The Origin Story Of Guy Fieri's Flavortown

Even if you only have cursory knowledge of celebrity chef Guy Fieri, you've probably heard the term "Flavortown." Over the course of his TV shows like "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," Fieri fleshed out this fictionalized American town or city where bold flavors and fun reign supreme as he was visiting restaurants around the country. He appointed himself mayor, and laid out a vague geography for this mythical place. Flavortown has become a very well-known pop culture trope over the decade (or more) since its invention, more or less synonymous with Fieri's own personal brand. Yet it turns out that the entire concept was invented as a throwaway line while filming a show.

In interviews, Fieri has recounted what he recalls as the first use of the term "Flavortown." Speaking to Vice in 2017, he said that while filming "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," he noted that a particularly huge pizza resembled a manhole cover in Flavortown. He went on to suggest that he envisaged Flavortown a little bit like the chocolate room in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," where food items took the place of everyday objects. "So it's taking these iconic food items, these iconic food moments, and giving them a home. They all live in Flavortown," he told Vice. Fieri later compared other foods to items in Flavortown while filming, and the joke eventually evolved into a more fully-developed concept that stuck around.

In the most general sense, Flavortown is a fictional town or city that's centered around bold flavors. But because it's an imaginary place, it's a little hard to pin down what exactly it looks like: The idea of Flavortown has been built up over a lot of smaller throwaway jokes and lines, for example, with people declaring themselves citizens of Flavortown, or Fieri pondering whether the town's airline would be sausage themed. Fieri himself is the mayor of Flavortown, and anyone can be a resident.

Despite Flavortown's nebulous form, Fieri has spelled out some "laws" of Flavortown, too. Some of these are inevitably influenced by Fieri's culinary preferences: For example, that "more bacon is always a good choice," or that you should "sauce with authority," another ambiguous term that seems to refer to boldly adding plenty of sauce to your food. Some other Flavortown laws are just plain common sense when it comes to cooking and eating — that you should salt your pasta water properly, taste as you go while cooking, and that you shouldn't use lighter fluid while barbecuing because of the chemical taste it can impart.

Even with these various laws, mayoral positions, and theoretical Flavortown "airlines," it's hard to conjure up a precise idea of what Flavortown looks like. So, it's probably best to just think of it as a Fieri fantasyland, where foods like sausage and burgers are ubiquitous, and the flavors are punchy.

To save confusion, it's worth noting that Fieri also has a couple of restaurants that use the Flavortown name. That said, it's safe to assume that when he refers to "Flavortown" on TV or in media appearances, he's referring to the fictional Flavortown, and not the restaurants that use the Flavortown name (although in branding terms, it probably doesn't hurt to have this overlap). The fictional Flavortown predates the "real" Flavortown restaurants, with Fieri having coined the term while filming an early season of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," — the exact "founding" date of Flavortown is unclear, but it could be as long ago as 2006.

But in the event you want to check out a real-life Flavortown, there's Downtown Flavortown, which opened in 2022 in the Smoky Mountain tourist town of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (known as the home of Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park). The menu channels a Flavortown vibe with lots of heat, spice, and cheese across items like burgers and nachos. It's not just a restaurant but a sprawling 43,000 square foot venue that also features bowling alleys, arcade games, and a tiki bar.

Fieri also operates Flavortown Kitchen, taking a similar approach with its menu, but you can't visit this Flavortown in person. It's a chain of delivery-only restaurants (sometimes called "ghost kitchens"), with 170 locations, often sharing the kitchens of existing restaurant chains like Buca di Beppo. Finally, there are even Flavortown products, like frozen meals and sauces, available in some retail stores.