Feb. 11, 2021

For Shaley Bolks, ending up on this week’s episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” is “pretty cool.”

At 8 p.m. Friday, the co-owner of Daily Clean Food & Drink will get to see the results of her time spent filming with celebrity chef Guy Fieri, who visited six local restaurants in June 2020. Daily’s is the final episode to air.

“I’ve been watching it for years and years, and I always thought how cool would it be to have a restaurant and be able to be on that show,” Bolks said. “And then when I did, like serendipitously, end up with a restaurant, I was like, there’s no way I would ever get on that show until we’re five, 10 (years), long time, down the road or something.”

But the health food restaurant that opened in November 2018 near 69th Street and Western Avenue caught the eye of producers for the Food Network show.

After filling out “20 pages’ worth of homework,” Bolks received confirmation on Father’s Day that Daily would be on the show. Five days later, Fieri was standing in her kitchen.

She made Jeb’s No Bull Burger and Mightiest Mac for him. Creating the first recipe took months, while the second entree started as an “off the menu” favorite of employees.

“I spent an entire year just trying to find the right recipe for the veggie burger,” said Bolks, who initially was drawn into a heathier lifestyle after weighing over 330 pounds. “I was trying all kinds of stuff from like a buffalo chickpea burger to a simple black bean burger, and I finally came into the one that I’ve got.”

Mightiest Mac came into being after one of the former partners in the restaurant built his own dish for lunch by loading Daily’s buffalo meatballs and chimichurri on top of its mac and cheese.

“I tried it one time, and I was like, this is amazing!” Bolks said. “And so it started to become a thing that the employees would get or we would offer to customers, but it basically was like a secret menu item. It was starting to gain momentum, and then Food Network was like: ‘That sounds awesome. Let’s do that.’ And we’re like, all right, let’s put it on the menu.”

Cooking for Fieri made Bolks nervous, she said. “Triple D” shoots typically span over two days, filming one day without Fieri and then for a few hours the next day with him. The order was switched for Daily.

“So I didn’t have the day of practice of like using my left hand to pour the things into the bowl instead of your right, so they’re not looking at the bottom (of the container) — all those silly things that I didn’t know about until in the midst of it. Those were very nerve-wracking, and they’d kind of laugh at me and be like ‘No, no, no, other hand, other hand.’ I’m like, ‘Aargh, I know.’ It’s just so easy to reach with your right.”

She enjoyed talking off-camera with Fieri though.

“Once we were done with all the filming, we got to hang out with him and talk to him and get advice from him, and he gave lots of great advice.”

He talked about ideas for franchising and streamlining processes in the restaurant and gave her confidence about Daily’s future, telling her “to stay strong and stay stable and hold steady because we were the future of food and that we’re very brave to be doing this in the Midwest right now, but that if we can just hold on (through the pandemic), we’re going to be good.”

Daily started with the mission of serving as a health food cafe where vegetarians and vegans didn’t have to ask to “hold the meat” and then still pay the same price for their meal, Bolks said. Its commitment to serving “clean food” for everyone continues.

Friday night, Bolks and co-owners Steve and Patsy Gratzfeld, who own the health food store Pomegranate Market, will host a private watch party and then prepare for an onslaught of diners in the coming days.

The restaurant seats 90, so “if you come at noon, we’ll probably have a line out the door,” Bolks said. Afternoons and evenings typically are slower, but she’s adding staff over the dinner hour, anticipating more customers. Online ordering is available, along with curbside pickup.

Bolks also wants people to be aware that Daily has a special Sunday brunch menu, and the “Triple D” featured foods aren’t available that day.

Hours are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.

The episode that features Daily, described as a “funky joint cleaning up familiar favorites like burgers and mac and cheese,” will be replayed at 11 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Feb. 27. It’s called Rib-Stickers and includes restaurants in Moorhead, Minn., and Fairbanks, Alaska.

Also on Saturday, the episode with Look’s Marketplace that aired earlier this month will be replayed at 5 p.m.

Guy Fieri on Look’s Marketplace: ‘This is unique to the world’