am a die-hard cook. We just opened this new program called Chicken Guy. People just look at me and go, “Oh, it’s fried chicken.” No, to get the fried chicken to the level that we’ve done it, it really takes a lot of cooking and really takes a lot of insight. So I’m not completely out to pasture. Is one of the best parts of your flagship series, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, knowing how it helps the restaurants you visit? It has given such a positive spotlight on people who are so deserving. I call Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives the restaurant lottery; when you get it and it hits, be prepared. I tell folks all the time, “There’s nothing worse than to attract all this attention, have all these folks come and then you’re not going to offer the pastrami pizza.” So we don’t let them give us things to try on the show that are only available at limited times. How do restaurants get selected for Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives? There’s a lot that these restaurants have to achieve or have to be to get on the show. I have friends who send me places all the time, saying, “This is the best damn cheeseburger you’ve ever tried in your life!” And I’ll say, “You’re right, it is. However, they use frozen meat.” Or “Yes, it is, but the family sold it, and this is a new owner and they’ve only had it for a year.” There’s a lot of criteria that goes into it; it’s got to have character, it’s got to have a story and they’ve got to make real food. There are so many places that, trust me, I would love to feature, but they just don’t fit the categories. And those are all boxes that were made by me, that were made to say, “These are the kind of places I want to highlight.” You raised $25million to assist restaurant workers through the pandemic. Are you still fundraising? I have the Guy Fieri Foundation; we’ve been raising money to do what we’ll call charitable feedings. We did 5,500 meals for Thanksgiving. We just recently fed 1,000 veterans at a veterans’ home. We are continuing to raise money and awareness to areas I think need focus and attention. What motivated you to raise money for restauranteurs during COVID? Raising the money was just an inspiration out of frustration. You’ve got to do something with your energy. You’re either going to let it drag you down or it’s going to build you up. So, raising that money was like taking up the fight. I wasn’t going to sit there and take the beating, take the situation lying down. We’re always raising money and always raising awareness, and always trying to continue to shine the light on those that are less fortunate. That’s the way I was raised. My parents raised me to always make sure that I’m staying community oriented and focused on helping others. How is the restaurant industry doing now? The restaurant industry has pivoted incredibly well. Unfortunately, we have lost great restaurants, without question. And we have lost great chefs and we have lost great team members through COVID and this pandemic. But I think that the industry has learned how to pivot pretty well. I was just at the restaurant of a good of friend of mine, Antonia Lofaso’s Scopa in Los Angeles. I was there for my son Ryder’s 16th birthday. She took me to the private dining room. I said, “What is this?” And she goes, “Well, it’s now our packing and shipping department.” I said, “Your packing and shipping department?” She goes, “Yes.” Because when the pandemic was happening, we did Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to go, where we had people shipping us the food from their restaurant. We cooked it here at our house and filmed it. And so we did this remote Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Well, so many of those restaurants on top of others have learned to adapt and overcome and pivot and are now able to do a lot of their business through mail order. You mentioned when you retire your son Hunter will be taking over. What’s it like to keep it in the family? Fortunately, Hunter’s a great student. He’s really very hardworking, always has been. And on top of that, I’m culturing him to take over the family ranch, the properties, and the things we have. So he is definitely in the Jedi training program as we speak. But the thing is, my dad never told me I had to do anything in particular, I just had to do something. You pick what you want to do, but you have to do something. That’s what I told both of my boys. “Don’t sit around waiting for me to kick it. You guys are going to either be in charge of it at some point in time while I’m alive to show me you’re able to handle it, or it’s not coming your way.” Same thing with the shows. There’s no guarantee that he’s going to pick up any of these. But he’s such a good student and really has done a great job. He just got an agent and is starting to work on some of his own programming. He’ll always be my wingman on DDD, but I want him to not live in my shadow. I want him to make sure that he’s got his own identity and image and he’s really starting to form it at the ripe age of 25. Next, ‘Peace, Love and Taco Grease!’ 13 of Guy Fieri’s Most Hilarious Quotes and Catchphrases
