Travel to Las Vegas has been sharply curtailed due to the recession and many workers have been laid off. Another sector of Las Vegas' economy that is really suffering is the restaurant business. For years, it seemed like a new five star restaurant was opening with a celebrity chef planning the menus. But now, with the opening
of the giant CityCenter complex which has no less than thirty new restaurants, locals are wondering if the Las Vegas restaurant industry has finally crapped out.
But in the desert restaurant universe, a mirage has now arisen that could mean either salvation or doom: the $8.5 billion CityCenter project.
Bristling with construction cranes and gleaming in the 100-degree sun, the CityCenter casino, hotel, convention center, mall, residential and entertainment metropolis looks like a hallucinogenic 67-acre Red Grooms parody of the Las Vegas Strip. The development spans a quarter-mile, from the Bellagio to the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino, and is scheduled to open in December.
Some 30 restaurants are to inhabit the jumble of seven buildings — from tapered towers to crystalline shards — designed by eight celebrity architects, including Sir Norman Foster and Daniel Libeskind. On display, and on trial, will be the concepts of lionized chefs, among them Pierre Gagnaire, Michael Mina, Masayoshi Takayama, Wolfgang Puck and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
For some, CityCenter, developed by MGM Mirage and Dubai World, will offer treasures that transcend buzz and hype: 4,000 food and restaurant jobs, a third of the complex's 12,000 new jobs.
But if it cannibalizes existing restaurants it could further wound this once-sleepy railroad watering stop beset by a sere immensity of sand.
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Last year, "the sky was falling, and people were terrified," said Elizabeth Blau, a restaurant consultant. "Now things have stabilized."
But for many Las Vegas restaurateurs, flat is still the new up, and for some, "being down 10 percent, that's the new flat," said Joseph Bastianich, Mario Batali’s partner in three restaurants at the Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino.
Mr. Bastianich said his Carnevino Italian Steakhouse in the Palazzo at the Venetian was projecting $18 million in revenues this year but now "we expect to do $13 million to $14 million."
In many restaurants the average bill has dropped from around $70 to around $40. And the restaurants where the tabs are closer to $1500 are now open only four days a week instead of five. In a city where rumors say top waiters could pull in $150,000 a year when the high rollers tipped generously, it's been a real shock. Many waiters and cooks have lost their jobs entirely.
