Guy Fieri's Chicken Guy! restaurant opens in Pittsburgh

There are plenty of chicken restaurants in Pittsburgh, but the first of Guy Fieri’s chicken eateries known as Chicken Guy! opened Monday in PPG Place adjacent to the iconic ice skating rink Downtown.

The opening had been anti­cipated with word spreading last week, and the food appeared to be worth the wait. There were moist chicken tenders brined in a mixture of lemon juice, pickle brine and buttermilk; chicken sandwiches grilled or fried; and chicken straight up on skewers or in meal-size salad bowls, among other items.

Famed chef, TV personality and entrepreneur Fieri’s timing is impeccable as the rink opens Friday and Light Up Night happens Saturday, officially kicking off the holiday season. The holiday tree is also set up there. So, there is sure to be plenty of traffic. If the opening Monday was any indication, there will be a steady stream of customers.

The Chicken Guy! location that opened Monday is owned by Magic Eats, a subsidiary of Magic Ice USA, which operates the UPMC rink at PPG Place. Future locations are likely planned for The Waterfront in Homestead and the South Side. No time frame was given for those locations.

“We’re excited right now,” said Brendon Malone, vice president of operations and development for Magic Eats. “We’re building three restaurants here and creating 150 new jobs.”

Related:

• 5 Pittsburgh chicken sandwiches to try
• Who has the best chicken sandwich?

It might seem like an odd combination of endeavors to combine operating restaurants with ice rinks, but for Malone, it makes perfect sense.

“It is a little odd, but for us we’re just looking to add services for our guests that we’ve catered to here in Pittsburgh for 22 years. That’s the most important thing,” Malone said. “To have such a great brand like the Chicken Guy! to do so, that’s really what’s exciting for us. This is a real deal restaurant with great food.”

The food is indeed flavorful with 22 varieties of dipping sauces — everything from Fieri’s signature wasabi honey sauce to Donkey Mojo sauce (roasted garlic aioli).

“If you’re going to open a chicken tender place and call yourself the boss of sauce, you’ve got to have a lot of offerings,” corporate executive chef Anthony Hoy Fong said. “So, we try to cater to everyone’s needs, and we’ve basically got three categories — the classics, which is your honey mustards and bleu cheese; the spicy sauces, because who doesn’t love spicy sauce with fried chicken; and then we have our Guy’s signature sauces, the ones that are unique that you’re not going to find everywhere else, like bourbon brown sugar barbecue sauce, wasabi honey and avocado crema.”

All of the sauces are made in-­house, and Malone said all of the food is as fresh as possible.

“We actually don’t have a freezer big enough to put anything other than french fries in,” Malone said. “Everything is fresh, free-range chicken, antibiotic-free, no additives, everything is hand-breaded and hand-sliced. We don’t get it pre-sliced.”

Sides include a savory macaroni and cheese dish topped with roasted garlic bread crumbs, french fries, fried pickles, fresh cole slaw and desserts including milkshakes.

The atmosphere is casual and friendly. The choice of music is sure to appeal to rock ’n’ rollers of a certain age with a steady stream of Beatles, Billy Joel, Janis Joplin and King Crimson coming through the sound system.

Malone said Guy Fieri is planning to make an appearance in Pittsburgh. In the meantime, there is a life-size Fieri cutout stuck to a wall near the counter where people can line up to order food.

For now, the closest location to this one is at FedEx Field, home of the Washington Commanders, in North Englewood, Md.