Live From Flavortown: Guy Fieri’s First Midtown Lunch Service
Yesterday afternoon the doors swung open to Flavortown Guy’s American Bar & Grill in Times Square (on 44th btw. 7+8th), but not in time for lunch. Which makes today their very first lunch service. How could we not? Our intrepid reporter @samkimsamkim is on the scene reporting live…
12:02pm – Ready for Flavortown!
12:03pm – Yes, that is a electronic menu outside of the restaurant… complete with Guy Fieri clips. Mesmerizing.
12:05pm – There are a surprising number of solo diners in suits. Surprised there aren’t more tourists. Not surprised that Guy Fieri fans who have to go opening day have no friends. (This will surprise nobody, but I too found it difficult to find somebody to go with me.)
Alright… let’s take a look at the menu.
12:11pm – “Donkey sauce” seems to be prevalent on a number of the menu items. Let’s google that, shall we? A lot of references to donkey semen. That sounds about right.
12:12pm – Authentic donkey sauce fans will be disappointed. Server says it’s mustard, mayo, worcestershire, and garlic. He also said awesome 3 times.
12:18pm – Urgh. Soup is the only thing on this menu under $10. Definitely not a Midtown Lunch. Cheapest burger is $14. On the plus side it features “super melty cheese” and there’s “hand cut pepperoni” on the menu.
12:19pm – The chicken parm is 25 dollars. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s 1 1/2 chicken parms at Parm. Or four of these.
12:22pm – We have our first tourist sighting!!! They passed on buying a shirt… not a good sign. Maybe if they had noticed Guy walking by it would have helped. (In fairness to them, he is sporting unbleached hair for some reason.)
12:25pm – So this is what $15 worth of nachos looks like.
12:32pm – First ironic visitor sighting! The hipsters alternated between staring at the phone and admiring the decor. They didn’t buy a shirt, but they are staying to eat. Maybe on the way out?
12:34pm – Not surprised at all by the great verbiage on the menus. Who wouldn’t like “Cherry Toms”? I am however shocked to see that low fat dressing is available.
12:38pm – Things are starting to really pick up now. Around 20 people in the restaurant… which by my count makes it an almost 1:1 customer to waitstaff ratio.
12:40pm – Pat LaFrieda blend burger w/ natural cut fries. Smashed? Check. Flavorless? Check. I can’t eat this… I might need to order something else. On the positive side the super melty cheese is indeed, super melty.
12:46pm – Just overheard the bartender explaining to two older businessmen who Guy is. In case you were wondering, Guy is also really nice.
12:50pm – Not many “add ons” on the menu. Except one. You can add chicken to the fifteen dollar bacon mac n cheese for 5 dollars (naturally.)
12:55pm – Do you want to see the bathroom wallpaper? Of course you do!
I think Sam’s phone died. Or he never made it out of the bathroom… hopefully we’ll hear from him soon!
UPDATE: And he’s back!
1:15pm – Sorry, my phone died… sadly while taking a photo of the chicken parm (which was also pretty bad.) They have wi-fi but no outlets! For all the flavortown talk I was expecting super salty, but most of it wasn’t. They asked me how everything was, so I told them how bad the burger was. They were very appreciative of the feedback, but didn’t take it off the bill. (Sorry Zach! You’ve still got to fork up the $$)
The big news is that Guy has autographed a bunch of the memorabilia, so if you’re planning on buying a t-shirt or commemorative plate now would be the time!
Posted by The ML Team at 12:21 pm, September 11th, 2012 under Guy's American Kitchen and Bar.
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Grilled Bone-In Rib-eye for $39
I’ll pay it if I can get it with a side of Fieri getting donkey punched