Joey Fatone’s career path started with performing in monster-based show at Universal Studios Florida theme park, and now he is back, literally in business with Universal Orlando.
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Of course, there have been significant steps in between, including worldwide fame as a member of ‘N Sync, roles on Broadway and in movies and his current gig as producer and co-host of “Cocktail Wars,” a TV competition series.
On Saturday, Fatone and his manager Joe Mulvihill officially will open Fat One’s Hot Dogs & Italian Ice at Universal CityWalk.
“It’s not really so much full circle. I think it’s more of just a new chapter of being back here in a different way,” Fatone said.
As a teenager, Fatone played the wolfman in “Beetlejuice’s Graveyard Revue” and Mulvihill portrayed Beetlejuice in the theme-park show. They both had attended Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando.
“I never thought in a million years that I’d go, OK, I’m here singing ‘Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself’ as Wolfie, and then 20, 30 years later, I own an actual spot that I used to walk around and just love and think that it was really cool to be here at the theme parks,” Fatone said.
Universal Orlando’s Beetlejuice show ended in 2016.
“At the time of working here, everybody was dreaming. We were young. Nobody knew where we were going to go. Nobody knew ‘N Sync was going to be what it was going to be. Nobody realized the career that he was going to have,” Mulvihill said. “I didn’t realize the things that I was going to be able to see and travel the world.”
Later, Mulvihill traveled with ‘N Sync and eventually moved into a manager role for Fatone.
Together, they started the Fat One’s business with an outlet at Florida Mall about 10 years ago, and then it became a food truck endeavour. It has been “on pause” for about five years, Mulvihill said.
“We wanted to find the perfect fit and someone that’s going to take us seriously,” he said. “And Universal was that,” Fatone said.
Mulvihill has “been so very business-savvy about other things that I would never think of,” he said.
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The Fat One’s menu will feature nine signature dogs, including one called the Dirty K-Pop with kimchi and gochujang sauce “which is something I would never think to put on a hot dog, really,” Fatone said. There’s also El Fonsi (“kind of a Puerto Rican Latin flavor”), a Mediterranean dog called the Angelo and To-NY with sauerkraut, red onions and mustard.
Fat One’s worked with the Universal culinary team on menu decisions and options, including a vegan dog.
“We didn’t really have any butting of the heads,” Fatone said.
The counter-serve restaurant is near Antojitos restaurant and uphill from Universal Legacy Store at CityWalk. There has been revamping of the space after the previous tenant exited, but its tiered stands remain.
“We talked about moving the seats, but, man, those are from real baseball stadiums, which kind of feels like a concertgoer seat. So it’s like, OK, this makes sense,” Mulvihill said.
“It’s a nice revamp of everything that was there,” he said. “We hope that this is a destination spot.”
Their original Universal experience served as an education for future entertainment and hospitality endeavours, Mulvihill said.
“What we learned here from people from all over the world in entertaining different languages and dealing with different people and dealing with all the things that were going on. … And then we took that same philosophy as the theme park and brought it to the ‘N Sync world,” he said.
“We used to be on the road – 50,000 people. We’d be like, ‘This is just like performing at Universal,’” Mulvihill said.
“Everybody would laugh. Like, ‘No, it’s the same thing. It just so happens to higher stakes, and he’s not in makeup. It’s really him. That’s the difference.’”
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