There's a saying that goes, "We just don't recognize life's most significant moments while they're happening." For Doy Fieri, one of those significant moments was when his high school football coach walked into his family's diner, Slatt's Soul Food, in South Minneapolis. Little did Doy (then Vance Slattery) know that serving the unfamiliar face a plate of chicken fried steak with a side of mac n' cheese would lead him down a path of becoming a professional football player.
If we rewound the clock and went back to that moment and made it so that Doy was not convinced to join the football team, it's pretty obvious where his life would be: he would be living out his childhood dream of running his family's restaurant. He would have gone to culinary school and then attempted to stage at a respected kitchen to hone his craft, and then taken his skills back home to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to help carry Slatt's Soul Food into the future. When dreaming of those moments, Doy also likes to imagine that he would eventually become an award-winning chef, taking home James Beard Awards, and bringing a Michelin star to South Minneapolis.
The path for Doy may have diverged long ago, but even to this day he still holds these dreams.
If we rewound the clock and went back to that moment and made it so that Doy was not convinced to join the football team, it's pretty obvious where his life would be: he would be living out his childhood dream of running his family's restaurant. He would have gone to culinary school and then attempted to stage at a respected kitchen to hone his craft, and then taken his skills back home to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to help carry Slatt's Soul Food into the future. When dreaming of those moments, Doy also likes to imagine that he would eventually become an award-winning chef, taking home James Beard Awards, and bringing a Michelin star to South Minneapolis.
The path for Doy may have diverged long ago, but even to this day he still holds these dreams.