Coastal food critics and others in the restaurant industry got the Las Vegas culinary scene wrong when it came to Wolfgang Puck coming to the Strip in 1992.
“We had the first fine-dining third party restaurant (at a casino property) in Las Vegas,” Tom Kaplan, senior managing partner with Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining, said Wednesday during the UNLV Hospitality & Gaming Series. “It was a big risk coming here. A lot of our colleagues thought we were making a giant mistake coming into the casino environment, but we thought it was a good opportunity. It proved to be just that. The first year was quiet and then the city exploded, and we rode the tidal wave of expansion.”
“Fast-forward 27 years, and Vegas is one of the fine dining capitals of the world.”
Wolfgang Puck, which operates 20 restaurants in the U.S. and seven abroad, opened a Spago at the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in 1992, where it stayed until relocating to the Bellagio in 2018.
The restaurant group that bears the celebrity chef’s name now operates five establishments under different names along the Strip and in August announced a partnership with the Vegas Golden Knights to convert the Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill in Summerlin into a sports restaurant and lounge.
Now, the company is looking to further expand its casino presence worldwide.
Spago’s original location wasn’t in Caesars Palace itself because there was concern among casino executives that if people had a bad experience at the restaurant, they wouldn’t game at the hotel. But the concept ultimately showed that people who had a great dining experience were more likely to stay on the property.
“(Steve) Wynn figured out when he opened the Bellagio that having good restaurants that were not run by the casino made sense,” Kaplan said. “I remember in the early 90s all of the food critics in New York, LA, and San Francisco said ‘Vegas is a flash in the pan that will burn itself out. Nobody is coming to Vegas to eat well.’
Worldwide, Wolfgang Puck has six restaurants with MGM Resorts International and five with Las Vegas Sands. Kaplan said they will continue to develop locations for those operators.
In Las Vegas besides Spago at the Bellagio, the company operates Cut at the Venetian, Cucina at CityCenter, Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill at the MGM Grand, and Lupo at Mandalay Bay.
The last two are scheduled to be remodeled next year. Kaplan credited, in part, the Oakland Raiders’ 2020 relocation into the new Allegiant Stadium nearby for the Lupo remodel.
Ten years ago, the Puck group opened a Cut at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Six years later it also opened a Spago there.
“Las Vegas allowed us to get into the gaming space internationally,” Kaplan said. “We’ve looked at Macau, but we’re not quite convinced they’re ready to eat Western cuisine on the level we need to make it successful. And we’re looking at Tokyo very closely. With our licensing company, we operate in the country already.”
Wolfgang Puck does deals with hotels either through a lease, which takes longer to be profitable, or through a restaurant license and management agreement. The latter, Kaplan said, is preferable because the cost of building a restaurant in a casino can cost $1,000 a square foot. Wolfgang Puck has such a license-and-management deal with the Bellagio.
Despite the success, not everything lasts, Kaplan said. Two of Wolfgang Puck’s brands, at the Venetian and Caesars Forum Shops, closed after lengthy runs.
Kaplan joked that some people are labeled celebrity chefs after being on television once but said that success is more than just having a name and food. Service and experience are important.
“We listen and continue to remain relevant, innovate and evolve,” Kaplan said. “The real goal is to build restaurants that will stand the test of time. Staying relevant in this town is tricky. It’s tricky in Singapore, which has gotten busier with new restaurants. It will be tricky in Japan when that happens. We have to be very mindful of trends (and) make these experiences aspirational and experiential.”
