Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen & Bar at the Linq recently hosted its namesake’s birthday party on January 22. The party featured a drumline, Fieri’s own Santo tequila, lots of great food and a cake presentation by the Raiderettes. Amid all the festivities, the Las Vegas-bred chef, restaurateur and television personality Guy Fieri took a moment to chat with Las Vegas Weekly about what the future holds. Although he says he's turning 59 again, the youthful host of the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Drives is actually 52.
What are your plans for your future in Las Vegas? You could have bet me 100,000 to 1 that I’d never have a restaurant here, and I was always a pretty big dreamer. What I want to do is continue to do projects. I love this team that I work with here in Vegas, the Harrah’s/Caesars team. We have a great restaurant at the Rio [El Burro Borracho], a great restaurant in Laughlin and then all over the country we have restaurants. With the style that I do and the fan base that I have and the folks that are coming to Vegas, hopefully I’ll get a shot to do a few more.
If you were to open another restaurant in Las Vegas, what might that look like? I’d love to do a chop house. We have a Guy Fieri Chop House in Atlantic City and we do so great with that. … I love doing fusion food. And I like the way I do steakhouses. We have some of the greatest steakhouses in the world here in Las Vegas, but they’re also a little bit more refined. I’m not refined. I’d love to do a steakhouse my way. We do great taco joints. We do great pizza joints—old-school New York-style pizza, thin crust. You can’t figure out how I came up with the name, but it’s called Guy Fieri’s Pizza Joint. I’d love to bring Chicken Guy here—that’s my baby. We have two restaurants open right now on the East Coast, slowly moving down this way. We’re going to open 10 Chicken Guys this year. I want to do everything. I love the fans in Las Vegas. I love my friends in Las Vegas. [My son] Hunter just graduated college in Las Vegas. I don’t think there’s an opportunity or a challenge that I wouldn’t take.
What are your favorite parts of Las Vegas in the year 2020? I love how nobody is falling asleep at the wheel. … As opposed to just saying, “Hey, we’re Las Vegas, we got it.” No, no, no, we continue to grow, to prosper, to develop and continue to make great entertainment! [We] continue to raise the bar on restaurants. It’s nice when you get invited to the big dance. This is the big dance.
We have to ask, do you have any hairstyling tips? I’m the last one you should ask about hairstyling tips. People are like, “How long do you take in the morning?” I’m like, "For what?" "Your hair." Count [makes a motion of quickly running hands on hair back and forth twice]. There you go. Some days I walk out and if I have bedhead, I look like A Flock of Seagulls. And some days it’s a faux hawk. Depends on if I was wearing a baseball cap just now.
Is there anything else you want Las Vegas Weekly readers to know? Having folks come out to the restaurant is what keeps this all going. It’s super-appreciated, and this is what I was saying about why Vegas is playing so hard and working so hard. They’re doing something that nobody else is doing in the world. To be invited to the big dance, I have a big responsibility. We spent three hours today standing in the back just talking about how to fry an onion right. Really working on this new onion technique. People are like, “It’s an onion.” You’re right. But it’s gotta come out of that kitchen and it’s gotta come out right.
