I have often viewed Guy Fieri as an enigma — someone who, on paper, absolutely shouldn’t be famous. And yet, he has become an icon of American food television and culinary pop culture. Turn on Food Network at any time and it is likely that you will be thrown into one of Guy’s culinary showcases, whether it be traversing the American landscape looking for greasy spoons or watching voyeuristically as chefs barrel through staged grocery stores to fill carts with food to prepare or challenges to complete.

And at the center of all of it is Guy: The Legend from Las Vegas. The long lost member of Limp Bizkit (fact-check pending). The sun tanned, frosted tipped basket in which the Food Network, for one reason or another, has put a significant number of its eggs.

Luckily enough, we had the opportunity of sitting down at one of Guy’s shrines of gastronomy over the weekend: Guy’s Dive and Taco Bar in Kansas City.

It all started with an excursion to attend the watch party for the Women’s World Cup Final. The official watch party, which was held in the courtyard of a city block, was too busy to find standing-room to see the game, so we decided to slip into one of the restaurants open to the courtyard. As fate would have it, this restaurant was Guy’s Dive and Taco Bar, and once we sat down, there was no escaping the rabbit hole.

To put the lens into focus, Guy’s Dive and Taco Bar is the physical embodiment of entropy. Nothing at Guy’s Dive and Taco Bar makes any sense, and the longer you sit there the greater the feeling that everything around you is declining into complete disorder sets in.

However, to be fair, what more could I expect? This place was perfectly and infallibly Guy.

Even though I had no intent of drinking any more alcohol after spending a good portion of the weekend throwing back beers and going to breweries in Kansas City, I decided pretty early on that I would need something to get me through this experience. I figured, what a better way to get lubed up for Guy in KC than cracking open a Boulevard Pale Ale? Even though we had visited the Boulevard Brewery earlier in the weekend, I never indulged in their flagship brew. So, with my last few hours in KC before heading back to Wisconsin, I thought I best do my due diligence to the institution.

Like its banner suggests, the Boulevard Pale Ale is smooth, balanced, and classic. There is nothing earth shattering about this beer. However, it lends itself a balance of malt and hop bitterness that makes it very, very drinkable. Since I never did an official review of this beer at the brewery, I am going to give it an unofficial rating of 4 Hops. If you’ve never had it, try it. If you see it on the shelf, buy it. It is a beer you can’t go wrong with.

Back to Guy’s Dive and and Taco Bar…

One of the standout features of this place was the decor, namely the neon signs hung up everywhere along the walls. Some classic examples include: “Namaste Bitches,” “ADULTS ONLY,” “Don’t be a Dick,” “Please don’t do coke in the bathrooms,” and a neon arrow pointing to the bathrooms that read, “Live Nudes.” I am honestly still wrapping my head around why these signs were there. “Please don’t do coke in the bathroom” … what? It was almost as if Guy was yearning for his restaurant to be reminiscent of legitimate dive bars in which people actually do drugs. The difference being that actual dive bars where people are snorting coke off the bar don’t have big, pink, neon signs telling people not to do coke. Not to mention, “Live Nudes” pointing towards the bathroom…This might have been somewhat accurate if the men’s room had pictures of nude women on the walls as some places are wont to do. However, instead of nude pictures lining the walls of the bathroom, there were covers of women’s lifestyle magazines. Everywhere. Every inch of the outer stall walls were covered in Good Housekeeping, Women’s Health, etc. It was as if a delirious Guy thought it would be hilarious to psych people out by telling them there would be nudes in the bathroom and then only displaying middle aged women in aprons. Again, this might have been somewhat entertaining if anyone actually thought there would be nudes in the bathroom. Instead, it was, like everything else, super weird and kind of confusing.

Besides the neon signs, there were other oddities lining walls. One wall had sections in which “space guns” were mounted (I don’t know how else to describe them). There were also a number of head messagers tacked to the wall, as well as band aids.

Aside from decor, there were other clear signs that we were slowly slipping into another more hellish dimension. Right in front of where we were sitting at the bar, a broken margarita machine was slowly dropping its contents into an overflowing mug. A forgotten attempt of trying to fix a mess. There was trash and used paper towels on the back bar. At one point a waitress grabbed an already opened bottle of what appeared to be Sutter Home rose, sniffed it, and brought it out to the patio.

At some point, we decided it would be a good idea to eat some food, so we ordered the “Trash Can Nachos.” I think the irony in the name of that dish in connection to where we were speaks for itself.

The nachos came out in a metal cylinder that was then removed to reveal the nachos when brought to us at the bar (apparently trying to look like they came out in a mini trash can). There was a pretty good cheese distribution throughout the chips; however, the other main toppings were only relegated to the little section where the opening of the “trash can” was. All in all, the nachos were surprisingly not terrible. The carne asada meat wasn’t bad, and the pickled onions gave a nice tang.

Later on, however, I described it as if razor blades dipped in battery acid were making their way through my gut. I guess, what else could I expect?

Though Guy’s Dive and Taco Bar was a trip down a rabbit hole of confusion and disarray, there was something terrifyingly endearing about it. Maybe it was more a sense of feeling bad for it, as if someone was trying way too hard and could never hit the mark. Or the kid who tries to constantly get his parents’ attention and admiration but can’t. Or the teenager who so desperately tries to be cool but ends up making him or herself look less cool in the process.

But, at the end of the day…

Would I ever go back to Guy’s Dive and Taco Bar? Absolutely not.

Do I regret spending a few hours of my life there? No way.