9 Las Vegas Celebrity Restaurants That Flopped

Posted on: January 9, 2025, 11:00h. 

Last updated on: January 9, 2025, 04:14h.

Corey Levitan Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

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. International Smoke by Michael Mina

MGM Grand
2019-2025 (5 years)

International Smoke is 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. It will close on Jan. 19.

The main challenge was maintaining consistent patronage. (Check out Vital Vegas’ brutally headlined story about its 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.

8. Dive by Steven Spielberg

Fashion Show Mall
1995-2000 (5 years)

The idea of the world’s most celebrated living film director shilling $10 sub sandwiches didn’t seem so odd in the 1990s.

That’s the decade when actors Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger became restaurateurs — as did food-phobic supermodels Naomi Campbell, Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer, and Christy Turlington. (In reality, none of this lot were really restaurateurs, including Spielberg. They just licensed their names to the franchises.)

The first (and only other) Dive opened in LA a year earlier. A reflection of Spielberg’s childhood fascination with Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” movie, its interior was a submarine with portholes and a periscope that simulated a sub dive every hour, with lights flashing and a captain’s voice narrating your descent.

Back then, $10 was a lot to pay for a sub, though, especially one the Los Angeles Times’ food critic said wasn’t that good.

Dive went under in 2000, a year after Planet Hollywood filed for bankruptcy and two years after the Fashion Café closed.

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.

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, if both these restaurants were screaming successes, they probably would have survived, or reopened elsewhere. 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.