William Sonbuchner, born on August 22, 1984, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, is the American filmmaker and YouTube personality behind the Best Ever Food Review Show.
Better known online as Sonny Side, he has built one of the most-watched food and travel channels in the world. His channel has drawn nearly 12 million subscribers and crossed 3 billion total views.
Who is William Sonbuchner?
William Sonbuchner is an American YouTuber, filmmaker, and content creator who travels the globe documenting food cultures under the name Sonny Side.
He runs the Best Ever Food Review Show, a channel that blends street food exploration with cultural storytelling and humor.
His audience, known as the “Bestys,” follows him from Vietnam to Ethiopia, India to Cuba.
What makes Sonbuchner stand out from other food creators is his filmmaking background. He does not simply point a camera at food.
He builds a story around it, connecting viewers to the people, places, and traditions behind each dish.
He first gained wide attention in 2015 when he uploaded the earliest episodes of the Best Ever Food Review Show.
The channel grew steadily for years before exploding in popularity across Southeast Asia and beyond.
Few YouTubers have matched his combination of production quality and cultural respect. That balance is what turned a one-man operation into a global media brand.
Early Life of William Sonbuchner
William Sonbuchner grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota, alongside his older brother Timothy. His family background and upbringing in the Midwest planted an early curiosity about the wider world.
From a young age, he developed a strong interest in film, movies, and visual storytelling. His father is William Sonbuchner Sr. and his mother is Mary Sonbuchner.
He reportedly grew up in modest circumstances, which may explain the drive that pushed him to take a bold leap abroad in his mid-20s.
His childhood in Minnesota gave him little exposure to international food cultures. That contrast would later become one of the driving forces behind his channel.
William Sonbuchner Age
William Sonbuchner is 41 years old as of 2026, born on August 22, 1984. He continues to produce weekly content from his base in Vietnam.
William Sonbuchner Ethnicity and Nationality
William Sonbuchner is American by nationality and Caucasian by ethnicity. He was born and raised in the United States and has lived in South Korea and Vietnam for extended periods.
Despite spending most of his adult life in Asia, he holds American citizenship.
William Sonbuchner Height and Weight
William Sonbuchner stands at 6 feet 4 inches tall, which is approximately 1.93 meters. His height is one of the more frequently mentioned physical details by fans who notice it in his travel videos.
His weight has not been publicly confirmed. He is one of the taller food creators on YouTube, which often draws comments in his videos as he navigates low ceilings, tiny stools, and compact street food stalls across Asia.
That contrast between his towering frame and the scale of the food scenes he explores adds a visual element to his storytelling that fans enjoy.
William Sonbuchner Education
Sonbuchner attended Sauk Rapids-Rice High School in Minnesota, graduating in 2002. He then enrolled in three different colleges but did not complete a degree at any of them.
At around age 20, he studied audio production and worked for a period as a DJ in broadcasting. His formal education was unconventional and incomplete by traditional standards.
However, the skills he picked up in audio production and broadcasting would later prove useful when he began building his YouTube brand.
The path he eventually chose had nothing to do with a classroom. It started with a one-way move to South Korea with almost nothing in his pocket.
William Sonbuchner Career
Moving to South Korea
At age 24, Sonbuchner made the decision that would define his life. He moved to South Korea with only $2,000 in his bank account.
There, he taught English to support himself while immersing himself in Korean culture and food. South Korea was where his passion for filmmaking turned into a real skill.
He worked as a videographer and began producing content for second-tier K-pop artists, music videos, short films, and a web series.
Those years of hands-on production work gave him the technical foundation to eventually run a full-scale YouTube operation.
The time he spent in Seoul sharpened both his camera work and his curiosity about Asian food culture.
The Best Ever Food Review Show
Sonbuchner created the Best Ever Food Review Show YouTube channel on September 23, 2010. He uploaded the first episode on December 14, 2015.
The channel started slowly but built a loyal audience through consistent output and high production quality.
He eventually relocated to Vietnam, where he found a production base that suited the channel’s growing scope.
The Best Ever Food Review Show became the first US-owned YouTube channel to receive filming access inside Iran in 2019. That milestone signaled the kind of reach and trust his brand had built.
The channel’s content covers everything from Indian street food to Cuban cuisine. No country is off limits.
Channel Growth and Milestones
The channel crossed major subscriber milestones year after year. As of late 2025, it had nearly 11.9 million subscribers and over 3.12 billion total views across all videos. Some of his most-viewed individual videos have exceeded 20 million views each.
Sonbuchner also runs a secondary channel called More Best Ever Food Review Show, which has grown to over 2.5 million subscribers.
The production team behind the main channel is based in Vietnam and is deliberately small, typically fewer than a dozen people.
His videos are filmed all over the world but edited and produced from Southeast Asia.
William Sonbuchner Channel Stats and Achievements
| Platform | Channel / Profile | Subscribers / Followers |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube (Main) | Best Ever Food Review Show | ~11.9 million |
| YouTube (Secondary) | More Best Ever Food Review Show | ~2.5 million |
| @besteverfoodreviewshow | ~1 million | |
| Best Ever Food Review Show | ~900,000 |
The channel has accumulated over 3 billion total views since launching its first episode in December 2015. It ranks among the top food and travel channels on YouTube worldwide.
William Sonbuchner Brand Deals and Collaborations
Sonbuchner has secured sponsorships with well-known brands that align with his audience of travelers and digital users.
NordVPN and Audible have both appeared as sponsors in his videos. These integrations are woven naturally into his content rather than inserted as hard-sell interruptions.
He also earns through his own merchandise line. The “Bestys” merchandise range includes branded bandanas, T-shirts, and other items that his fan community actively supports.
His Patreon membership provides an additional revenue layer for viewers who want to support the channel directly.
William Sonbuchner Awards and Recognition
The Best Ever Food Review Show won the Webby Award for People’s Voice: Viral Video of the Year at the 24th Annual Webby Awards in 2020.
The same year, the channel also received a Webby Official Honoree for Food and Drink. These are among the most respected awards in digital content creation.
In 2021, the channel received a Webby Award nomination for Best Web Personality and Host. That nomination reflected how Sonbuchner himself had grown into a recognizable presence beyond just the show’s format.
Both awards came during a period when the channel was expanding its global reach aggressively.
William Sonbuchner Wife
William Sonbuchner is married to a Vietnamese woman. He began wearing a wedding ring in early 2021, which is when fans first noticed he had married.
He has confirmed his wife’s Vietnamese background in various public contexts, including replies to comments on his YouTube channel and during his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Her name has never been publicly shared. Sonbuchner has made clear that the decision to remain anonymous is hers, and he fully respects it.
She occasionally assists with filming and production behind the scenes of the Best Ever Food Review Show. The couple met in Vietnam after Sonbuchner relocated there to build his content career.
He reportedly used early videos from his channel to try to impress her, a story he has shared with his audience in a self-deprecating way.
William Sonbuchner Children
William Sonbuchner became a father in December 2024. He and his wife welcomed their first child, a daughter named Layla, and he shared the news in a post on his social media on December 1, 2024.
In that post, he wrote a heartfelt message welcoming Layla and thanking his wife. The announcement came as a surprise to many fans, as Sonbuchner had kept the pregnancy completely private.
It was one of the most personal things he had shared publicly in years. The family lives in Vietnam, where Sonbuchner continues to base his production operations.
William Sonbuchner Net Worth
William Sonbuchner’s estimated net worth is $5 million as of 2026. His income comes from several reliable sources built over more than a decade of content creation.
YouTube ad revenue from his main channel, which generates hundreds of millions of views per year, forms the largest part of his earnings.
Brand sponsorships with companies such as NordVPN and Audible contribute significantly to his annual income. Merchandise sales, Patreon support, and production work add further layers to his revenue.
His net worth has grown steadily over the years. Estimates placed it around $3 million in 2020 and $4 million by 2022, with the figure reaching $5 million by 2024 as the channel continued to expand.
William Sonbuchner Social Media
Sonbuchner is most active on YouTube, where the Best Ever Food Review Show is his primary platform. His main channel has nearly 12 million subscribers.
He also maintains the secondary More Best Ever Food Review Show channel with over 2.5 million subscribers.
On Instagram, he posts behind-the-scenes content and travel photos to an audience of around 1 million followers.
His Facebook page under the Best Ever Food Review Show name has attracted approximately 900,000 followers.
His fans refer to themselves as the Bestys, a name he uses regularly when addressing his community across platforms.
The Bottom Line
William Sonbuchner turned a one-way move to Asia with $2,000 into a global media brand with nearly 12 million subscribers.
His story is proof that a career built on genuine curiosity and real craft can outlast almost any trend.
