Celebrity chef Guy Fieri is the self-proclaimed “Mayor of Flavortown,” and his empire includes restaurants, a franchise of ghost kitchens, a tequila brand, and a catalog of merch that includes everything from cookbooks to sauces.
And that’s to say nothing of his lucrative career on the Food Network, where he most recently signed an $80 million, 3-year contract to host his popular shows Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, known as “Triple D,” and Guy’s Grocery Games, known as – you guessed it – “Triple G.”
But does this energetic chef’s reign extend to grocery stores, too? Fieri doesn’t own a grocery store, but he presides over one on his hit show Guy’s Grocery Games.
You might be surprised to learn just how realistic this made-for-TV market really is.
Is Flavortown Market a Real Store?
A cooking competition meets Supermarket Sweep in Guy’s Grocery Games, a high-energy cooking show in which contestants race through the aisles to shop for ingredients they’ll use to prepare a themed meal for a panel of judges.
Fans of the show might wish they could go on a shopping spree in the aptly-named Flavortown Market, but, unfortunately, we’ll have to settle for watching the contestants load up their carts.
Despite the shelves, coolers, and freezers full of very real food, the show’s filming location is just a TV set, and not an actual grocery store.
The 15,000-square-foot warehouse that houses Triple G was built specifically for the purpose of the show, and while it’s realistic enough to fool those of us watching from home, a few adjustments have been made to increase this grocery store’s camera-readiness.
First of all, there’s no need to worry about cart collisions in this made-for-TV grocery store; the aisles are extra-wide to accommodate camera equipment.
The lighting is also better, which helps chefs find the ingredients they need.
You might also notice the lack of a pet food aisle or baby food aisle – these items don’t come up in challenges and therefore aren’t included in Guy’s store.
Does Flavortown Market Have Real Food?
Flavortown Market may not be a real grocery store, but it’s stocked top to bottom with real food.
Just like your local supermarket, the Triple G store receives weekly deliveries of fresh produce, meat, seafood, baked goods, and more.
To guarantee a store fit for one of TV’s highest-paid and most-loved chefs, the store team works daily to refresh the stock and ensure that only the highest-quality products are available (this is a market for chefs only, after all!).
Thanks to the hard work of the crew, the competing chefs have thousands of food items at their disposal when they shop for challenges, just as they would in an actual grocery store.
If you’re worried about all of that food going to waste, you can rest easy. The unused food is donated to local food banks and even the food scraps left over from cooking are donated to farms for animal feed.
Does Flavortown Market Have Real Registers?
If you’re a fan of the show, you may be familiar with challenges like Budget Battle and Register Run that require the contestants to check out at a register.
This is possible because the food items in Flavortown Market are processed through a real inventory database and their UPC codes are entered into the system.
No details were forgotten in making this store a working replica of the real thing – real receipts are even printed out for the challenges that involve the use of a register.
Was Guy’s Grocery Games Ever Filmed in a Real Store?
While Triple G is currently filmed in the fantasy world of Flavortown Market, the show actually started out in a real grocery store!
Just like episodes of NCIS, The Office, Criminal Minds, and more, the first season of Guy’s Grocery Games was filmed at Fields Market in Los Angeles.
After the smashing success of the first season, the show moved to its own dedicated set, and the rest is history.
Fake Grocery Store, Real Fun
The store might be fake, but the excitement is real when it comes to watching chefs perform grocery store-themed challenges on Guy’s Grocery Games, and if you’re anything like us and hundreds of thousands of viewers, you’ll be tuning in.
With its wide aisles, freshly stocked food, and our favorite spiky-haired chef roaming the aisles, Flavortown Market is a grocery store we all wish we could visit.
We’ll have to settle for admiring it from afar!