Fieri taps Four Kegs for another big project

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Guy Fieri was back at one of his favorite college haunts, the Four Kegs, on Tuesday, filming a spinoff of his hit Food Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”

The spike-haired chef, one of UNLV’s most famous graduates, was such a fan of the Four Kegs that he featured it in on his first season of “DD&D.”

It was the second episode and aired April 30, 2007. That’s a boatload of hot wings and strombolis ago.

Twenty-four seasons later, he returned, this time for a new show. Four Kegs co-owner Mario Perkins is sworn to secrecy but some details have been all over the Internet. In an Instagram post earlier this year, Fieri said the show will feature chefs competing for their own “food road show.”

The working title – “Guy’s Big Project” – will fall somewhere between a mix of his long-running show and the one that served as his launching pad to stardom, “Next Food Network Star.”

Fieri won it in April 2006 and has been on the road ever since, cruising around in a flashy convertible.

In an interview with PopSugar.com, he explained how it will work.

“It’s me bringing on eight contestants and helping them achieve their dreams,” he said. “There will be eliminations. It’s gotta be who really learns the fastest. We’re going to take them, and put them through a variety of challenges for their education.”

Fieri, 49, told me during an August 2015 interview that during his years at UNLV, in the late 1980s, he would climb out a dorm window at UNLV and set up a barbecue.

He has two Las Vegas restaurants, Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen & Bar at The Linq and Guy Fieri’s El Burro Borracho at the Rio.

His oldest son, Hunter, followed his father to UNLV’s culinary school two years ago.
 
The scene and heard
Tiger Woods is making a rare return to Las Vegas this week to host his annual Tiger Jam charity gala at the MGM Grand.
His special guest will be Kate Upton, the 2017 Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model and fiancée of Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander.
Country star Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish fame will be performing.
The event, in its 19th year, was cancelled in 2010 after Woods was involved in a messy scandal that involved a number of affairs, many with Las Vegas connections…

Dave Attell tonight kicks off what might be the most ambitious comedy festival since Caesars Palace was host to The Comedy Festival from 2005-2009.
Attell is the leading headliner of the three-day event which plays out at a number of East Fremont venues. He’ll be in the 450-seat Zappos Chambers, formerly the scene of City Hall drama.
It might lack the starpower of The Comedy Festival, but organizers of the Crapshoot are hoping to turn it into an East Fremont success story.
The Comedy Festival remains the gold standard of stand-up with a lineup that included Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, Bill Maher, Dennis Miller, Larry David and Triumph the Insult Dog…

Veteran rocker Paul Shortino is recovering from an automobile accident that left him with torn ligaments in his hand and wrist. Hours after Tuesday’s accident, Shortino joined his Raiding the Rock Vault bandmates on stage at the Hard Rock Hotel.

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On this day…
May 18, 2011: Crystal Harris, 25, spends what was to be her wedding day with Hugh Hefner hosting a pool party at MGM Grand’s Wet Republic pool venue. She called off the marriage to the 85-year-old Hefner several days earlier, prompting Playboy to rename its pictorial of her “Runaway Bride.”
 
Sightings
Journey’s Jonathan Cain and Ross Valory, playing the supergroup’s 1981 hit “Don’t Stop Believing” to a wall-to-wall audience at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts on Wednesday.

The punch line
“Parents at a Florida school are reportedly outraged after a video surfaced of students in a classroom twerking and giving lap dances. Or as it’s called in Florida, Career Day.” – Seth Meyers.