Hundreds line up to meet celebrity chef Guy Fieri at SLO Costco. Get a look

Hundreds of people lined up at Costco in San Luis Obispo to meet the mayor of Flavortown on Wednesday.

Guy Fieri, the Food Network celebrity chef known for hit shows “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” and “Guy’s Grocery Games,” was signing bottles of his Santo Tequila, which he founded with rocker Sammy Hagar.

Signing began at 5 p.m. in the store and ended shortly after 6 p.m. A Costco employee told The Tribune that 500 to 600 bottles of tequila were sold.

Some shoppers who didn’t get there early enough to grab a bottle before the store ran out walked the line asking people with multiple bottles if they could buy it out of their cart.

The line snaked from from the far right corner of the store past the frozen foods, continued toward the front, then cut across to the other far wall before winding back to the bottle-signing station set up in the liquor department.

For San Luis Obispo resident, Anthony Naud, the long line was worth the wait.

“I’m a huge fan of Guy Fieri,” Naud said. “You can’t go wrong when it comes to watching his shows, getting his books or in this case waiting for autograph some type of new like liquor that he’s advertising.”

Naud told The Tribune that Fieri is in his top five favorite chefs of all time. He first became a fan after watching an episode of “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” or “Guy’s Big Bite” as a teen.

He met Fieri at a 2009 book signing in St. Louis — just two years after “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” debuted on the Food Network. Now, 15 years later, Naud was back to meet the iconic chef again.

“I like everything about him,” Naud said. “His hairstyle, the places he goes to, his personality, his car.”

Fieri inspired Carissa Sales to pursue a nutrition degree at Cal Poly. She said she grew up watching “Triple D” and other cooking shows on the Food Network with her family.

“He’s been an idol of ours for a while now,” Sales said. “Really, his shows inspired me to get into what I’m doing right now.”

She and her roommates learned about the tequila signing earlier that day and “immediately dropped everything” to go straight to Costco.

“We just didn’t want to miss it,” Ginger Fitzpatrick, one of Sales’ roommates, said.

Jackson Damhorst and Nathan Neugeboren found out about the tequila signing at just 4:30 p.m. — 30 minutes before Fieri was scheduled to begin meeting people.

“When something like this happens, you really got to drop everything and run,” Damhorst said.

Neugenboren quickly found the flames shirt he wore when he dressed up as Fieri for Halloween and headed to Costco. He said was so starstruck he forgot to ask Fieri to sign it, but Fieri pulled him back in and told him he needed to sign the shirt.

“The (frosted) tips look even better in person,” Neugenboren said.

The Tribune did find out the answer to one burning question: Does Fieri prefer brisket or tri-tip?

“I’m a tri-tip guy,” said Fieri, who grew up in Northern California and opened his first restaurant in Santa Rosa in 1996.