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A line of people wearing VIP badges waited outside the newest celebrity chef restaurant in Iowa. They wanted photos with the bleach blond fellow with spiky hair, silver VonZipper sunglasses and a sleeve of tattoos snaking up under a black T-shirt. His outfit is complete with ripped black denim jeans, a cluster of silver rings on each hand, and Louis Vuitton high-top sneakers. He clenched an unlit cigar in his mouth.
The Mayor of Flavortown has landed in Iowa.
Guy Fieri, the chef behind “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” previewed his restaurant, Guy Fieri’s Kitchen + Bar, at Harrah’s in Council Bluffs. The location marks his first in Iowa.
Fieri shook hands and met fans Saturday evening in front of a step-and-repeat adorned with his eagle-head logo complete with splayed wings and fire. He patiently signed cookbooks and T-shirts.
“I just got asked a million times, ‘Why did you come to Council Bluffs?’” Fieri said. “The reason is because good people like good food and like to have a good time… When we got told that we had the opportunity to come out here, I said, ‘This is exactly our market. This is exactly the people we want to talk to.’”
On Monday, the restaurant opens to the public, and Fieri is scheduled to cross the Missouri River to Omaha to film restaurants for his Food Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”
What’s on the menu at Guy Fieri’s Kitchen + Bar?
These VIP fans got an early taste of Fieri’s big and bold comfort food.
He brought fans his Trash Can Nachos, a standard on any Fieri menu. “It started as a tongue-in-cheek (way) to put everything into it that you could imagine. And we did.”
The dish comes in a silver tin that can be released to drop the ingredients on a plate. Fieri described the nachos as having the ingredients layered on each level of chips. The $19.99 nachos come with smoked pork and bourbon brown sugar barbecue sauce, as well as super melty cheese, cheddar cheese, jalapeños, black beans, pico de gallo, sour cream, cilantro, and pickled red onion.
“We slice the pickles, the onions, and the tomatoes so thin they only have one side,” Fieri said, pausing for effect.
He slid the nachos out of their silver can, and the tortilla chip concoction retained its trash can shape.
The Pepperoni Pizza Pops for $14.99 feature rolled-up puff pastry served with marinara sauce. “It’s a little bit lighter than eating just a regular slice of pie,” Fieri said.
He moved on to his burgers, or, as he calls them, his “big bite burgers,” a section with five options that include a turkey and a veggie burger, served with a fry trio of waffle, French and wedge fries.
“Not all burgers are created equally,” Fieri said as he described his Bacon Mac-N-Cheese Burger for $19.99.
Even though the ingredients seem simple, making them the Fieri way is complicated. He said the chefs brush the buns with garlic butter before each side is toasted. They sear the burger and smash it. “We don’t do a temperature on this because by the time we sear it on one side and flip it to the other side, this baby is done,” Fieri said.
The mac and cheese on top uses six kinds of cheese, topped with applewood smoked bacon.
“Sometimes, people want that fat, juicy burger,” Fieri said of his Primetime American Kobe burger for $23.99 that uses American-style Kobe beef. Instead of smashing the burger, he likes to serve it at medium and as an untouched patty, topped with onion jam, smoked Gouda cheese, cheddar cheese and onion straws.
Of course, much of the menu includes some of Fieri’s clever ingredient names and abbreviations: SMC for super melty cheese; LTOP for lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle; or donkey sauce, a garlic aioli with mayonnaise, mustard, Worcestershire, salt and pepper.
He said the hot honey garlic wings for $15.99 are on the menu only in Council Bluffs. The Cajun chicken alfredo for $24.99 helped him graduate from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. “You had to invent a restaurant and run it for three days in school, and my No. 1 selling dish in that was Cajun chicken alfredo,” he said. He noted that the sundried tomatoes are a nod to the 1990s, when he graduated from college and the ingredient was trendy.
His son Hunter graduated from the UNLV Hospitality College in 2019 and came along to Council Bluffs to cook in the kitchen and help the staff get ready for the big opening.
Iowa gets a shoutout with the Awesome Iowa Chop, a smoked pork chop with a whiskey glaze for $28.99. The Old Skool steak sandwich for $19.99 uses beef from Omaha Steaks. “I’m not gonna show up in this town and not do it right,” Fieri said.
Fieri also showcased cocktails, from the barbecue loaded bloody Mary stuffed with bacon, a beef stick and pickled veggies to a caliente margarita that uses his Santo tequila that he produces with the Red Rocker, Sammy Hagar. A mezquila passion fruit mule is new on the menu.
What does Guy Fieri’s Kitchen + Bar look like inside?
“This is a very special experience,” Fieri said as he was about to cut a ribbon with a giant scissors. Earlier, he promised to use a samurai sword and chainsaw.
“This is one of the newest designs for the Guy Fieri Kitchen + Bar,” he added.
There’s no mistaking who owns this restaurant: His image and name are everywhere.
Customers walk into a dining room filled with circular iron chandeliers rimmed with lights under a tin roof. Over on one wall, a mural of Fieri with “mas tequila” in yellow neon peers into the room.
Giant horseshoe-shaped booths ring the outer edges of the room, with a combination of tables with chairs and a banquette filling the interior. Low-slung metal domed lights hang over the circular booths.
Fieri’s cookbooks and T-shirts and water bottles with Fieri’s face or restaurant logo take up one corner, lit by yellow neon imploring diners to “Go big or go home.”
The bar area offers large windows looking out onto Stir Cove, the 36,000-square-foot outdoor music theater. A cutout image of Fieri’s face with his signature looks into the bar.
Brown and white cowhide chairs ring the bar, while high-top tables flank the outskirts of the bar area. To the north, one wall features a huge collection of vinyl albums and two autographed Fender guitars.
Outside, a patio overlooks Stir Cove and offers a prime view of summer concerts and the skyline of downtown Omaha.
Who is Guy Fieri?
Fieri gained national attention in 2006, when he won the Food Network’s television competition show, “Next Food Network Star,” and went on to star on the Emmy-nominated “Guy’s Big Bite.”
His roster of television shows includes “Diners, Drive Ins & Dives,” “Guy’s Grocery Games,” “Tournament of Champions,” “Guy’s Ranch Kitchen,” and his new series “Guy’s Ultimate Game Night.”
He claims he fell in love with food at age 10 when he started selling soft pretzels from a three-wheeled bicycle cart he built with his father dubbed “The Awesome Pretzel Cart.”
He studied in Chantilly, France, before studying hospitality management at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He opened his own casual dining restaurants in Northern California, including Johnny Garlic’s, his first restaurant, based in his hometown of Santa Rosa, California, in 1996.
Fieri now has 17 different restaurant brands, from the fast-casual Chicken Guy to his Mexican cafe El Burro Borracho.
Fieri opened his first restaurant with Caesars Entertainment in Las Vegas in 2014 and has expanded his restaurants to more than 75 around the world.
Is Guy Fieri the first celebrity chef to open a restaurant in Iowa?
It depends on how you define a celebrity chef. Fieri said his Council Bluffs location was the first celebrity chef restaurant in Iowa. He teased more to come.
But brothers Mark, Donnie and Paul Wahlberg have Wahlburgers across the state. Mark and Donnie have starred in dozens of films, from “Boogie Nights” and “The Departed” for Mark to “The Sixth Sense” and the “Saw” films for Donnie, who was a founder of New Kids on the Block. And Paul appeared on their reality show “Wahlburgers” for 10 seasons on A&E.
Where is Guy Fieri’s Kitchen + Bar?
The restaurant is at Harrah’s Council Bluffs, 1 Harrah’s Blvd., Council Bluffs
The restaurant addition is part of a $22 million renovation to the casino, which sits near the Missouri River and has a view of downtown Omaha’s skyline. Parent company Caesars Entertainment plans to expand the casino floor to accommodate 200 new slot machines and remodel the 250-plus hotel rooms.
The $4 million restaurant includes a patio next to the outdoor entertainment venue, Stir Cove, which hosted country singer Willie Nelson and Family on Friday night and Bret Michaels, the frontman of Poison, on Saturday.
Next door, Fieri is opening a grab-and-go casual restaurant with giant cinnamon rolls and Rice Krispies Treats.
Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at [email protected].