Elizabeth Blau Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Las Vegas.
Today's guest is Elizabeth Blau, the trailblazing restaurant queen of Las Vegas. Elizabeth is widely given credit for shaping the city into a global culinary destination. Even Elaine Wynn of Wynn Resorts said, “Elizabeth is more than any person in the city, single-handedly responsible for the culinary upheaval in Las Vegas.” Elizabeth is the CEO and founder of Blau & Associates, the strategic restaurant planning and development company, and she is co-founder of the Women's Hospitality Initiative, an organization that supports the advancement of women in the industry. Go Elizabeth. She's also a philanthropist and co-owner of Honey Salt Restaurant in Vegas and Crown Block in Dallas, just to name a few. Stay tuned for my chat with Elizabeth Blau.
This episode is presented by Las Vegas. The city is a culinary playground where innovation, global flavors, and unforgettable experiences collide, from its vibrant food halls featuring renowned coast-to-coast eats, to elevated fine dining concepts with world-renowned chefs, Las Vegas redefines gastronomic excellence. In 2025, Las Vegas continues to prove itself as a must-visit destination for food lovers, offering something extraordinary for every palate. There's Casa Playa at the Wynn, where chef Sarah Thompson and her team create dishes inspired by coastal Mexico. Sarah was just named a James Beard Award semi-finalist for Best Chef: Southwest. Congratulations, Sarah. Pinky's by Vanderpump is a new concept from the former star of the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” and restaurateur, Lisa Vanderpump, that opened at Flamingo Las Vegas this past December. They offer distinctive dishes and statement cocktails that translate into Instagrammable moments for guests. You know I love a little IG moment. And last but definitely not least, COTE, that's C-O-T-E, known for its dynamic fusion of Korean barbecue and American steakhouse is set to open its first West Coast location at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas this summer. You've heard from COTE beverage director, Victoria James, on past episodes of our show, and you know she is the Bombe. She and the team at Coat are crushing it, and I'm sure this location is going to be very special. The Las Vegas culinary scene is clearly on a roll. Plan your visit at VisitLasVegas.com.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our International Women's Day events in Las Vegas this past weekend. It was wonderful seeing all of you and getting to celebrate the Bombesquad and some of the incredible women on the Las Vegas scene, including today's guest, Elizabeth. If you haven't checked out the other episodes in my Vegas miniseries yet, please do. New episodes drop every Wednesday, and I've talked to lots of cool folks from the queen of burlesque and kitchen enthusiast, Dita Von Teese, to pop-up baker, Kimmie Mcintosh, of Milkfish.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Elizabeth Blau, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Elizabeth Blau:
Thank you. It's so exciting to have you here in Las Vegas with us.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I love Las Vegas. I'm trying to figure out how to get to stay in Las Vegas longer, but-
Elizabeth Blau:
Cherry Bombe West.
Kerry Diamond:
Cherry Bombe West. There are very few people who can say they helped shape the culinary scene of a major city, but that is what people say about you in Las Vegas over and over. Even Elaine Wynn of Wynn Resorts said, "Elizabeth is more than any person in the city, single-handedly responsible for the culinary upheaval in Las Vegas." How would you summarize your contribution to the scene?
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, I mean, first of all, that's very humbling and lovely to hear, but I think the city was on this incredible precipice for change. It was when I got here, it was a gaming destination. People would look at me when I said I was moving from New York to Las Vegas like I had three heads. They couldn't understand what was happening. But the city was ready to be changed into an entertainment destination. Food, the shows, the retail, I mean now we are a sports capital, now we are an entertainment capital with all these residencies. So one part was timing. One part was the extraordinary opportunity to work for Steve and Elaine Wynn, two of the most incredible people ever to work for.
Bellagio was really at this pivotal point where Steve would say that he was building the most expensive integrated resort hotel that had ever been built in the United States. And so restaurants were really going to be at the heart of that portfolio. So originally I was working for Sirio Maccioni, and the Maccioni family in New York. I had gone to work for them after I graduated from Cornell, I did my master's there, and I went to open Osteria del Circo. But first I worked in the original Le Cirque, which is now Danielle on 65th Street, for about six months before the restaurant opened. And I mean, what an experience, it was like getting a doctorate on my master's degree because every night the room was just filled with the tastemakers, the artists, the politicians of New York and the whole world.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell folks a little bit more about Le Cirque, because I don't think folks who know the New York food scene today and who are maybe a little younger know about Le Cirque, but back in the day it was so major.
Elizabeth Blau:
So, Sirio Maccioni was I think largely considered one of the most famous and exalted restaurateurs in the world. I mean, we know so much about celebrity chefs and we love our celebrity chefs, but Sirio really is that quintessential restaurateur. So the original Le Cirque was a fine dining French restaurant on 65th Street, and at one point I got to work on curating their photo archive, you name it, from Jackie Kennedy to Princess Grace to Henry Kissinger. I mean those dining room seats graced, I mean some of the most extraordinary people in the world, and Sirio was really considered the consummate restaurateur.
So you had Daniel Boulud as executive chef, you had Sottha Khunn, Sylvain Porte, so many exalted chefs came through those doors. And Sirio had three sons, Mario, Marco, and Mauro, who I fit right in the middle of Mario and Marco. And Mario did his degree at Cornell, and Marco did a similar program at Amis in France. Mauro went to Columbia, and so it was just this time where the boys were going to open together Osteria del Circo, which was a spinoff, which is just Le Cirque in Italian. And so these were the heady days of the restaurant industry in New York. It was just an incredible experience to work for them, and as I said, it was just like a postgraduate degree in the true art of running a restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
I can imagine. What was the famous dessert that they had?
Elizabeth Blau:
The crème brûlée, So the crème brûlée, that was Jacques Torres. So that was one of the signatures, and then when I came, they kind of invented the Bomboloni, which came from Italy. It's a donut, but it was filled with the crème brûlée and then Jacques also had the incredible chocolate stove with the little pots.
Kerry Diamond:
That must be what I'm thinking of.
Elizabeth Blau:
And then you picked it up, and there was the opera cake. So there was just so many things that were so unique and extraordinary to that restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
I thought it was interesting, you said it again when you were talking, but that you considered Sirio one of the top restaurateurs in the world, and you've worked with everybody. So for you to say that, what made him so special and unique?
Elizabeth Blau:
The true art of hospitality. I think the difference is that in learning, he really ran that dining room as if he was running a dinner party in his own home. I mean, people were seated in their sections. There was the VIP section, everything was handwritten. The dupes for the orders were handwritten. I called it the Bible. The reservations were all handwritten into a giant ledger. There was no computer systems, and when we opened-
Kerry Diamond:
No OpenTable.
Elizabeth Blau:
And there was no OpenTable. And even when we opened Osteria del Circo, it was such mayhem. And it was a bigger restaurant than Le Cirque. I mean, I swear there were days where I just would be answering the phone, "Osteria del Circo, please hold. Austria del..." Because we had no computerized system, so we had to bring Sirio into the modern age. But really that true art of hospitality, he knew how to create a cuisine that transformed from just traditional fine dining and really did things that were so approachable, like the crème brûlée, like his famous pasta primavera.
So he brought out the additional Italian dishes that made sense. I mean, he was doing tuna tartare, before that was a popular thing. And so he understood how people wanted to eat. He understood how people wanted to sit and see and be seen. He also knew how to bring the most extraordinary chefs to the table in his kitchen. At one point, the New York Times did this really cool kind of hierarchy chart of all of the chefs, Stephen Kalt and Alex Stratta, who were all alumni. It was a pretty cool, because I tried to find it a few years ago, it was a pretty amazing article to see where all of the, Andrew Carmellini, all these incredibly talented chefs have gone off and created their own empires.
Kerry Diamond:
But we'll talk more about this later, obviously, but folks might notice you haven't mentioned a single woman's name.
Elizabeth Blau:
They were not there at the time, and if they were, they were working in pastry, not particularly at Le Cirque. But when I started in my role there, I was the only woman other than the coat check. I mean there were no women even on the waitstaff. I mean, there might've been some cooks in the kitchen, but-
Kerry Diamond:
It was a different time.
Elizabeth Blau:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest.
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What you described is so personality-driven, and maybe not so replicable. How do you replicate those vibes, that whole attitude? You can't move Sirio.
Elizabeth Blau:
No. And I think that's why what you've seen in America in terms of the non-chain restaurants has been really a replication of the celebrity chef, the Nobu empire, the Jean-Georges, the Michael Mina empires. They've really been more chef-driven because the food is replicable, but creating that level of service of the maestro is really, I mean, you have Drew Nieporent, who also is a consummate restaurateur, that is much harder to replicate in the front of the house. I've never thought of it that way, but it's a great question, and I think really just the natural evolution has gone in that different direction. I mean, there are certainly great people that are directors or general managers that bring a tremendous personality, but in terms of replicating, you really don't see it.
Kerry Diamond:
So the Wynns were working on Bellagio, Le Cirque was going to open at Bellagio-
Elizabeth Blau:
Le Cirque and Circo.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, both of them. Okay. Tell us what happened. Did the Wynns tap you to go out there? Did Sirio and his family say, "We want you to go to Las Vegas and oversee this for us."
Elizabeth Blau:
So it's actually a very funny story. So I was completing my first year of my master's program, and I was on a field trip to New York City. We had read André Soltner's book and we were having dinner at Lutèce, and-
Kerry Diamond:
RIP, André.
Elizabeth Blau:
I know. And sitting with André. So not only reading the book, but getting to hear firsthand account of the story and having him cook this dinner. So I thought, "Okay, this is the greatest night of my life." And then my professor, Tom Kelly, who I was tapped to be his graduate assistant for the next year, invited myself and the current graduate assistant to go have a drink at Le Cirque because he wanted to say hello to Sirio. When we got there, Sirio said, "It's my wife, Egidiana's birthday. You must join us for dinner."
So I could be one of the only people in the world that my greatest night at Lutèce then became two dinners, because what could you say? "No, we've already had dinner." We also had dinner at Le Cirque, and during that dinner is when Sirio told me that he was going to Las Vegas on vacation with Egidiana, who loves to play the slot machines. That's when I said, "Oh, I mean everything is happening in Las Vegas, Wolfgang Puck is opened there." Really because I was an avid reader. I mean, not that I had spent a lot of time in Las Vegas, but I knew-
Kerry Diamond:
Had you spent any time?
Elizabeth Blau:
Yes. So the Wynns were family friends, and I would go to Utah, hiking, and so I would go and visit my friend Gillian Wynn, and stay at the Mirage. But I was a New Yorker, I was not a Las Vegan. And so I said to Sirio, "When you're out there, if you'd like to meet Steve Wynn, I'd be happy to make an introduction." It turned out from the days of The Colony, which was Sirio's original restaurant that he worked at, they had known each other, but I reconnected them, and that's where this idea came.
So the original idea was I was going to move to Las Vegas for six months, work for the Maccionis and open the two restaurants, and then somewhere in the process, Mr. Wynn told me about all of the restaurants that he was doing that were all going to be internally developed. They were not going to be other celebrity chefs names. Then he said, "You have to come work for me." And I said, "But I work for Sirio." And he said, "I will take care of that."
Kerry Diamond:
It's interesting.
Elizabeth Blau:
And so Sirio was not happy with me for many years, but thankfully we reconnected because he was truly one of my great mentors, and I consider Mario, Marco, and Mauro like my brothers, and Egidiana is just an incredible woman. They took me in and treated me as another member of the family, and so for that, they changed the trajectory of my career and I will always be extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity that they gave me.
Kerry Diamond:
And the Bellagio, I mean, that was a huge opening, that must've been lucrative for them to have the restaurants.
Elizabeth Blau:
Yes, it was a huge opening. There was going to be the first permanent Cirque du Soleil show, which was going to be this water show with O. Mr. Wynn was working with Andrea Bocelli and Wet to do those incredible fountains. The retail read like Madison Avenue with Hermes and Armani, and so the conversations just started, "Well, you've got this restaurant, it's labeled retail cafe. It's in between Prada and Hermes. It's got a pizza oven. It has to be different than Circo. I have this friend who I tremendously admire in Boston."
And so the next thing we knew, we were flying to Boston and meeting Todd English and cooking this incredible meal for Mr. Wynn. And the same thing with Jean-Georges in New York, and then Prime happened, and then Michael Mina, and then meeting with Nancy Silverton and saying, "There are no bakeries in Las Vegas. Can you do the internal bakery for me?"
Then Dale Chihuly was blowing 300 pieces of blown glass for the incredible ceiling, and so I said, "We shouldn't just do a lobby bar." "Well, what should we do?" "Let's do something really cool, like a caviar bar." I had dated a guy who was a chef at Petrossian, so I was like, "Petrossian." So the next thing I know, I was on a plane. I was in a warehouse with Armand Petrossian with giant vats of caviar and a big spoon, and I ate so much caviar on that trip that I had to buy new shoes because my feet were so swollen. It was a pretty extraordinary heady time, and I think what was-
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to use the word heady then, a bit of a whirlwind.
Elizabeth Blau:
Yeah. And what was so cool about it was Jean-Georges certainly had Vong in Hong Kong, but he was mainly based in New York. Todd English had one, Olives. Michael Mina didn't even have a restaurant. He was the chef of Aqua, which was Charles Condy's restaurant in San Francisco. All of us were at this point in our careers, and then Bellagio was just this extraordinary turning point.
Once the success of Bellagio, then you had the Venetian and Mandalay Bay, and then it just became de rigueur for Las Vegas Casino Hotels to have a portfolio of incredible restaurants. And so that's when you really saw us start to be taken really seriously as a culinary destination, and the restaurants brought the master sommeliers and the master sommeliers brought the incredible mixologists. Building these restaurants brought all of the world's greatest interior decorators, architects, kitchen designers to build them.
Kerry Diamond:
People are starting to understand why you get some of the credit for what Vegas has become.
Elizabeth Blau:
Wow.
Kerry Diamond:
And I know you would never in a million years say that of yourself. I did read pretty much every article written about you, and it was amazing how many people brought that up time and time again. You are wildly respected here.
Elizabeth Blau:
Wow, thank you. We had an incredible team. I mean, we had Alan Fuerstman, who now runs the Montage Hotel Empire. He was the VP of hotel operations. Gamal Aziz was the VP of food and beverage. I had a partner in crime, Kevin Stuessi, who was doing it. So Mr. Wynn, on several occasions, Steve would say, "I was King Arthur. I brought the round table." And I always thought that was a fun analogy.
But it was really a time that we got to dream. We had a partnership with the Picasso family and a room full of Picassos, and Julian and Serrano accepted the job, but then Alex Stratta changed his mind and wanted to come, and I remember saying to Mr. Wynn, and I mean I sort of said it, half in jest, "But don't you have another favorite artist?" And then that's how Renoir came out at the Mirage. So we ended up doing a second restaurant, so it was careful what I said, even in jest like, "Oh yeah, Petrossian Caviar Bar." And then the next thing we were actually doing it.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, so some follow-up questions. You are an East Coast girl.
Elizabeth Blau:
I am.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you really reluctant to move out here?
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, I was born in the Bronx in Albert Einstein Hospital. My dad was at Syracuse at medical school and then he was at Yale doing his residency, and so that's where we moved to Connecticut. I went to Georgetown, undergrad. My first career I thought I wanted to go into government or politics, but I started working in restaurants. In high school when I was 16, I was the taco girl at happy hour at a restaurant called Pancho McGee's. Inside the bar of this, the big bar area of the restaurant was a little kind of island. I made the quesadillas and chimichangas and the guacamoles, and I was the taco girl.
Kerry Diamond:
But the people in your life must have been like, "Vegas, really?"
Elizabeth Blau:
Oh, I mean, yes, they were-
Kerry Diamond:
It was kind of like moving to Mars back then.
Elizabeth Blau:
It was, I mean, people on the airplane would have a conversation with me and then I would say that I live in Las Vegas. People would literally say to me, "Do you live in the hotels? Do you live on the Strip?" And it's like, "No, we are a population." At that time it was probably a million and a half, now we're probably well over 2 million. But yeah, I mean they just didn't get it, and the people in New York didn't get it, but once I started inviting the chefs out and they started seeing this billion-dollar property and how extraordinary... The early takers realized how profitable this was going to be.
And remember what the Bellagio provided was the good old-fashioned art of running a restaurant. These management contracts with the chefs and the restaurateurs were about running the dining room and about running the kitchen. So everything, if your stove broke, you called engineering. When you wanted to hire people, you had an HR department. At the end of the night, you didn't have to go to a bank, you drop your cash at the casino bank. And so all of the ancillary services, marketing, PR, all of those things were provided, that infrastructure by the hotel.
So it was really great, and it was really kind of an easy lift in terms of these chefs expanding because they could really focus on the good old-fashioned art of running the restaurant. That was their responsibility, put killer menus together. Don't even worry about sourcing, tell us what you need and we've got a whole purchasing department that can bring you the specs that you're looking for. Remember, it was still a huge change because in the early days, even the Mirage, I found this so funny.
I mean the title in a restaurant was maître d'. There was no general manager, your job was to run the door. No financials, you didn't see a P&L, you ran the door. There wasn't even bathrooms in the restaurant, Kerry, and I was trying to figure this out like, "Oh, honey, I'm going to go to the restroom." And then throw down on the craps table, like what was the philosophy to force people back into the casino? There were no mini bars in hotel rooms. There was no movies on TV. The idea was it's a dormitory, a room to sleep, and then come back and gamble. It was a pivotal point for the whole city in changing into this entertainment destination, really from the bottom up.
Kerry Diamond:
So that explains why the chefs wanted to come, but why did you want to come? Are you adventurous? Like Ina Garten says, she leaps before she looks.
Elizabeth Blau:
Yes, I'm a leaper before I look. My husband would definitely attest to that. I just thought it was going to be an opportunity of such magnitude and proportion. I'm sure I was one of those little kids who was like, "I'm dreaming big. I don't know what it is." I had so many great mentors. I had so many people on the path and journey because I knew I love this business, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. From the taco girl at Georgetown, I worked in the student cafe, flipping burgers and frying fried chicken sandwiches.
I worked in a fine dining restaurant for three weeks on the line, then they moved me to Gourmage and then I ended up in pastry. I had a catering business, I worked as a bartender. And then when I graduated, I wanted a break before I was going to apply to law school, and I went to Boston and worked for a big liquor distributor, and so I saw the supply side of the business. I moved to New York and I worked for Atlas Floral Decorators and my office was in the Plaza Hotel.
So I kept trying all of these jobs in the industry, but I just didn't know what my thing was and I didn't know it was going to be development, and I certainly didn't know that it was going to be consulting, but I love the business of the restaurant business. I mean, you have to be grounded in understanding the operations if you're going to be good at it. Having our own restaurants grounds me in that day to day. I never could have imagined that I created something. So the fact that I was in Las Vegas was a happenstance. Now it's home, and I can't imagine living anywhere else. It's just such an extraordinary, vibrant place. But yeah, I leaped before I thought.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, your job with the Maccionis, was that your first big restaurant job?
Elizabeth Blau:
Yeah. Oh, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
So when the Wynns hired you, you had worked on two restaurants?
Elizabeth Blau:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And can you describe to us, all the restaurants that you were now responsible for, all the concepts that you were responsible for?
Elizabeth Blau:
I was 27 years old.
Kerry Diamond:
I hate the term imposter syndrome, but as you were describing that, I was like, "Wait a second, I don't think she had a job in between that would've qualified her for that job."
Elizabeth Blau:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you at any point feel unqualified or like, "What am I doing?"
Elizabeth Blau:
That's where my testosterone must have kicked in, Kerry, and I just didn't look back, I looked forward, and I knew that I had this incredible operations team working, so I got to be the dreamer. I got to be the non-linear thinker. I knew that there was a great partnership there that was going to make it work. I also spent a year and a half negotiating the deal with the lawyers on the side with the Maccionis, so that I knew that when I came to work for the Wynns, that I really understood what this management contract, what this prototype was going to look like.
And I knew from then having to negotiate on the other side that a deal that was going to really work well for both parties that was going to be financially lucrative enough for the restaurateurs, but make sense for the hoteliers and hold the restaurateurs accountable to have things at the quality and the level. And I was armed with that Cornell master's degree, but no, I mean I had opened Osteria del Circo and opened Le Cirque 2000, and then I was off to the races.
Kerry Diamond:
You were confident.
Elizabeth Blau:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Where does that come from?
Elizabeth Blau:
Probably my amazing parents, having a dad that was just like, "You can do anything." Having a great mother who also believes that. So I think I'm incredibly lucky to be rooted with great people around me and have a solid education base. I think though more than anything is that this is my passion. I mean, I wake up in the morning, even we're talking more than 40 years doing this, and I still wake up with that same excitement about trying a new restaurant or going to a new city and doing the research about where I'm going to eat.
Kerry Diamond:
You've said of your parents they loved food and travel and that was something that they shared with you. How did they share it with you?
Elizabeth Blau:
At a very young age, my mother loved to cook. My paternal grandmother loved to cook, and so I learned from them, and my mother was excited about being ingredient driven and taking us to farms, way before that was a thing that everybody coined with farm to table. And then we traveled. My dad, he's retired now, but he was a radiologist and my mom had been a teacher.
They love to travel, and so at a very early age, whether in the U.S. or traveling abroad was just always about art and eating. And the funny thing is my sister is an artist, she's a painter, and I got the food bug, although we all love food, that's just what sparked it. But having no one in my family in this industry, it was that windy circuitous initial trip until I kind of landed here and pulled everything to where I am now.
Kerry Diamond:
You go to Georgetown, then you go to hotel school at Cornell. How did you find out about that school at Cornell?
Elizabeth Blau:
I mean, I think everybody at the time kind of knew it, and I guess there was one other little nerdy piece of the puzzle when I was younger, I always loved to read, and so I got all of the food magazines and I had every issue. I have every issue of our Culinaire. While other girls were looking at Teen Beat and Tiger Beat and all the rock stars. Even at a young age, I loved the chefs. I mean, I just thought Gilbert Le Coze was the dreamiest, to die for. And so then when I got to know Amy Sacco, who was his fiance, unfortunately before he passed away, he was Le Bernardin for the newer listeners. But I always just had this absolute fascination with what they did.
Kerry Diamond:
And there was a funny story. I think you were talking to a professor and said that you wanted to consult, and you didn't even know where you got that idea from, but you were pretty adamant that that's what you were going to do. And the professor was like, "Consult, how? You really haven't lived yet."
Elizabeth Blau:
You said it in such a nice way, but she was more horrified. It was not very nice how she said it, and I just remember being like, "I'm going to show her." But she was right. I was one of those young-
Kerry Diamond:
You won't say you were a kid, but back then you were a kid.
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, I was still 25 years old. Back then, we didn't have the computers like we had today, so there were career books. There were these big fat encyclopedias. It was so depressing, Kerry. I mean, I'd go through a thousand pages and be like, "There's not one thing that I want to be in here." Botanists, a librarian. I mean, every literal job was in there. And so I didn't know it at the time, but I was this hybrid, and so she was right. So luckily I really got those roots from the educational side, from working for the Maccionis, and then just got thrown into the middle of this extraordinary adventure.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to fast-forward a little bit because you've done so much. We've got a lot of ground to cover. You become the executive vice president of restaurant development and marketing for the Wynn Las Vegas, where you developed an oversaw all aspects of food and beverage for hundreds of restaurants. I was like, is that correct, hundreds?
Elizabeth Blau:
When you add up career-wise from Bellagio and the Mirage Resorts and then 29 food and beverage outlets that are with Wynn and Encore, and then we opened the Wynn Macau, which was probably another 20, over the span of my career it is literally hundreds.
Kerry Diamond:
That's remarkable. How did you keep it all straight?
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, luckily they weren't all at the same time, but opening these mega resorts, I mean first you think you're going to open Bellagio, and I'm like, "Okay, this is a career pivotal highlight. Nothing is going to top this." And then Mr. Wynn opened the Wynn and then the Encore and then the Wynn Macau. Those were more complicated, and luckily I had plenty of restaurants under my belt before that.
But opening 26, 29, 30 outlets simultaneously on the same day just takes extraordinary level of execution, and that's why you have a giant team of people, and in most of these properties, the largest population is in F&B, because whether it's room service, banquets and catering, in the individual restaurant outlets it's like a whole company within a company with a vice president, vice presidents of fine dining, senior vice presidents.
Luckily there's an entire operational infrastructure. Because I think when you really look at it practically, it's divided into two categories. There's people who do development and there's people who do operations. I'm a unique kind of unicorn that does both, but my passion is definitely in the development side, and luckily I am married to a former chef who is now a chef and restaurateur who loves the operational side, and so we're able in our own business to divide and conquer.
Kerry Diamond:
While doing that job, you also had your own consulting company, which you still have today, Blau & Associates. You launched it in 2002. How were you handling these two jobs at once?
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, remember, I moved out here to work for the Wynns, and to work for Mirage Resorts, which was the opening of Bellagio and then the opening of Beau Rivage in Biloxi, and then the redoing of Mirage and Treasure Island, even Golden Nugget. And then Steve sold the company to MGM, and so I thought, "Okay, I'm going back to New York."
And then Terry Lanni, who was then CEO of MGM Mirage, the new corporation, asked me to come and work in a similar role, which is when I got the promotion to senior vice president. So I oversaw the restaurant development for the new projects for MGM and Mirage. I only did that job for about two and a half years, and that's when I left to start my consulting business. Then I started the consulting business. Then my husband, Kim Canteenwalla, and our business partner, Jason Lapin, joined us and then Mr. Wynn decided he was going to do Wynn, and then he asked me to come back.
So I left my namesake company, my husband and Jason ran the company. I had our son, and then after two years I was like, "Okay, this is too hard." So then I went back. Now I am in a wonderful role of consulting on the new development for Wynn on all of their various properties. We have nine restaurants that we either own or operate under a management contract, and then we have the consulting business. So tried not to do both at the same time, but still find myself juggling a lot of different things now, including my passion, which is inspired by Elaine Wynn, which is all of the nonprofit work that I do.
Kerry Diamond:
What made you want to launch Blau & Associates?
Elizabeth Blau:
Probably I'm so competitive in that comment that that professor made so many years ago about being a consultant. No, I mean, I think that the consulting thing, I love operations, but I don't like the consistency that makes a restaurant great of doing the same thing all the time, every day. I love the idea of doing new things and starting projects and giving birth and handing them over to somebody else. I love the balance, and so I think that was what was appealing.
And I love the learning. I love the knowledge, so I get to develop casinos outside of Seoul, Korea and Incheon and travel all over Korea and do, I mean, we're building a giant city in Riyadh, and so spending time traveling throughout Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. We did programs for proprietary catering, programs for NetJets. We've created programs on the cruise line. And so each and every one of these, while we're bringing an area of expertise to the table, you're always like this insatiable quest for knowledge and seeing new things and learning new things. I think that's the exciting part, and that's the part that is really electrifying for me.
Kerry Diamond:
A lot of folks think about leaving their job and striking out on their own, but it can be scary. What was your mindset when you decided you were going to start your own thing?
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, it would've been a lot scarier, I have to tell you in all honesty, except that I knew that Mr. Wynn was opening the Wynn, and I knew that he would give me my first consulting. Yay to health.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, that's really good advice. I have friends who've gone off in freelance, but they didn't have that first client lined up before they made that move.
Elizabeth Blau:
Yeah, I mean, I had thought about it for a long time, and just kind of putting out your shingle after being part of these giant corporate entities where you have your 401(k) and your healthcare and infrastructure, making that transition you really have to, some people will give you the advice that you should have three months rent in a nest egg, but you really have to plan. It's not a good idea to just strike it out on your own without a plan.
I would say that I am adventurous, but I definitely have a side of conservatism that I get from my dad, and I wanted to make sure that there was a landing. But I could never have imagined that it would grow into the business that we had now. And really starting to open our first restaurant, which was, well, the first was Simon that I had with Kerry Simon. The second was Honey Salt. Those just kind of happened organically, and then they kept growing and now we're nine. That was not part of a master plan either.
Kerry Diamond:
But we have to talk about Honey Salt because that is kind of your baby, even though you said you don't like the operation side. In 2012, you decided it was time to open your own restaurant, Honey Salt in Summerlin, which is right outside Las Vegas proper. Yes. And you opened the location with your husband, Kim, who you mentioned, who was a chef and is a chef again. Why did you open Honey Salt, were you craving something smaller in scale than what you had been working on?
Elizabeth Blau:
So Honey Salt is literally a mile from our house and our office. A friend of mine had the lease. It was one of our favorite restaurants. It was an Italian restaurant and a wine bar, and they expanded and ran into some trouble, and the space sat empty for forever and just hadn't thought about it. I mean, you always dream of doing your own thing, but it just wasn't... And a friend of mine had the lease and had a non-compete and realized that he wasn't going to be able to execute on the lease and so called, and we went and looked at it. This idea came that, why don't we do a restaurant? Because we love to entertain at home. We love to entertain. If we travel and-
Kerry Diamond:
Most people like to entertain, don't necessarily say, "Let's open a restaurant, we can entertain there instead."
Elizabeth Blau:
So that was the idea. It's like how we like to eat at home, it's how we like to entertain. I did the interior design, and so it's very homey and eclectic. When ABC had their home store, a lot of things came from there, and it's got a big open kitchen. So that's how we came about the idea. And then we also added on other pillars like caring about our community, caring about the people that work for us and trying to create a better work environment.
Right now, we have an entire leadership team in the front of the house that's all women, not by design, just organically. So trying to put into practice some of the things that are important. Even during COVID, we didn't have to lay people off. We were able to start something called Delivering with Dignity, which was this emergency response to the fact that a lot of the ways that people with food insecurity were able to get their food were going to be completely shut down.
We kept it going from public funding, even after the pandemic, and at the end of three and a half years we had delivered almost a million meals directly to the doorstep of those most vulnerable in the community. We partnered with 40 nonprofits, we saved 40 restaurant jobs, and we fed almost a million people. It's things like that that we're able to do that were meaningful beyond just, "Okay, here's a fried chicken sandwich or a kale salad with green juice." I think that's what's made it special.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to take another jump in time to February 18th, 2020. You and three of your associates, Mary Choi Kelly, Jolene Mannina, and Kristin Wittemore, launched the Women's Hospitality Initiative. What was the aha moment or the seed that led to that?
Elizabeth Blau:
You're familiar with Joanna James and her film, “A Fine Line.” I think she had read something about me, and she just sent me a DVD, which is not a thing for the young people listening, but a DVD, and it just sat on my desk for a long time. And Kristin was working with me at the time, Kristin Wittemore. It was like a Friday afternoon, and I was like, "You know what? We should watch this thing." And we popped it in and we just sat there speechless for the hour and 20 minutes. I knew a lot of the women in the film, was so inspired by Joanna's mother. I thought to myself, "This is not the 20-year-old Elizabeth. This is not the 30-year-old Elizabeth. This is a 50-year-old Elizabeth."
And I'm watching this, and so many people have been incredible mentors, and remain incredible mentors. But how is this possible? We're not talking about 1970. I mean, how are we still having women, more than 50% are attending hotel schools or culinary schools, and that people that are going on to be restaurant owners or executive chefs are still in the single digits? Something is just wrong here. It was one of those leap before you think moments where I'm like, "Something needs to be done here." Mary Kelly and I, our boys went to pre-K together and played basketball together, and she has had an incredible career in human resources and HR and people, Bank of America and MGM.
At the same time this was brewing in my head, she asked to have lunch with me and she had left her corporate job and said, "I'd love to do something in women's leadership." And I'm like, "Okay, this is crazy. Watch this film." And that's as simple as it is. In this town, if you're going to do an event or do something, the first person you want to call is Jolene Mannina. She's a force of nature. So she was our next call. The four of us just said, "All right, we're going to launch this, Women's Hospitality Initiative." And remember, this was months before COVID happened, months after the whole MeToo debacle, and we said, "This is about men and women working together. We need our male allies. We need for this to be a global solution, not just women trying to fix this for women."
And also in this town, while we're the hospitality industry, casinos like to play in their own individual sandboxes. So what if we can get the casinos to work together? What if we can get US Foods and Sysco to work together? What if we can get Coke and Pepsi? And then we started on our journey of educating ourselves, because first, you've got to learn what has gone wrong. And we aligned with some great international women's organizations, some great national organizations, learned best practices. And right at the time, Sheryl Sandberg and her Lean In Foundation, had done this study with McKinsey.
We all know about the glass ceiling. You hear ad nauseum about the glass ceiling. But this whole phenomenon that she identified of the broken rung, like a rung on the ladder, and that men and women were entering the workforce in the U.S. in equal numbers, but women were falling behind in the first job. So in the U.S. women are entering the workforce either from high school or from college or some kind of graduate program from high school. So what if we could first focus on education? Then the pandemic hit, then we were like, "Oh my God, we have to save the restaurant industry."
Kerry Diamond:
You have done so much work to get the Women's Hospitality Initiative off the ground, and then that happens.
Elizabeth Blau:
Yes. But what we were able to do was to launch an educational program. So with Mary's background, we wrote a course, it's called From the Classroom to the Boardroom - Leadership for Women in Hospitality. Because of my educational board positions, I was able to convince Dr. Ryan from the Culinary Institute of America, Dean Chang from Florida International came on, San Diego State came on, UNLV came on board. And even through the pandemic, we were able to do that.
We were also able to partner with the National Restaurant Association on their high school pro start program and launch sort of a mini module with four high schools here. So despite all the craziness in the world and literally selling toilet paper and flour from Honey Salt, we were able to keep this going. And now we're kind of launching into our 2.0. We've all kind of had a deep breath, gotten our feet below us, and are ready to really move forward.
Kerry Diamond:
When the four of you were talking about starting this, I'm guessing it was a time where you could look back on your own career. Did you have many female mentors?
Elizabeth Blau:
The funny thing is is that all my mentors were men until I moved to Las Vegas, which seems counterintuitive.
Kerry Diamond:
I know Elaine Wynn was a huge mentor of yours.
Elizabeth Blau:
So Elaine Wynn was a huge mentor on so many things, and really was one of the people that got me involved in philanthropy. Diana Bennett was another client and then family and friend. Her father, Bill Bennett was one of the casino pioneers of the city. So she, again, like Elaine Wynn, was one of the first women to really break into, from an executive perspective, into Las Vegas from the casino side. Jan Jones was our mayor and another just deeply inspiring person in the city. And so, yeah, all of my career, all of my mentors, Skip Bronson, Sam Bromley, Sirio, were all men. And then this kind of transformation, coming to this very casino oriented, very male dominated city, but like some real powerhouse women. And now there are women leading at every level in Las Vegas.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah.
Elizabeth Blau:
There's a tremendous improvement.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to talk about that. You've got a big event coming up here in Vegas at the end of March. Tell us about it.
Elizabeth Blau:
We reconnected with Joanna James after five years after we launched this tremendous event and launched her movie here in Las Vegas and at UNLV, at Hospitality Hall, at their hotel school. She approached me again and said, "Hey, listen, we've got this conference. It's two years. It's fledgling. Do you think about moving it to Las Vegas and partnering our organizations?" And really that's been at the core, the philosophy is how do we bring more women to work together? We don't want to have any proprietary interest in what we're doing. We want to expand our courses.
We want to share anything that we're doing. So we thought it sounded like a great idea. The Wynn signed on as our title sponsor in the host hotel, so it's March 30th and 31st. And so I hope every woman listening comes out here, because the women that are speaking and the women who are providing the educational platform, I want them to be learning from the younger women who are restaurant managers or assistant managers or food and beverage directors or assistant directors or sous chefs or pastry chefs or executive chefs.
This is meant to be this incredible two days of women inspiring other women in learning. And you can focus in some of the breakout sessions on things that are interesting. We have people like Todd Lenahan, who's the president of Wynn design and development, who's just going to give a keynote on inspiration and how design affects and impacts the process. I'm going to do a keynote, fireside chat with Elaine Wynn where we talk about our history together and that mentorship, but-
Kerry Diamond:
I'm dying to hear that.
Elizabeth Blau:
There's networking sessions, and there's something called speed dating where you connect with people who may be able to answer questions or who are maybe role models on how they got to the path that they're in. And so I think it's just going to be this great, really inspiring two days, which will be culminated by what we call a gala. It'll be on three floors of Hospitality Hall, and we're going to have women winemakers and distillers and brewers and have great mixologists doing cocktails and women chefs and restaurateurs. Any women-led chefs and restaurateurs of restaurants in Las Vegas will be providing their food and their energy, and it's an event for men and women, and that will just be the fun culmination of the events.
Kerry Diamond:
You love a big project.
Elizabeth Blau:
I just seem to have a, yes, an addiction to doing that.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, the good news is Vegas has changed a lot when it comes to women and their role here, the number of women fronting restaurants, the culinary talent, front of house, back of house, is really remarkable. I mean, I've been tracking everyone, and we get to the point with the city where we literally have to start a spreadsheet and write everyone down so we can remember who's who and where are they and what are they doing. Why did that switch flip?
Elizabeth Blau:
I think that first you break the stereotype that this is a male-dominated city, and so now there are-
Kerry Diamond:
But it wasn't a stereotype. It was true.
Elizabeth Blau:
Yes. But first you got to get beyond that to know that there are opportunities. There's a half a dozen presidents of properties now. You have women chief legal counsel, you have women CFOs, you have Elena Nieves, who you've met at Wynn, who's a senior vice president of F&B. We still have room, we still have opportunity for women on the culinary side. We're still talking about, "Okay, this chef at this property, one here, one there." But there's no wall. There is no lack of opportunity for people who have the drive and the capacity and the want to do it. This is a town of real opportunity now.
Kerry Diamond:
Vegas specifically, for the longest time, it was Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger who were the only women who owned their own place on the Strip. I did not know Nancy Silverton had a Las Vegas chapter.
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, what she did was she created and concepted our bakery. So it was not public-facing, but she put together the infrastructure when she was still La Brea of the bakery for us at Appalachia.
Kerry Diamond:
Since I have you, I just want to get a little bit of restaurant advice from you because we have so many restaurateurs who listen to the show and people who work in restaurants. You obviously know what makes a successful restaurant today. You've got so many of them under your belt. You've said it's not necessarily a great chef or even great food today, those are lower down on the list. What's at the top?
Elizabeth Blau:
It's hard for me to say something like this being married to a chef, but if you had asked me 10 years ago, I would've said, it's the food, it's the service, it's the design, and it's the marketing. Now it's a total flip. You can have the greatest food, you can have the greatest service, and if people don't know about you and you're not standing on your head and lighting things on fire and being Instagrammable, then you absolutely are going to have a real problem.
Kerry Diamond:
You and I both know so many places that were great that didn't last.
Elizabeth Blau:
That are no longer. I would say understanding and having a great business and real estate deal, as well as marketing, those are probably neck and neck. And now, because I mean, listen, if you can't make the economics work, you're out of the water anyway. But I think those are the two. Then it's really your design, creating something that whether it's over the top or just comfortable or Instagrammable or whatever it is, that comes next, you've got to be able to market yourself in whatever category and niche, then food, then service.
Kerry Diamond:
You are a big believer in marketing, you've talked about marketing a few times, and that's something restaurant owners historically have had a hard time doing. They don't get into the business to be marketers. What is some marketing advice for our listeners?
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, I mean, if you can afford it and it's in your budget, it's great to have a PR team and a partner. And there are PR partners that we work with that are one-woman shops. There are agencies that are much bigger, so there's something for every budget, but it's hard to amplify your own voice to say, "Oh, we're the best at this." So having PR partners, they're also out there talking to the journalists, with relationships to the journalists, bringing the right opportunities for you, and also looking at things in a different way.
Oftentimes when we're in the restaurant, we're not seeing the forest through the trees and not seeing where the opportunity is. And so I think you also need to be organic to yourself. Don't try and do things, don't create dishes for your menu that are not authentic to who you are and what you're doing just because you think you can get TikTok followers. There's got to be a method to what you're doing. And then get involved in community. It's not only to show your customers what you're doing, but also the people that work for you. I mean, there's a lot of restaurants you can go to, so do something that inspires other people. I mean, do it for yourself.
Kerry Diamond:
When are you getting a cameo on “Hacks?”
Elizabeth Blau:
Oh my God, that show is so hilarious. My new cameo that I would like though is on “Landman.”
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, I don't know that show.
Elizabeth Blau:
Oh, “Landman” is like the new “Dallas.” It's one of Taylor Sheridan's shows, it's on Paramount Plus. And it's like the oil business in Fort Worth and things like that. But they had Jerry Jones do a cameo, and not that I'm comparing myself, but they obviously have cameos. And so we have a steakhouse called Crown Block, which is in the Reunion Tower in Dallas, and I'm thinking that would be a perfect place to film this, and I'd like to bring over some big beautiful steak to the table.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, last question. If you had to put together the perfect Las Vegas evening, what would it entail and who would you want to bring along with you?
Elizabeth Blau:
Oh.
Kerry Diamond:
And you can mention your own places because your places are great.
Elizabeth Blau:
I would definitely start at Buddy V's, with some of our great antipasto, probably a pizza, and just has such a great vibe. Buddy Valastro was in town and we were actually just sitting at a table in the bar, and it was funny because there were two tables on either side of us, and I saw them kind of looking over, but they're probably like, "Why would he be sitting at the table in the bar next to us?" And then when we got up and somebody like, "Can we take a pic?" They were like, "Oh my God, it is him."
Kerry Diamond:
Buddy is the “Cake Boss,” for all of you listening.
Elizabeth Blau:
Buddy is the “Cake Boss.” So it has a great vibe. And then I would definitely go over to the Wynn and have a margarita with Sarah Thompson and have some of her delicious food because-
Kerry Diamond:
At Casa Playa.
Elizabeth Blau:
At Casa Playa, because it's coastal Mexican, but it really is so special. I would probably then go take a swing through Delilah and have a cocktail because Todd Lenahan designed the restaurant and I think it's probably one of the most beautiful restaurants in the world anywhere.
Kerry Diamond:
And you did a big thing with Angie Mar there, for Lunar New Year.
Elizabeth Blau:
We just did a Lunar New Year party with Angie Mar, which was so crazy and over the top and reminded me of being back in New York City. So that was crazy. And then probably end the night in Chinatown. I don't even know what they're called, but they're those delicious Japanese or Korean pancakes. They're sort of made in this waffle iron and they have red beans or any kind of stuff, but we have an exploding Chinatown that has boba tea and sushi and ramen and all kinds of noodle places. And then of course, every kind of Chinese cuisine from barbecue to dumplings.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's really exciting to hear because a lot of Chinatowns are struggling across the country.
Elizabeth Blau:
No, this Chinatown is absolutely thriving and growing, and it's spawned off a little Korea town, and it's just really vibrant.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's wonderful news. Any residencies, any concerts or entertainment you would go see?
Elizabeth Blau:
Well, by then you're probably really full and need a nap. But I have gone twice to see the Eagles at the Sphere. The Sphere is really one of the most extraordinary entertainment venues. I mean, when I went to see the Eagles, the second time it was not even, because there was so many things because of the visuals and the music, and there's always something else to see. On my hit list, and you're going to laugh is, I'm dying to see Barry Manilow. I remember my parents listening to the music, and he has a residency.
Kerry Diamond:
Your parents, I had Barry's Christmas lbum. Didn't you?
Elizabeth Blau:
Right. One of us had it.
Kerry Diamond:
Is he playing here?
Elizabeth Blau:
Yes, he's at the Westgate.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, okay. Thank you for all your time and for everything you've done for women, and everything you've done for this industry.
Elizabeth Blau:
Oh, thank you. Well, it's an honor to be on this podcast. And I'm a huge follower of Cherry Bombe and what you've done and what you've done for the industry and for women, and so it's great to be here together with you.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a rating and a review. Anyone you want to hear on an upcoming episode? Let me know. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thank you so much to the team at Sticky Paws Studios in Las Vegas. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.