Elizabeth Blau

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I’m here with Elizabeth Blau. Elizabeth, thanks so much for joining us today. I’m so excited to have you on our podcast.

Elizabeth Blau: I am thrilled to be here. Thank you, Stacy.

SSR: Yes. And I’m excited too because I feel like I’ve known you forever, but I don’t know if we’ve ever done your story together so I’m excited to learn. All right, so we always start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

EB: So I grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, and I had parents who just had a passion for food and wine and travel, and so I think at an early age it just kind of sparked my interest. And I always thought it was just going to be a hobby or a passion or something I loved, so I’m one of those fortunate people who have through the course of my career been able to take something that was a passion and turn it into my career.

SSR: And were there any early memories of travel or food that have really stuck with you throughout your career?

EB: I mean, the first time leaving Connecticut and New England and spending a lot of time in New York City, which was always just extraordinary, but really the first time going to Europe is just kind of mind-blowing and going to the markets and the bakeries and the boulangeries. And so those early trips that I took with my family to London and Paris and Spain were really just extraordinary and gave me this lifelong passion for the industry.

SSR: And you described your parents as passionate foodies, but were they in the business at all or did they have other careers and this was just truly their passion.

EB: 100% no. My dad is a physician, he’s a radiologist, and my mom was a teacher, so it was really just… And she loved cooking, and my grandmother, my dad’s mother Rose, loved cooking, and so that was just kind of always something at home, but it was a whole journey that led me here. I mean, I went to Georgetown undergrad and I was interested in government politics, international relations. I worked two semesters on Capitol Hill. I thought I would go to grad school, to law school when I graduated, but I just kept getting jobs even all through high school and college in the restaurant industry and I always thought, “Okay, I’m just going to make some money.” But they were just all things that I was excited about.

And so the pivotal moment that kind of changed my career was going to Cornell and getting my master’s at the hotel school, and in between the… It was a two-year program, and in between in the summer I got an internship with the James Beard Foundation, which was really just extraordinary working with this guy, Mitchell Davis, who was vice president of the foundation. So working with the foundation, working with Mitchell Davis, and it was just an extraordinary experience and got to meet Sirio Maccioni and the Maccioni family, and that experience is really kind of what kind of changed the entire trajectory of my career.

SSR: Before we go there, what made you take that leap? You were in politics, you were working in or wanting to go into politics and had those two internships or working in Capitol Hill. What made you decide to go to Cornell, make that leap and say, “Okay, I’m going to take a pivot and go this way?”

EB: There was a seminal moment there, Stacy. So I was… I mean, working on Capitol Hill, I mean, those were the crazy days. This was the late ’80s, so being a young woman on Capitol Hill, I mean, it was not the most incredibly inspiring experience, but that was not what changed my mind. So I had moved back to Connecticut in the summer and I was working as an intern for the state’s prosecuting attorney. There was a show many years ago called L.A. Law and it was all about litigation and I thought, “Okay, that’s what I want to do. I want to be a litigator. That is so cool.” And I’m sitting through voir dire and one of the attorneys had given up all of their ability to veto, and it was one hour of interviewing this woman who had nine children and eight of them had been incarcerated, and, I mean, the attorney just had to go through this process and have so much patience and I’m like, “Just get rid of her. I mean, there’s no way she’s an appropriate juror.” And I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, this is so not for me.”

But while I was doing this, I was working because I also needed to make money. This was not a paid internship, and so I was working at this old-fashioned candy store. It was called Hilliards. It’s a chocolate store that had been there for 1,000 years, started in Massachusetts, and they had the chocolate enrober like that I Love Lucy episode where the kids are all trying to put the chocolates into the boxes, and I made old-fashioned fudges and all the candy, so I was the candy maker. And so that I think kind of sparked… I was like, “This is my love. I don’t know what it is I want to do.” I mean, I’ve worked back of house in restaurants in college, I worked in the kitchen in high school, I had a catering business, so I had done all of these businesses around the restaurant industry and then this candy business job and I had done a short stint in New York City working for Atlas, which was one of the big floral decorators, and my office was in the Plaza Hotel.

So I had done all of these jobs in and around the business, I’d worked for a liquor company, and I was like, “Okay, this is I think where my heart is.” And so I applied to eight law schools and then I had to go back and take the GMATs, the boards for business school, and I applied to one school, which was Cornell, so I told my parents, “Well, the good news is I am going to graduate school, but I’m not going to law school. I’m going to Cornell.” So it was kind of serendipitous, but doing that internship and working for the prosecuting attorney and seeing that it was very different than this thing that I had envisioned… But it’s funny how life and the world goes because I feel like a lot of my job, I’m reading legal documents, I’m reading contracts, and so everything that I did train undergraduate and had that kind of direction, I do use in my career.

SSR: Probably more than you’d like these days.

EB: Way more than I like.

SSR: What did your parents say when you told them?

EB: I had tried so many different things and had incredible people who were mentors and advocates in the process, but I think that now looking back, I was trying to find what that passion was, but I remember in high school and college there were these career books. It was before the internet, so there were these giant books that looked like encyclopedias that listed every job, and I’d be so depressed because I’d go through them and they had listed every kind of career possible in the US and I was like, “No, I don’t want to be an actuary. No, I don’t want to be this. I don’t want to be that.”

And so it took a while to kind of figure out that this was the industry I liked and that there was a path that’s not a chef, that’s not a pastry chef, that’s not a restaurant manager, that’s not a hotel, food and beverage, that there was a path into development and eventually consulting and operations that I would love and be inspired by, but it took some time. It took some experimentation. It took taking some risks and some jobs that just didn’t work out and some jobs that were great, and I think every one is a building block where you learn something and that just puts little tools in your toolbox so that when you do eventually come to that place, you’re like, “Oh, yeah, well, I learned that from here and I learned that from this person.”

SSR: All right, so fast-forward to you getting to meet Sirio [Maccioni] in Le Cirque. And so you actually worked at Le Cirque, right?

EB: So I’m in my second year at Cornell, I’m working as a graduate assistant for my professor, get to meet Sirio in New York and actually reconnect Sirio with Steve Wynn because Sirio’s going to Las Vegas and it’s just at the kind of start of all of this restaurant explosion. Jean-Louis Palladin has Napa at the Rio Hotel, Emeril is here, Wolfgang Puck has opened in the Forum Shops, and so this idea is percolating in my head that Las Vegas is maybe ready for change, and Sirio’s going out with his wife on vacation and I said, “Well, if I can make this connection…” And the Wynns were family friends, and actually Steve had come up to Cornell while I was there to do the dean’s lecture and he’s like, “You should come work for me.” And I thought, “I’m living in Ithaca. I’m just dreaming of getting back to New York City.” And I’m thinking like, “I’m not sure I’m moving to Las Vegas.” And so I didn’t go work for Wynn, but I did put this deal together and Le Cirque and Osteria del Circo did become part of the Bellagio plan, and then somewhere in the middle of that process, after working for the Maccionis for two years Mr. Wynn did steal me away and make me an offer that I couldn’t refuse, and 28 years later I am still here.

SSR: What did you learn from Sirio and the Maccioni family and what kind of building blocks did they give you that you’ve continued to use?

EB: I mean, I thought I had worked in the restaurant business, and then when I went to work for the Maccionis … I mean, I think Sirio Maccioni even to this day is considered one of the most extraordinary restaurateurs in the world, and there are three sons, Mario, Marco, and Mauro, and Egidiana, his wife, and they really took me into the family like a sister and we got to open Osteria del Circo and the Le Cirque 2000 at the New York Palace and work with Adam Tihany on the designs, and it was just extraordinary. I mean, it basically was like a PhD to my master’s degree, but I learned the art of hospitality from Sirio. I truly learned how to run a restaurant because you can run restaurants all over the country, but at at the Maccioni restaurants, I mean, it was the who’s who. I mean, I got to go through and help archive photos and, I mean, you’re talking about Jackie Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, I mean, the who’s who use this as their lunch canteen or their dinner spot. And so Le Cirque and the Maccionis and Sirio are really part of restaurant history, I mean, not only in the United States, but certainly as an institution in New York, and so I could’ve gotten no more extraordinary foothold into learning what the true art of hospitality is than what I learned from Sirio and the family.

SSR: Amazing. All right. How did Mr. Wynn steal you? What enticed you to move to Vegas, and when was this?

EB: Well, this was 1997, I think, and it was Steve’s daughter’s wedding, and we were actually hiking and he was telling me about all of the rest of the restaurants because I obviously knew about Le Cirque and Circo and I had a plan that I was going to move out to open them, but then he started telling me about Jordan Mozer was doing this and Michael de Santis was doing this restaurant and Tony Chi was doing this restaurant. So the list of designers was on and on, and it was incredible, Roger Thomas was the head of Wynn Design at the time and he was the mastermind of the whole thing, and they were all going to be internally developed. The only two restaurants that were going to be celebrity chefs were Le Cirque and Circo, and so he offered me the position to be vice president of restaurant development.

I worked with an incredible group of people like Bobby Baldwin and Gamal Aziz and Kevin Stussy, and we put together this portfolio… I mean, in the atrium there was a chandelier that was made of thousands of Dale Chihuly pieces of blown glass, and I remember standing there with Dale Chihuly and with Mr. Wynn and looking at this, and there was a lobby bar and I’m like, “This can’t be a lobby bar.” And I remember saying, “Mr. Wynn, this cannot just be a regular lobby bar.” “Well, what would you do?” And I said, “Well, it should be a caviar lobby bar.” “Well, what would you do?” And I said, “Well, how about something like Petrossian?” And the next thing I knew, I was on a plane and I was in Paris and I was with Armen Petrossian, and that Petrossian caviar bar is still there. And so we made introductions to Todd English and to Julian Serrano and to Michael Mina and to Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and that’s really how that extraordinary portfolio started to put together. So I got to be a dreamer, and at some point… You can find quotes of Mr. Wynn saying I was King Arthur. I provided the round table and then we got to put the rest together.

SSR: And this was 1997. So the Bellagio opened in ’98, so this was like you’re right there at the beginning of… I mean, Vegas has always evolved and transformed, but, I mean, this really transformed dining in Las Vegas, don’t you think?

EB: As I said, some of the key players were already here, but Bellagio was the first hotel where there was this entire portfolio. Then came The Venetian, then came Mandalay Bay, and then the whole town started turning into this incredible… With chefs and restaurateurs and mixologists and master sommeliers, but there were actually restaurants at the time that A) didn’t have bathrooms inside them, and I always laugh because I don’t know what the philosophy was like, “Hey, honey, I’m going to go to the restroom and throw down on the roulette table.”

There were maitre d’s, there were not general managers, and we were still talking about continental cuisine. And sometimes if I’m doing a lecture at one of the schools where I teach a course, I show this photo, and it’s an old… Well, it looks like an old billboard outside of one of the casinos and it says, “$1.99 shrimp cocktails.” And, I mean, that was when I moved here. That wasn’t a historical billboard. I mean, that was in front of one of the casino hotels, and it was about all you could eat buffets and it certainly wasn’t about fine dining, so I really do think that Bellagio was one of those pivotal moments where Las Vegas started to become a culinary destination in its own right.

SSR: And it must have been over the last, whatever, 28 years you said, it must be a wild ride of seeing this all kind of unfold and see it evolve and continue to evolve and change. Vegas has seen many different eras, I would say, and it just continues to get better.

EB: Yes. I mean, it’s just truly extraordinary, and, I mean, we don’t slow down. I mean, Resorts World and Fontainebleau and more and more properties just keep opening now. The Hard Rock is coming in and transforming The mirage, but what I think you see with these integrated resorts with the shows and the concerts and now we have the Sphere and we’ve become a sports destination, but you start to see what happened here more around the world, so you look at Macau, you look at Singapore, now you see what’s happening in the Middle East and with the Wynn’s project in Marjan Island and Ras Al Khaimah. So it’s kind of exciting to watch because it’s been a wild ride. It’s been a roller coaster watching this extraordinary journey here in Las Vegas, but I think anybody here that’s been a part of this architecture, it’s really extraordinary to watch how it’s spread around the world as well.

SSR: Yeah. And what has it been like over your career to work with all these different creatives and chefs and, I mean, the whole kind of collaboration aspect because you kind of sit in the middle and get to kind of orchestrate the whole team?

EB: Well, I think what’s interesting for our conversation is that if you had asked me even 10 years ago like, “Give me your list of… Prioritize what makes a successful restaurant, whether independent or hotel.” In any case, I would first off absolutely, and I’m married to a chef, I would say the food and then I would say the service and then I would say the design, then I would say marketing, and now we’re in a different world. Now I would say that interior design, the interior architecture, the kitchen design, and probably marketing are tie for what’s most important in terms of creating the experience. You have to have good food, but still that comes next because I can give plenty of examples, which I wouldn’t say on your podcast, but of places that are beautiful with not good food and they’re tremendously successful, but that would take a couple bottles of wine and then I’ll fess up, and then service because you could forgive bad service or not stellar service, but restaurant design has really become so incredibly part of the foundation of a restaurant’s success.

And so now working with people like Todd Lenahan, I mean, he’s one of the most brilliant minds that I’ve worked with, and I’ve been working with him through the whole journey because while he wasn’t leading as president of Wynn Design & Development, he wasn’t leading but he was always designing as part of this journey. And so getting to work with him, people like David Rockwell, who are not only friends but I truly consider mentors, Vincent Solano. I mean, there’s so many great names out there who just create studios and have talent, and you walk into these places and you’re just amazed at that level of creativity never wanes. And with Todd, you can look at his drawings and you can look at the plans, but no matter what, when you walk in, it’s just like it takes your breath away. When you walk into Delilah… When I walked in the first time, I thought to myself, “This could be one of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve ever walked in the world.”

That’s truly an honor because it’s the same when you look at some of the talents that I’ve been able to work with on the culinary side. They are true artists. They’re true geniuses. What Jean-Georges does or Daniel Boulud or Alain Ducasse, I mean, it’s truly their work differentiates them from the hundreds and thousands, millions of restaurants around the world these talents come through, and that’s what I love because I’m so inspired by creative people and so I love that all day I get to be surrounded by them.

SSR: Yes, exactly. And so how long did you stay with Wynn and when did you start your own consultancy? 

EB: Yeah, I’ve never actually left Wynn fully. I guess I’m like a bad penny. I keep turning up, but… So I came here, I was with Wynn, and then Mr. Wynn sold the company to MGM and I stayed on and worked for another extraordinary man named Terry Lanni, and I did restaurant development for MGM and Mirage. I did that for a couple years. It was very different than working for Elaine and Steve Wynn, which was very much like a family, and I enjoyed my tenure with MGM, but that’s when I decided that I was going to start my own firm. Later my husband joined me and our business partner, Jason Lapin, my husband Kim Canteenwalla. But one of my first clients was Mr. Wynn, who was building the Wynn at the time, so came back in a consulting capacity. Mr. Wynn asked me to come back full time, so I did Wynn and I did Encore and worked on the Wynn in Macau, and then we had a son. Our son Cole is 20 now.

And so it was really hard to juggle everything, and so I went back to our consulting business, and then I’ve just been fortunate to be asked by all of the CEOs of Wynn, now working for Craig Billings, who is an incredible visionary and is an impassioned foodie, and so getting to work on Boston and Las Vegas and now Al Marjan in the Middle East. It still feels like home. We’ve got some extraordinary projects working for Jerry Inzerillo with the Diriyah Gate Authority in Riyadh. That is a massive project with hundreds of restaurants and hotels, and so now the portfolio of designers and chefs just is magnified.

And so again, to my point of it’s been extraordinary seeing this growth in Las Vegas, but now what’s happening in the Middle East almost feels like Las Vegas on massive steroids. And so I feel like every time we enter into these new countries and these new jurisdictions for gaming, it’s just extraordinary because it’s a learning experience, getting to work with Mohegan Sun in Korea on their project in Incheon, and so that kind of fuels my passion, learning and seeing and getting into so many different cuisines. And it’s one thing to say, “Oh, it’s Middle Eastern food.” But now to understand Persian versus Iraqi versus Lebanese versus Saudi versus Emirati and really starting to delve into those regional cuisines is super exciting because you’re just exposed to new flavors and even fish and vegetables and spices that you may never have seen, and so that learning is also really a passion.

SSR: Yeah, and what is it like translating cuisine in the Middle East and for these desperate… Sorry, wrong word. Let me start that again. What is it like translating cuisine and this experiential design that you’ve done so much of in Vegas over to the Middle East and these different cultures?

EB: Well, the interesting thing is that I feel like there’s a restaurant vernacular that has kind of become international. Yeah, there’s certainly some, as I said, specific Middle Eastern vernacular, but everybody loves Italian food. They love it around the world. Everybody loves seafood. Everybody loves Japanese cuisine. Everyone loves French pastry. And so there’s a vocabulary that we can use that it really doesn’t matter where you travel around the world, and then you start to specialize. I mean, even within Saudi cuisine, there’s Najdi cuisine versus Hejazi cuisine, and so in Saudi Arabia you start to get into those areas of differentiation. In the UAE, there’s Emirati cuisine that is… But I think all of these cuisines that whether they’re inspired by the Levant or by these specific cultures…

But otherwise I think that it’s pretty easy to kind of bring this. I think people have a genuine love and when you work with somebody like Todd Lenahan, there’s an authenticity to the vernacular, so wherever it is that we’re going, whether it’s Boston or Las Vegas or now Ras Al Khaimah, there’s certain kind of features that just pull through that give you that sense of place. And I think that’s what really makes it exciting, and that’s the only really thing that differs from doing a restaurant in a Caribbean resort to an Emirate to New York City is that sense of place and adapting to the cuisine that the people in those countries prefer. But here in Las Vegas, we’re a melting pot. There’s 30 million visitors or more that come here, so people really come from all over the world so it’s not like you’re only doing it for a specific demographic. You kind of appealing to a global demographic, and so that’s I think where my area of expertise has really been honed.

SSR: I mean, you’ve worked on so many different ones, but has there been one project recently in your career that kind of stands out as, I don’t know, not your big break, but your most… And it’s hard to pick one thing that you’re proud of, but something that really stands with you as like, “Wow, this is where all this form and function came together in a really great way,” and might’ve been your most challenging at the same time, but one that kind of sticks with you?

EB: Well, I mean, Bellagio was 100% the turning point in my career, and it was one of those things where you think like, “Okay, I mean, this was so extraordinary. I’m never doing anything like it again.” But Mr. and Mrs. Wynn never slowed down, and so it was Wynn and it was Beau Rivage and it was Wynn Macau, and now under the helm of Todd and Craig Billings as the CEO, they’re not slowing down either. So I think that’s definitely… I will 100% say that Honey Salt, which is my restaurant baby here in Las Vegas, was the personal turning point because it’s one thing to do it for other people. It’s another thing for a husband and wife chef-restaurateur team to envision something. We will be I think 12 years old this year, which restaurants are like dog years. I mean, that means we’re like 120.

But to create something that was just a simple neighborhood spot and really I designed with some help of some designer friends and phoning a friend and saying, “Hey, does this make sense?” But it’s just everything about the restaurant is personal to my husband and myself, and our cookbook is a culinary scrapbook and it kind of documents the journey of the places that inspired us to do the restaurant and then it goes into… And so each of those chapters where we traveled around the world kind of inform the making, and then there are restaurant recipes from the actual restaurant so, again, it’s a scrapbook because it’s a very personal experience. So without a doubt, that’s my baby, and it’s nice that we have one in Vancouver, which is part of the Parq Vancouver, which is the JW Marriott, and it’s special. And the Autograph is the DOUGLAS, which is the other hotel, and so we have five restaurants that we manage in that complex as well as Honey Salt, and we have Buddy V’s in The Venetian here where we have an incredible partnership with Buddy and Lisa Valastro. Buddy is the Cake Boss of the hit TV series. And so we’re the operating partner and we get to do the most delicious home cooked red sauce Italian, and of course the desserts are over the top.

SSR: Love it. And what made you decide to finally do your own and what was it like working with your husband, Chef Kim?

EB: Oh, that also is a couple bottles of wine.

SSR: Going to have part two. We’re going to have a-

EB: Yeah, that’s part two. That’s part two, the drunk version. Working with your husband is the greatest experience and the most challenging experience all rolled up into one. I think that it took us both so long. I mean, Kim traveled all over the world. He worked for Raffles, he worked for the Four Seasons, he was in Cambodia and Bangkok, he was in Dubai. He was this kind of international traveler chef, and then he was the chef of Beau Rivage in the MGM, so it many years for both of us, and Cole was, I don’t know, eight or nine years old.

So it took a long time, and it was just one of those kind of serendipitous somebody had the space and couldn’t take the space and we looked at it and we both finally said, “I guess it’s time.” But we weren’t looking to do a restaurant, we were kind of busy doing our consulting thing, and now we have nine of them. We also have Crown Block in Dallas, which was recognized by Michelin earlier or later last year. And so that’s the part that’s the most rewarding is that we’ve created these things together and that my strengths and his strengths kind of combine and do something really extraordinary, and so yeah. But we definitely didn’t rush into it, Stacy. It was many years into both of our careers before we were like, “All right, we’re going to do this.”

SSR: Was there something that prompted you to do it?

EB: So there was an Italian restaurant that is not even a mile from our house, and it closed down and it was empty for a long time, and our friend took the lease but then he realized that he was within his non-compete. So he had already negotiated the whole thing and he’s like, “Look, I can’t take this space. I negotiated a great deal. You should look at it.” And again, it was like our favorite restaurant and it was right in our backyard and we were like, “Well, would we do an Italian restaurant?” And then we thought, “No, there’s a bunch of Italian restaurants around here. Well, what would we do?” And then we said, “Well, why don’t we entertain like we entertain at home and why don’t we have the philosophy of Honey Salt be an extension?”

So the interior design looks very New England-y, Cape Cod-y, like it was a summer house, and then the food is just this mishmash of my healthy stuff and indulgent. And we met in Biloxi, Mississippi when Kim was the executive chef with the Beau Rivage there, and so there’s a Biloxi fried chicken sandwich, which is the signature that’s been on from day one, and all the desserts are homemade. And so it’s just… It’s fun. It’s just this kind of a eclectic neighborhood spot with all really ingredient-driven, beautifully-sourced things, and we’re in a sea of chain restaurants that keep opening and popping up and you have big food service company trucks of frozen product driving in, and we’re trying to be as sustainable and organic where we can and where it makes sense financially. So it’s been… I call that my baby.

SSR: You’ve done so many for so many other people, but did you learn something different when it was your own?

EB: For sure. I mean, I think I say that I am more effective as a consultant and working on projects because I’m rooted in operations, and so I’ll have a hostess who’s calling me because her husband left her. I mean, I’m attached personally at the root, so, I mean, I think that there’s a level of empathy, I think there’s a level of leadership that’s different, and because of it we’re up-to-date on what the most current POS systems, inventory control, who the designers are, what the trends are for marketing and social media because it’s our own operation. It forces us to be incredibly relevant, and if our own restaurants aren’t doing well and getting Michelin-recognized or the best bar in Dallas, then how can we put our money where our mouth is with our clients? And so I like to say it keeps us honest, but really what it does is keep us very busy and keep us very rooted in what is the day-to-day success of our industry.

SSR: And is there a part of the process you love the most either I guess on the consulting side? What do you love doing the most? 

EB: Sure. I mean, without a doubt the design development is my favorite, but when we go through a process, it’s from start to finish. I mean, whether it’s the financials of identifying the space and the lease and all of the terms because everybody hears about how high the failure rate of restaurants is, and the number one thing is what kind of cost infrastructure, and the number one cost is either your rent or you’ve built a space and building and even sticking to budgets through the design development processes so, I mean, because you go over there and you’re already starting in a deficit. So we really go through… Whether we’re doing it ourselves or working with our clients, we go through every step of the phase from the conception, like “oh, we should do this”, to design development, kitchen design, architecture, budgeting, finance, purchasing. But for me, the design development, sitting and working with the designers, that’s the part…

Also, the tastings. I mean, once you get through the menu and we agree, “Okay, this is the idea.” I mean, sitting through the tastings, it’s so much fun, especially the dessert tastings where they bring out every single thing that has been envisioned and you get to without guilt eat every single dessert that’s going to be on the menu. And then I think, as I said before, you can build this, you can envision, you can design, you can build, you can finance this incredible restaurant, but at the end of the day how you market it, how you communicate, who you hire to shoot it from photography, from the architectural photography to the food photography to now you even have to have social photographer who specializes in lifestyle. You need multiple PR firms that specialize in different things, brand opening parties. That’s also one of my favorites. But people don’t realize what a tremendous process, and when we put together a critical path for opening a restaurant, I mean, it’s hundreds and hundreds of line items to get you from vision to building to the opening.

SSR: Yeah. Sounds fun. Is there one project you’re really excited about that’s on the board? 

EB: I mean, this being the first integrated casino resort in the Middle East is going to be an extraordinary task, and Ras Al Khaimah is beautiful Emirate, there’s so much natural beauty there.

SSR: That’s the Wynn property.

EB: That’s the Wynn property. Yeah.

SSR: Amazing. Can’t wait to see when that opens. There’s so much beauty and pushing the envelope with design there as well, so I can’t wait to see what you guys create. Is there something that you still haven’t done that you would want to do? I feel like you’ve done so many different restaurants. Is there a type or something you’re seeing kind of influencing the restaurant industry that you’re interested in and wanting to try?

EB: I think it’s more the travel side, getting to explore, because it’s a big world out there, so now getting to work on these two projects in the Middle East, this last trip to Saudi Arabia I got to travel to see the Red Sea project and the AlUla project. So that wanderlust kind of never wanes for me, and so I think getting to do things in different places. When we opened at the Parq Casino in Vancouver, we actually moved up there, our son did eighth grade there, and there’s nothing like that cultural immersion. And I still have my coffee places and my sushi bar and my dim sum place, and you never get to find those places because these are not places that are listed on Eater or something like that. These are little hidden gems, and when you live somewhere and you’re walking and exploring the city…

But I think my real passion project right now is our Women’s Hospitality Initiative, and this is something that we launched five years ago. Of course, we launched it and then two months later was the pandemic and so not only were we trying to advocate for women’s leadership in the industry, we had to work on saving the restaurant industry. So we lost a little bit of momentum, but we were able to launch a leadership course, and if you can believe it was the first ever leadership course designed at a college level but that was specifically for the hospitality industry. And so it’s called From the Classroom to the Boardroom: Leadership for Women in Hospitality, and it was taught at four schools. It’s currently being taught at Florida International and the Culinary Institute of America and will come back to UNLV and hopefully a few other schools will come online.

But we are back into our mentoring and advocacy, and we are launching a conference here in Las Vegas in partnership with another women’s organization called MAPP out of the East Coast, and you look in the mirror and you count all these incredible mentors in your career and then you’re like, “Whoa, I am 57 so maybe I am now considered in that mentor category.” And so this is something that’s really important to me because I feel like when you look at the numbers of women who are attending hotel schools and culinary schools, it’s in equal proportion to men, but the number of women who are coming into leadership positions, whether they’re executive chefs or restaurant owners, is still in the single digits. And so that is really our focus is how can men and women work together as advocates and make sure that this next generation has all the tools they need to be great leaders?

SSR: Yeah, no, I applaud you for that and getting women to that next level and how do we continue to pave a path for women across not only restaurants, but also hotels as well? Well, that’s exciting. And you’re celebrating five years, right?

EB: We are… Yes. It went in a blink, but yeah. Five year anniversary. Well, you have to deduct three years from everything because that pandemic just was so crazy.

SSR: I couldn’t even imagine the pandemic with the restaurants in Las Vegas. And, I mean, how did that change you as a leader or as a business owner?

EB: I think that it’s one thing to classify yourself as an entrepreneur, but I can tell you that the pandemic took every entrepreneurial skill and insight and intuition that I had, and we had to pivot pretty much everything that we knew about the industry, including being a restaurant and serving humans in your restaurant, so so many different things and I became a political advocate and wrote an op-ed piece and lobbied to help change the law so we could sell alcohol and mix cocktails from the restaurant and joined a number of advocacy organizations, started our own, started something called Delivering With Dignity because in addition to the restaurants and our businesses suffering, there was tremendous suffering in our community with those most vulnerable with food insecurity. And so throughout the course of the pandemic and even afterwards, we were able to deliver almost a million meals directly to the doorsteps of people in our community.

And so we were busier than ever, I mean, doing so many different things, including selling toilet paper and flour and anything else that became a commodity that was hard to get, but there were some incredible lessons in resiliency through the pandemic that I think made us stronger and wiser, and it just seems like we never get a break. I mean, now watching what’s happening in California with the wildfires and certainly all the people losing their homes with the restaurateurs losing their entire livelihood and people being underinsured… So last weekend we did a fundraiser and have brought awareness to… Because sometimes people want to give, but they don’t even know where to give so we worked with a nonprofit organization that helps to identify those most effective charities because, I mean, there’s nothing worse than giving and then the things aren’t getting to the people that need it the most or there’s huge administrative costs.

So we’ve identified some really effective charities that 90% of what’s donated goes directly to those in need, so just doing what we can. I mean, I walked outside and my dining room table is covered in clothes because my husband’s donating all of this stuff to… One of our local butcher shops is closing tomorrow or donating 20% of their business and then they’re closing, and they’re taking all of this food and donations and they’re driving to California to deliver it. So that’s why we’re the hospitality industry is that we, for the most part, have a lot of wonderful people who are incredibly compassionate not only about our own community here in Las Vegas, but anybody that’s suffering, I mean.

SSR: No, it’s amazing to see how much the community has come together or how much the community did come together during COVID and also even just watching how much has already started to happen because of LA. It’s truly remarkable. We always end the podcast with the title of the podcast, which is what has been your greatest lesson learned?

EB: What would I say? I think that if you want to be a strong and effective leader, it’s not only about the financial and the fiscal health of your business. I mean, obviously that’s critical because if you don’t have that… But learning from great mentor like Elaine Wynn, that philanthropy, that compassion not only for the people that work for you, but the people in our community, so we really say that we’ve built pillars in our company and first or foremost people that we work with. The second is our restaurants, but the third really is our community, and I think the best way to show that is by the things that we do, by the organizations that we volunteer for or the philanthropic boards that I sit on or the educational boards that I sit on and that I’m passionate about. And I think that the people that work for us see these things and see that we prioritize that giving back, so it’s one thing that thankfully, knock on wood, our restaurants are busy and get accolades, but I also think that it’s equally important how we represent ourselves in the community, and that’s something that I certainly learned working for the Wynns and for some other great people. So I think that would be my lesson.

SSR: I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your remarkable story and all that you’ve accomplished, and can’t wait to see all the new concepts that are in the works.

EB: Oh, thank you. Well, this was fun and I hope I get to see you soon.