This bar crawl will take you to Flavor Town.
Fans of Guy Fieri — one of America's most widely parodied food personalities — will tour five Midtown bars dressed as the "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" host this Saturday.
Fiericon 2016 has three main objectives, according to the event's website: interrupting sappy dates; creating a safe space for language like "gangster" and "off the hook" as applied to food items; and soliciting the attention and favor of the walking meme himself.
"By year 3, Guy Fieri is going be a part of FieriCon," wrote the bar crawl's organizer, Dave Gold. "He will be waiting for us at Guy's American Kitchen and Bar and he'll be giving out fist pumps to the first thousand people who walk through those doors, and that may be the best day of my life."
Fiericon will commence at the Midtown roadhouse the Hog Pit at noon and end at Guy's American Kitchen & Bar, Fieri's Times Square eatery that New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells famously eviscerated in a 2012 review written as a series of trenchant questions.
Participants are "highly recommended" to outfit themselves in true Fieri style, which calls for some bleached tips, a goatee, a pair of sporty shades, a black collared shirt with flame embellishments, and a leather bracelet.
Gold told us about 30 people have expressed interest in attending, but he expects as many 50 to show up.
Should you dread this pub crawl as much as the annual event that unleashes drunken would-be Santas onto city streets, known as SantaCon?
In the defense of Fieri enthusiasts everywhere, the Food Network host and restaurateur's philosophy of inclusiveness — observers note that his show covers simple food made by Americans of diverse backgrounds — may be exactly what we the city needs after a divisive election and ahead of the holiday season.
Addressing Fieri's haters, Gold told us, "Sure, he tells stories with exaggerated movement and catch phrases, but he does it to get a point across" — namely the "heart and soul" that Triple D owners invest in their kitchens.
Added the Greenwich Village resident, who works for a tech startup, "For those who don't think his food tastes very good, then I don't know what to tell ya. He owns six restaurants for a reason."
We're not saying Gold's bar crawl is money, but we won't shut the front door on Fieri just yet.
