Even if you’re only superficially familiar with celebrity chef Guy Fieri, you’ve probably heard the term “Flavortown” before. Over the course of his TV shows like “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” Fieri brought this fictional American town, where bold flavors and fun reign supreme, to life while visiting restaurants across the country. He appointed himself mayor and established a vague geography for this mythical place. Flavortown has become a very familiar pop culture cliche over the decade (or more) since its invention, and more or less synonymous with Fieri’s own personal brand. It turns out, however, that the entire concept was invented as an offhand remark while filming a show.
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In interviews, Fieri has recounted how he remembers the term “Flavortown” being used for the first time. Speaking to Vice in 2017, he said that while filming “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” he noticed that a particularly large pizza in Flavortown resembled a manhole cover. He went on to say that he envisioned Flavortown as being a bit like the chocolate room in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” where food takes the place of everyday objects. “So it’s about taking these iconic foods, 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 during filming, and the joke eventually evolved into a more mature concept that caught on.
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And what exactly is Flavortown?
In the broadest sense, Flavortown is a fictional town that’s all about bold flavors. But because it’s an imaginary place, it’s a little difficult to say exactly what it looks like: The idea of Flavortown was built up over many smaller, off-hand jokes and sayings, like when people declare themselves citizens of Flavortown or Fieri ponders whether the town’s airline should have a sausage theme. Fieri himself is the mayor of Flavortown, and anyone can live there.
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Despite Flavortown’s nebulous form, Fieri has also articulated some of Flavortown’s “laws.” 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 “use sauce with authority,” another ambiguous term that seems to refer to boldly adding lots of sauce to your food. Some of Flavortown’s other laws are just common sense when it comes to cooking and eating—that you should properly salt your pasta water, taste while cooking, and that you shouldn’t use lighter fluid when grilling because it can leave a chemical taste.
Despite these various laws, mayoralties and theoretical Flavortown “airlines,” it’s hard to get an accurate idea of what Flavortown looks like, so it’s best to just imagine it as a Fieri fantasyland where foods like hot dogs and burgers are ubiquitous and the flavors are bold.
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The real Flavortowns
To avoid confusion, it should be noted that Fieri also has a few restaurants that use the Flavortown name. Still, it’s safe to assume that when he refers to “Flavortown” on TV or in media appearances, he means the fictional Flavortown and not the restaurants that use the Flavortown name (although in terms of branding, it probably doesn’t hurt if there is some overlap). The fictional Flavortown predates the “real” Flavortown restaurants, with Fieri coining the term while filming an early season of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” – the exact “founding date” of Flavortown is unclear, but could be as early as 2006.
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But if you want to try a real Flavortown, there’s Downtown Flavortown, which opened in 2022 in the tourist town of Pigeon Forge in the Smoky Mountains, Tennessee (known as the home of Dolly Parton’s Dollywood theme park). The menu has a Flavortown vibe, with plenty of heat, spice, and cheese in dishes like burgers and nachos. It’s not just a restaurant, but a sprawling 4,000-square-foot venue that also features bowling lanes, arcade games, and a tiki bar.
Fieri also runs Flavortown Kitchen, which takes 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 that often share the kitchens of existing restaurant chains like Buca di Beppo. Eventually, Flavortown products like frozen meals and sauces are even available in some retail stores.
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