{"id":170065,"date":"2026-02-09T06:20:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T06:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/170065\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T06:20:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T06:20:51","slug":"the-mayor-of-flavortown-threw-a-giant-super-bowl-tailgate-at-the-cow-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/170065\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mayor of Flavortown threw a giant Super Bowl tailgate at the Cow Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Across Flavortown, an uneasy truce held between Patriots and Seahawks fans hours before kickoff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They were far outnumbered by people in 49ers jerseys milling around the Cow Palace parking lot, drinking margaritas in plastic boots, and eating monster-sized plates of nachos. The burrito line was 25 minutes long, but the mood was easygoing \u2014 jubilant, even.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The guy who got beaned in the coconut by a perfect spiral thrown from the stage by retired quarterback Eli Manning laughed it off. As for the autographed football, it wound up in the hands of a grateful little girl.<\/p>\n

This was the scene at Guy Fieri\u2019s Flavortown tailgate \u2014 40 miles north of the site of the actual Super Bowl \u2014 a deep-fried Super Bowl party that brought out a particular species of populist food lover raised on a steady diet of diners, drive-ins, and dives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SeveralThere was tons of food on offer Guy Fieri\u2019s Flavortown event on Sunday. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard<\/p>\n

Some dug into the rarefied fare, like Peking duck fat popcorn from the China Live stand. Alternatively, others ambled over to the Best Foods kiosk for a somewhat punitive-looking ham sandwich slathered in mayo. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the kids,\u201d a harried-looking mom muttered to no one in particular.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Business was brisk at the adjacent Velveeta activation, where bowls of mac and cheese couldn\u2019t be ladled out fast enough.<\/p>\n

1 day ago<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a><\/p>\n

4 days ago<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Friday, Jan. 30<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Backstage, however, not everyone was in good spirits.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t hear my stomach growling? I skipped breakfast for this,\u201d the irascible comic Bill Burr said on the patch of green fake turf that was standing in as a red carpet. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here to eat and maybe smoke a cigar, if that\u2019s allowed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AGuy Fieri at Cow Palace on Sunday Feb. 8, 2026. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard\"ThreeThe world-famous Kegchup made an appearance. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard<\/p>\n

Some attendees learned that former tight end Rob Gronkowski knows his foodie terminology. (Gronk correctly identified the starchy liquid in a can of garbanzo beans as \u201caquafabs\u201d and not \u201cpea juice.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other festival-goers might not have known that such a thing as a \u201cKegchup (opens in new tab)<\/a>\u201d existed, but a 20-inch, 114-ounce novelty Heinz product was triumphantly held aloft on stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m stealing this!\u201d Fieri said, whose hair had returned to its normal pale blond state after a brief flirtation (opens in new tab)<\/a> with a combed-down brown look. \u201cPut it in the Flavortown party bus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TwoChelsey Tuell and Chelena Apodaca in Guy Fieri costume at Cow Palace on Sunday Feb. 8, 2026. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard<\/p>\n

The tailgate also brought out the lookalikes. Sporting glued-on Fieri goatees and his signature spiky blond hair, San Francisco residents Chelsey Tuell and Chelena Apodaca said they\u2019d been avid fans for more than 15 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to eat with our facial hair,\u201d Tuell said. \u201cI get why it\u2019s called a flavor-saver now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most dedicated Fieri double was a Canadian-born UC Berkeley student named Fisher Hall. <\/p>\n

\u201cI shaved most of my beard off,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I bleached my hair in December, so the stars aligned.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Across Flavortown, an uneasy truce held between Patriots and Seahawks fans hours before kickoff.\u00a0 They were far outnumbered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[21587,413,101,103,102,104,106,105,11730],"class_list":["post-170065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-chinese-food","tag-food","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-super-bowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}