Have you heard restaurateur, TV personality and author Pat Neely and wife Gina are featured in the next episode of Celebrity Wife Swap?!
Last year his wife participated in George Foreman’s Weight Loss Challenge and lost 20 lbs and gained a new, healthy lifestyle. Anyone who watches Down Home with the Neelys on the Food Network knows that Gina Neely likes buttery, southern cooking so this was a great achievement for his now newly slimmed down wife.
Pat was born July 20, 1964 in Detroit Michigan and along with wife of 20-years have successfully host two popular Food Network television programs and co-authored a cook book, which quickly earned a place on the New York Times best-seller list.
Both Pat and Gina had been previously married; Gina is the mother of daughter Spenser from her first marriage. The Neely’s actually dated briefly in high school but tied the knot over a decade later after rekindling their romance at a high school reunion. Together they are the proud parents of one daughter Shelbi.
Pat and wifey are not only a good match together but they also have starred in the 2008 Down Home with the Neelys and Road Tasted with the Neelys.
Patrick Neely actually comes from a family well known in the Memphis barbecue scene, passionate for food, his uncle Jim Neely, a legend on the Memphis barbecue scene and owner of Jim Neely’s Interstate Bar-B-Que.
Patrick began working in the restaurant business at the age of 15, learning the art of barbecue from his uncle Jim Neely. His aunt, Beverly Neely, also a restaurant owner inspired him to open his own joint; so in 1988 along with three of his brothers he opened his first barbecue restaurant in downtown Memphis.
After a while, his restaurant began making a name for itself and now there are four Neely’s Bar-B-Que locations: two in Memphis and two in Nashville.
According to their foodnetworkbio, Gina a former branch manager at National Bank of Commerce in Memphis joined her husband in the family business managing the catering division of Neely’s Bar-B-Que, which has expanded to more than 25 percent of the restaurant’s total sales.
Patrick is a board member of the Memphis Regional Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Shelby Farms Conservancy Board and the immediate past chairman of board for the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau. In 2007, Patrick was named Restaurateur of the Year by the Memphis Restaurant Association.
In 2011 the couple opened Neely’s Barbecue Parlor, in New York and it was reported it was their only restaurant left.
You can find their website here, and Pat’s twitter account here.
Make sure not to miss them on CWS to see what the Food Network celebrities are up to!
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