Occupation: Restorer of Antiques, TV personality from “American Restoration”
Birthday: December 13th,1970
Birthplace: Newport Beach, California
Birth Sign: Sagittarius
Marital status: Married
What makes Rick Dale famous?
Rick Dale is an antique and vintage item restorer from Las Vegas who was the star of the popular History Channel TV reality show “American Restoration.”
Dale has over 30 years of experience of restoring old items like motorcycles, vending machines, gas pumps, jukeboxes, barber chairs, and many others to their shiny original condition.
He and his family own and run a restoration shop known as “Rick’s Restoration,” located in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The reality show gained immense popularity and ran for six seasons until the producers decided to fire Dale and continue the restoration reality show in another format featuring other restorers.
Rick Dale has also appeared regularly in other popular reality series on History Channel, including “Pawn Stars,” “American Pickers,” and others.
To find out what Rick Dale is doing today, what his early years were like, and what his personal life is like, read on.
His early years
Rick Dale was born in Newport Beach, California, on December 13th,1970.His family moved to Boulder City, Nevada when Rick was only 13 years old, so he and his brother Ron Dale grew up there.
His passion for restoring vintage items stems from a very early age.Rick’s father, who was a professional racer, gave him an old bicycle to restore when young Dale was only 9 years old.The restorer claims that his father valued the pride and joy that a person experiences after doing a good job and wanted to teach his sons the same too.
After Rick and his dad restored the old bike, he loved riding it around for years.Later on, along with his dad, Rick gradually learned how to restore race cars, motorcycles, vehicles, hot rods, gas pumps, and vending machines.
What started as a father and son bonding experience and hobby turned into a full-time job for Rick and his brother later on.
Alongside with restoring beautiful vintage items and vehicles, Rick’s other passion is heavy metal music.
About American Restoration
American Restoration is a reality TV series that aired on History Channel from 2010 to 1016.The first six seasons which ran from October 2010 to 2014, featured Rick Dale’s restoration shop in Las Vegas.
The idea for the series came from the guest appearances of Rick Dale as an expert evaluating different antiques and vintage pieces on the series “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers.”
The series portrayed the daily work and activities at the vintage restoration shop and the work and lives of Rick Dale, his son Tyler, his younger brother Ron, his stepson Brettly Otterman, and his wife Kelly who all work in the business.The show also included the rest of the staff, including Kowboy, Ted Hague, Kyle Astorga, Chris, Niko, Dave, Leonard and others.
In every episode, the crew was shown busy working on one or more restoration projects.During the years, many celebrities and famous people appeared on American Restoration as customers.Some of the more prominent ones include singers and musicians Billy Joel, Sammy Hagar, and Jason Mraz, illusionists David Copperfield and Lance Burton, NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, as well as numerous appearances from cast members of “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers.”
Respectively, Rick also often appeared on the abovementioned History Channel shows as well, as an expert or restorer.
As the seasons developed, the production team began adding useful “Rick Rips” related to restoration.
Apart from showing the process of restoration and the hard work involved, the series also showed the difficulties that the restoration shop staff had – both work-related and communication and personal related.
During the first 6 seasons, Rick and his team managed to restore an amazing number of items and projects, some of which seemed hopeless when first brought into the shop.
The firing of Rick Dale and the American Restoration crew
In 2014, after the sixth season had ended, Leftfield Pictures who produce the reality series unexpectedly fired Rick Dale and his whole team, under the pretext that the ratings were low, and that the producers and viewers wanted to watch something different.
When these events happened, Rick Dale was not happy at all.
He posted a video of himself thanking the fans for watching the show and for their support while holding back his tears.
He also hinted at his fans that they could express their dissatisfaction with the cast’s firing at the official American Restoration website.
Meanwhile, it took two whole years for History Channel to manage to continue the series without the original cast.
As a result, the 7thseason of American Restoration which premiered in 2016, and featured a variety of restorers and projects including Bodie Stroud, Andy Bowman Jr, Dale Walksler, Steve Hale and Bob Halliday who are restorers from different parts of the USA.The five different shops were specialized in restoring specific items and vehicles.
Today, there is no news on whether there will be an 8thseason of the series.
Net worth
Even though Rick Dale is no longer the star of the American Restoration series, his shop Rick’s Restoration in Las Vegas is still quite successful and is run by almost all of Dale’s family members.
As a result of more than 30 years of work, as well as six successful seasons of the show, Rick Dale and his family have earned about $2.5 million.
Personal life
Rick Dale used to keep his personal life under wraps prior to his marriage to Kelly Dale, but it is known that he used to be married before.His marriage ended in divorce, which reportedly had a huge impact on him and his business.Claims are that after his divorce, Rick Dale closed shop and almost went broke.
Fortunately for him, he met marketing expert Kelly, and the two got married in November 1994.
Rick Dale apparently adores his wife, Kelly, as he often refers to her as his “lucky charm,” and has been thanking her for helping him bring back his business and restore his shop.He gushes over his wife quite often on Facebook,InstagramandTwitter.
The two have a son Tyler and a daughter Ally, as well as another son from Kelly’s previous relationship – Brettly Otterman.
Nearly all members of his family work for the family restoration business, and many of them have been featured in the first six seasons of American Restoration.
Today, they still work at Rick’s Restorations in Las Vegas, and as it looks – their family business is as successful as ever.
