When Guy Fieri Saved a Syrian Restaurant in Tennessee

Before Guy Fieri started saving restaurants hit by the pandemic, he saved a Syrian restaurant on the brink of collapse

Jordan Ritter Conn
GEN
Published in
9 min readJul 20, 2020

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Guy Fieri holding and pointing to a small plaque that says “Flavortown”.
Photo: Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images

Riyad Alkasem was desperate.

It was 2010, and his restaurant was on the brink of closure, and with it, his dream. Riyad had arrived in America 20 years…

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Jordan Ritter Conn
GEN
Writer for

Author of The Road From Raqqa: A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging. Staff Writer, The Ringer.