uy Fieri is driving along a dirt road in an all-
terrain vehicle, blasting hair metal. It’s what you
might imagine the star doing in his downtime,
except that he’s on his way to feed a few hundred
goats—on a ranch in California wine country. Guy and
his wife, Lori, bought the place almost 10 years ago as a
family getaway, and though it’s only an hour and a half
from their home in Santa Rosa, it’s really another world.
There are lush forests, incredible views of the local
vineyards and 320 acres of land where Guy can let loose.
“I work so much and have so much crazy stuff going on,
I wanted a retreat,” he says.
Guy had been dreaming of buying the land for years,
yet it always seemed out of reach, in size and price.
“It was beyond the scope of what I thought was possible.
So we looked at a lot of properties, and this was always
the benchmark.” After he was finally able to make a
deal with the owners, he immediately made it his
own: He updated the previous owner’s cabin, added
a huge outdoor kitchen and then spent years making the
property self-sufficient with solar panels, a vegetable
garden and fishing ponds. In addition to 400 goats, the
property is home to 20 chickens, four llamas, two donkeys,
an apiary, a few dogs and several wild peacocks—plus it’s
the set for the show Guy’s Ranch Kitchen.
Today the production crew is packing up after more
than a week of filming Guy and some of his fellow
Food Network stars cook in his outdoor kitchen. Men in
black T-shirts are carting away equipment, replacing the
patio furniture and taking down a tent that served as
the control room. A food truck and temporary buffet
station sit on the lawn near the patio for anyone who
wants a quick bite. “This place has become a really nice
Guy Fieri’s Northern California ranch
is the ultimate family retreat—and he
almost lost it all.
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PHOTOS:DAVE^LAURIDSEN;^ GROOMER:^ JACQUELINE^RAMIREZ.40 FOOD NETWORK MAGAZINE ●NOVEMBER 2019