Posted on: January 9, 2025, 11:00h.
Last updated on: January 9, 2025, 11:42h.
Name recognition isn’t enough to carry a restaurant to Las Vegas success. The novelty of a familiar name might initially draw crowds. But to sustain them requires something truly special beneath the hype.
The recipe for a long run on the Strip — where rent, labor, and other operational costs are among the highest in the US — is innovation, exceptional quality, and more than a dollop of good luck.
Here are the most notable celebrity restaurant flops in Las Vegas history.
9. Guy Fieri’s El Burro Borraco
Rio
2016-2020 (6 years 5 months)
Six years isn’t embarrassingly short as far as Las Vegas restaurant lifespans go but casino resort companies expect many more out of their celebrity chef licensing deals, and this was certainly an outlier for Fieri. Of the five joints the spiky-haired grillmaster opened in Las Vegas since 2014, El Burro Borraco (Spanish for the drunk donkey) is the only one that’s closed so far.
Fieri’s Vegas luck ran out when Caesars Entertainment — which runs all of Fieri’s restaurants because celebrity chefs only pretend to operate their own restaurants — decided to sell the Rio’s operating rights to Dreamscape Companies in 2019.
Though Dreamscape didn’t officially take over until 2023, the writing was on the wall. Ownership changes almost always force a reconsideration of the previous owner’s preexisting restaurant and entertainment contracts, which probably also explains why the Chippendale’s male revue split the Rio to join back up with Caesars in November.
Why El Burro Borraco didn’t reopen after the pandemic was never officially explained — reasons for closures rarely are, and they almost never are honestly. If either Fieri’s restaurant or Chippendale’s were still performing as well as expected when they initially inked their contracts with Caesars, both would still be operating at the Rio.
In Las Vegas, the golden rule is that successful things never close — unless there’s a sex scandal involving their celebrity owner.
8. International Smoke by Michael Mina
MGM Grand
2019-2025 (5 years)
This is the only restaurant on our list that’s still open. That will change after January 19.
International Smoke was a partnership between Michael Mina, the James Beard Award-nominated “Iron Chef America” challenger who previously operated Pub 1842 in the same space, and Ayesha Curry, the wife of NBA superstar Stephen Curry.
The main challenge was maintaining consistent patronage. (Check out Vital Vegas’ brutally headlined story about International Smoke’s closure.) But it doesn’t seem to be a Vegas-isolated phenomenon.
When Mina’s Vegas venture opened in December 2019, International Smokes also operated in San Francisco, Del Mar, and Miami. After the Las Vegas closure, only the San Francisco location will remain.
But Mina is doing just fine. He recently opened Bourbon Steak at the Four Seasons and has Michael Mina at Bellagio.
7. Eva Longoria’s Beso Steakhouse
Crystals at CityCenter
2009-2012 (2 years 8 months)
Beso was a Latin-inspired steakhouse (“beso” is Spanish for “kiss”) co-owned by the “Desperate Housewives” star and celebrity chef Todd English. It offered a menu combining traditional Latin flavors with modern culinary techniques.
Initially, Beso enjoyed success due to Longoria’s star power, which attracted her Hollywood friends to dine and party in the upstairs nightclub. But Beso faced several challenges, including negative reviews, a legal battle between Longoria and English, and bad management.
By 2011, the nightclub was losing more than $76K a month, accumulating $5.7 million in debt, according to the New York Daily News. This forced the entire operation to declare bankruptcy in 2011 and close a year later.
6. Majordōmo Meat & Fish by David Chang
The Venetian
2019-2022 (2 years 5 months)
5. Moon Palace by David Chang
The Venetian
2020-2022 (2 years 4 months)
David Chang still has Momofuku Las Vegas and Bang Bar at the Cosmopolitan. But the James Beard Award-winning star of Neftlix’s “Ugly Delicious” hit two sour notes at the Venetian.
The closures of both Majordōmo Meat & Fish and Moon Palace coincided with the sale of the Venetian property to corporate landlord VICI Properties.
However, as with Guy Fieri’s El Burro Borraco, if both these restaurants were screaming successes, they probably would have survived. And it’s probably not irrelevant to note that 11 of the 16 restaurants Chang opened have closed since his Momofuku Noodle Bar debuted in New York in 2004.
4. Eva Longoria’s SHe by Morton’s
Crystals at CityCenter
2012 -2014 (1 year 4 months)
So much for learning her lesson. Longoria, this time partnering with parent company Landry’s, reopened Beso in the same spot as a female-centric version of the Cosmopolitan’s STK.
SHe featured fashion shows, a focus on “small bites appealing to ladies,” and dessert menus with mirrors on them for lipstick reapplication.
But SHe never bounced back after being closed by the Southern Nevada Health District in April 2014 for 32 health-code demerits, mostly related to food temperatures.
3. Masso Osteria by Scott Conant
Red Rock Resort Casino
2018-2019 (1 year 3 months)
The decision to close Masso Osteria (Italian for Boulder Tavern) after just over a year was attributed by industry observers to a combination of market saturation with Italian cuisine, its off-Strip location, and a cooldown of the celebrity heat on Scott Conant.
Conant has been a regular judge on the Food Network’s “Chopped” since 2009, but by the time he arrived in Las Vegas, three of his other restaurants had closed within a two-year period: the Ponte in LA, and Impero Caffè and Fusco in New York.
Masso Osteria’s closure was framed by both Conant and Station Casinos as an amicable transition rather than a failure of the restaurant. Because of course it was.
2. M.Y. Asia by Martin Yan
Horseshoe Las Vegas
2023-2023 (159 days)
A James Beard Award winner and the star of PBS-TV’s “Yan Can Cook,” Yan opened his first Las Vegas restaurant in March 2023 and closed it five months later. Unlike most celebrity/Caesars licensing deals, M.Y. Asia was four-walled, meaning that its owners, ATM Hospitality Group, were responsible for the extravagant costs of constructing, operating, and maintaining the restaurant, not Caesars.
So when the expected revenues didn’t come, the money ran out.
1. Elio by Enrique Olvera
Encore Las Vegas
2020-2020 (153 days)
Enrique Olvera, the highly acclaimed head chef of Mexico City’s Pujol, opened this restaurant with fellow celebrity chef Daniela Soto-Innes, who was named World’s Best Female Chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2019.
What could go wrong?
Well, a lot when your opening day is scheduled six days after the pandemic shuts down Las Vegas. Located in the former Andrea’s space next to the Encore Beach Club, Elio finally opened on June 18, 2020.
The drastic downturn in visitation due to travel restrictions and health concerns resulted in insufficient patronage to sustain operations. The restaurant lasted only five months.
While the pandemic served as an excuse for many casino resorts to close restaurants they were starting to second-guess anyway — particularly buffets — this closure simply came down to the worst Las Vegas luck possible.
