Guy Fieri has spent years cultivating an image as America’s fun-loving celebrity chef, which has allowed him to build a worldwide empire of restaurants, television shows, book deals, and food advice galore (like how to season fried chicken with dill and salt). It has also opened him up to the legal trappings that come from such a widespread business enterprise, as one lawsuit recently filed against him demonstrates.
In 2022, Fieri hosted a reality show called “Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime,” which lasted for a single season on Food Network. The concept was to bring together competitors to participate in culinary and food industry-related challenges for the opportunity to run their own branch of Chicken Guy!, Fieri’s chicken chain that’s considered one of the best fast food chains out there. The winner would receive a guaranteed $100,000 salary for year one of the restaurant’s operation, a waived franchise fee (which is generally around $50,000), $10,000 reserved for legal expenses, and assistance with operational costs that exceed the first year’s revenue.
The winner of the show was a Philadelphia-based chef named Kevin Cooper, who opened his franchise location at the King of Prussia mall just outside the City of Brotherly Love in February 2024. Only a year later, in February 2025, the restaurant closed. Now, Cooper has filed a lawsuit claiming that he never received the guaranteed salary payout or any of the other promised financial assistance. According to Philly Mag, the lawsuit alleges that operational costs were nearly $69,000 above revenue costs, including $39,000 in Pennsylvania state taxes, which he did not receive assistance with.
Details of Kevin Cooper’s lawsuit
As of July 2025, Chicken Guy boasts 19 individual restaurants across the United States, though Cooper’s King of Prussia franchise marked the only Pennsylvania location. While operating a franchised location is different than working for the chain itself, the point of the competition show, which ended after Cooper’s season, was to ease the burden on the first-time franchise owner. Cooper’s lawsuit alleges that the promised salary was requested several times with no response, as was the operational cost assistance that was incurred over the course of the year that the restaurant was open.
Why the franchise closed is still unclear. In an Instagram video posted on June 29, 2025, the former franchisee added that, “I ain’t mad, I ain’t angry, and I ain’t even trying to make anybody look bad, man. I’m just here to let y’all know that I am completely free, and now I got something to say.”
This is not the first lawsuit Guy Fieri has faced in recent years. In 2023, his ownership group faced a wrongful termination lawsuit in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, alleging that it had violated state and federal laws after an employee was fired after reporting harassment and being instructed to change employee time cards. Fieri has yet to respond to press inquiries about the current lawsuit from Cooper, who had previously also appeared on the food shows “Cooks vs. Cons” and “Guy’s Grocery Games.”
