Food Network Stars With Restaurants

Food Network stars take advantage of their fame in a few ways. The culinary celebrities will start a line of cookware, teach classes on MasterClass.com, or begin selling recipes out of ghost kitchens. But one of the most popular money-making strategies has got to be starting a restaurant.

These celebrity-owned restaurants tend to follow a few obvious steps. Stars will open eateries in Las Vegas or put their name in front of the title (see: Paula Deen's Family Kitchen or Guy Fieri's Tequila Cocina). Then, there are more sensible patterns, such as constructing a menu out of recipes previously made on their respective cooking shows. The point is, usually these stars' restaurants tend to be a little cliché. Plus, the novelty of seeing a Food Network-inspired business doesn't seem to be growing with age. As we all know, the glory days of this cooking channel are long gone.

To make matters worse, many of the restaurants owned by former Food Network stars are now closed. Some of that has to do with the up and down nature of the hospitality industry in general. Another wave of closures happened during the #MeToo movement (which is why you won't see Mario Batali on this list). Then there is COVID-19, which took out a significant chunk of these restaurants in its devastation to the hospitality industry in general. Even so, there are a few Food Network stars who've held onto their restaurants. Read on to find out who is still open for business.

Bobby Flay famously dropped out of high school to pursue his cooking career. That probably gave him an edge as an early competitor on the Food Network show "Iron Chef America." But the first television show that Flay appeared on — and also hosted — was "Grillin' & Chillin," which premiered on the Food Network in 1996. Following that, Flay hosted shows "Hot Off the Grill," "Boy Meets Grill," "Beat Bobby Flay," "Food Network Star," and "Brunch @ Bobby's." Throughout his Food Network career and later on, Flay has been opening restaurants.

The first restaurant Flay launched was Mesa Grill NYC, which opened its doors in 1991 and closed in 2013, per Eater. Before it shuttered once and for all, it was an upscale restaurant that served Southwestern-style food. Flay later replaced Mesa Grill NYC with a Las Vegas location. But Mesa Grill Vegas also closed up shop in 2021. Other restaurants opened by Flay which are no longer open include Bar Americain Mohegan Sun, Bar Americain NYC, and BOLO, as stated by the celebrity chef's website.

As of 2022, Flay owns and operates two different restaurant concepts. There is Amalfi, a Mediterranean restaurant with a location at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. There is also Bobby's Burgers, a fast food chain with locations at Caesar's Palace, Harrah's, and Paris in Las Vegas. Additionally, there is a Bobby's Burgers location inside Yankee Stadium.

Giada De Laurentiis is a Food Network star known for her Italian cooking skills. She got her start on the Food Network as host of "Everyday Italian," which premiered in 2003. The show continued airing until 2011, and all the while, De Laurentiis added even more shows to her repertoire. Per the celebrity chef's website, De Laurentiis hosted "Giada at Home" and "Giada Entertains," plus some other series both with and without her first name in the title. While her television career was flourishing, De Laurentiis began opening restaurants.

De Laurentiis' first is an Italian restaurant simply named Giada. According to the Food Network, it opened for business in 2014. Giada is still operating today at its location in Las Vegas. The cuisine is said to be Italian with a Californian twist. Then there's Pronto by Giada, a fast-casual restaurant concept opened by the Food Network star in 2018, per Eater. Like Giada, Pronto by Giada also serves Italian food with a California flair. 

De Laurentiis also attempted to open a third restaurant, GDL Italian, in Baltimore. We think you can probably guess what type of food GDL served. It opened after Pronto by Giada, that same year, in 2018, per USA Today. Sadly, her restaurant didn't make it. GDL Italian succumbed to impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Giada and Pronto by Giada both temporarily closed, but eventually, the two Vegas eateries were able to bounce back, and reopen.

Ree Drummond is known for hosting "The Pioneer Woman," a show that's been on Food Network since 2011. Each episode, viewers watch her cook from the rustic setting of her Oklahoma ranch. Her cuisine of choice tends to be any and all comfort food. Along with the show, Drummond's blog is well-known. In 2010, Forbes named Drummond one of the top "Web Celebrities of the Year," thanks to her website's traffic of around 22 million views per month at that time. Drummond's internet and TV success soon allowed her to open her own physical space, for fans to taste her recipes IRL.

The Pioneer Woman Mercantile, located in Pawhuska, Oklahoma (the same town as Drummond's family ranch), opened in 2016. "The Merc," as it's called, is a trifecta: a store, a bakery, and an eatery. The restaurant part is fast-food style. You'll either get grab-and-go options or have a quick bite at casual seating areas. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are available and all of the menus are stacked with Drummond's recipes. One especially popular item is "Ree's Homemade Cinnamon Rolls," which are available on the breakfast menu.

At the bakery, Ree's cinnamon rolls are also available for purchase, as well as goodies like pies, muffins, biscuits, and more. The store part is full of Pioneer Woman-branded souvenirs, obviously. If you are in Oklahoma and want to visit, expect to wait. Country Living reported in 2017 that the store gets an average of 6,000 visitors per day.

Michael Symon is a celebrity chef known for starring on Food Network shows "Burgers, Brew & 'Que," "All-Star Academy," and "Iron Chef America." His cooking style is informed by his Mediterranean and Eastern European lineage — according to the Food Network, his family has ties to Greece and Sicily — as well as his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, per Symon's website. As the television channel notes, Symon has been running restaurants for over two decades.

Symon has three restaurant concepts open as of April 2022. Angeline at Borgata, a restaurant located inside the Atlantic City casino and spa, is one. Per Eater, it's an Italian restaurant named after Symon's mother, Angel. Angeline has a menu full of red-sauce specials like baked ziti and eggplant parmesan. 

Along with Angeline, Symon owns Mabel's BBQ. The more casual American restaurant has locations in both Cleveland and Las Vegas. Sara's, a secretive supper club-style restaurant located inside of Mabel's BBQ Las Vegas has been temporarily shuttered since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Sara's Instagram. A handful of other restaurants owned by Symon, like Roast and B Spot Burgers, closed permanently. Bar Symon, a chain of pubs located within a few American airports remain open. Per Symon's website, "Michael Symon delivers a menu of hearty comfort food for travelers to enjoy in a vibrant tap house setting."

Yes, former *NSYNC band member Joey Fatone is a Food Network star. Don't forget that he has hosted the food competition show "Rewrapped" since 2014. The junk food-inspired program involves contestants competing to remake iconic snack foods on Food Network. It could be part of what inspired Fatone to make his own business centered around hot dogs.

Fatone opened the first location of Fat One's (an obvious play on his surname) in 2016. The hot dog business began as a food stand inside of an Orlando, Florida mall. Later on, Fatone also opened a Fat One's food truck. The business must be booming because Fat One's has over 15,000 followers on Instagram, where it calls itself a "NY-inspired food truck."

According to the hot dog business' menu, Fat One's serves several different dogs. There's the "Fat One," a classic with mustard, ketchup, relish, and onions. There's the "Baritone" (obviously a nod to his time in *NSYNC), a dog that's packed with beef chili, beer cheese, and diced white onions. There's the "Classic New Yorker" with Sabrett onion sauce and Brooklyn Flats, a side which is described by the website as a potato-based food that's somewhere between a French fry and a chip.

Masaharu Morimoto is a Food Network star known for being one of the "Iron Chefs" on the original Japanese show and the American version, Food Network version, "Iron Chef America." He has also appeared on "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations." The Japanese chef's television career began in 1998, according to his website. Morimoto opened restaurants both before and after first appearing on the Food Network. Like other Food Network stars with their restaurants, Morimoto's eateries tend to have a connection to his unique cooking style showcased on television. The channel described his cuisine as having Japanese colors, French presentations, Chinese spices, and Italian ingredients.

With experience as Executive Chef of Nobu under his belt, Morimoto opened up an upscale sushi restaurant of his own. The first Morimoto restaurant, located in Philadelphia, is still open today. It was nominated in 2002 for the James Beard Foundation's "Best New Restaurant" award. Morimoto opened up another restaurant named after him, except in New York, that also won a James Beard award for "Outstanding Restaurant Design." But it's now permanently closed.

Other Morimoto restaurants, in Napa, Hawaii, Mumbai, Mexico City, and Tokyo, remain open. But that's not all, as the chef has kept even more international eateries afloat throughout the worldwide pandemic. There are others in Qatar, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, and other cities. As of 2022, Morimoto operates around 20 restaurants, most of them being fine dining places. It's no wonder the chef's net worth is estimated to be $18 million.

Tyler Florence is a star of the Food Network. He's been on quite a few of the channel's shows, like "The Great Food Truck Race," "Tyler's Ultimate," "America's Best Cook," "Food 911," "Food Court Wars," and "How to Boil Water." In addition to all those shows, Florence worked in several acclaimed restaurants, such as New York City's Cafeteria, per Food Network. Florence later opened several of his own eateries over the years. The two left standing are Wayfare Tavern and Miller & Lux, both in San Francisco, according to the chef's Instagram.

Of his two remaining restaurants, Wayfare Tavern was his first, opening in 2014, per Eater. It's inspired by the Bay Area culinary scene around the year 1900, before the San Francisco Earthquake and Great Fire of 1906, as the restaurant explains. As such, the menu is mostly American food, with dishes like mac and cheese, caesar salad, deviled eggs, fried chicken, burgers, steaks, and more. There's also a raw bar and Victorian-era cocktails. The Infatuation recommends it, calling the Wayfare Tavern an excellent special occasion comfort-food spot.

Florence's other joint, Miller & Lux, opened in September 2021. It's located inside the San Francisco sports arena the Chase Center, per the restaurant's website. Like Wayfare Tavern, Florence's other eatery is inspired by history, specifically the immigrants Henry Miller and Charles Lux, a.k.a. the "Cattle Kings of California." Miller & Lux is (fittingly) an American steakhouse.

You may know Eddie Jackson as a former NFL player, but he's also a literal "Food Network Star." He won Season 11 of the television show "Food Network Star," which aired in 2015. As is customary for winning, Jackson got his own series. He launched "BBQ Blitz," and then went on to host "Kids BBQ Games." The professional athlete-turned-chef would go on to appear on episodes of "Guy's Grocery Games," and host "Christmas Cookie Challenge." He currently owns and operates one restaurant concept: Rosehill Beer Garden.

Jackson's beer garden is located in Cypress, Texas, near Houston. It opened to the public in 2018, per Community Impact. According to the website, Rosehill Beer Garden features an outdoor space for enjoying brews, as well as a large food truck park. The park holds eight food trucks at a time. If you go, don't expect the same thing every time. Food trucks at Rosehill Beer Garden are chosen on a rotating basis.

An Instagram post from 2022 gives an example of the wide array of cuisines covered by the food trucks, during any given rotation. There is a fried chicken truck, a crawfish truck, and a pizza truck, all appearing at the same time. Jackson's beer garden even hosted a former winner of "The Great Food Truck Race." This is a fitting partnership, as that's a Food Network show.

Chris Cosentino is a culinary celebrity known for several food shows. On the Food Network, he's been a part of "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations," "Next Iron Chef," and "Chef vs. City," according to Cosentino's website. Outside of the Food Network, but still within the food media world, he won "Top Chef Masters" and later returned to the show as a judge. As for cooking style, it tends to be focused on Italian cuisine and meat. He's known for nose-to-tail and offal recipes utilizing all the parts of the animal (especially the organs). Even though, as he once told Men's Journal, there are a lot of challenges that come with balancing food television with restaurant ownership, Cosentino still maintains two restaurants.

First, there is Acacia House, a farm-to-table restaurant located in Napa Valley, California. Given the location, there's an emphasis on wine along with a menu designed by Cosentino, who is the chef. Per the restaurant's website, Acacia House has breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert menus. The food ranges from Mexican dishes like chilaquiles, to Californian staples like avocado toast, to Italian dishes like cacio e pepe, and more. Throughout all the menus, there's an emphasis on healthy, plant-based dishes.

Cosentino also owns and operates Rosalie, an Italian restaurant located in Houston. According to Rosalie's website, it's named after Cosentino's great-grandmother, an Italian immigrant. The menus consist of Italian-American comfort food dishes, with a slightly more refined preparation and presentation, which you can see on Rosalie's Instagram.