How Barry’s Became the Hottest Steakhouse in Vegas | Chef Barry and Yassine Lyoubi DSH

We want people to be on their phones because the more they're on their phones, the more coverage we're getting as a restaurant. So when you're designing a menu nowadays or you're designing a restaurant, one of the first questions is how do we, what do we, what's Instagrammable? What dish is going to be Instagrammable? Of course you want it to be good, you want the flavor to be there, presentation to be there, consistency, but you want it to be an Instagrammable dish and you want your restaurant to have multiple Instagrammable locations.
I mean, if you go to Barry's and you look at the women's restroom, for example, load it up. Yeah, I mean, that's right.
Number one, most Instagram. We have the most selfies out of any other restaurant in the bathroom.
We could almost do an Instagram page for Barry's of just bathroom selfies. Yeah.
Everyone that goes in there loves it. All right, guys.
Got Chef Barry and Yasin here today from their famous steakhouse. thanks for coming in guys of course thank you for having us i always tell people uh your guy's steakhouse is one of my favorites in town if not my favorite so thank you thank you high regards from me which appreciate and you guys are new right because circa is pretty new well new in the sense of going to circa yeah yeah but you've been around for a minute we've been around for a minute how long i've been in vegas now what when we do come here 98 i moved here in 97 Circa, yeah.
Yeah, but you've been around for a minute. We've been around for a minute.
How long? I've been in Vegas now, what, when did you come here? 98? I moved here in 97. Damn.
27 years. That's when I was born.
Yeah? Holy crap. You guys have seen a lot of development.
A lot of development. Did you see Vegas kind of blowing up like the way it has? Well, man, I never thought it would get to this, but yeah, I mean, it's a pretty special time right now.
Yeah, because I feel like 97, you could have got a steal on some real estate out here. Oh, absolutely.
A steal, yeah. In hindsight, it's 2020.
I wish I could go back. I remember even after that when it got really crazy in, what was that, 2004, 2005, and people were lining up outside of all the home builders for two, three days in a row to try to buy homes.

That was right before the crash.

Damn.

But that's when we saw the biggest price hike in real estate.

Yeah.

Everybody thought they were realtors.

Yes.

I mean, yeah.

Everybody was buying houses.

Everybody.

It's prior, right?

And now all of a sudden everything starts hitting the twos and people are like, oh shoot, you

got to go buy.

People are waiting outside of KB Homes and all the builders.

I bought my first house for $89,000. Holy crap.
Back in 98, yeah. How many square feet is it? Maybe 1,600, 1,500.
That's still crazy. Yeah, it's, yeah.
That's nuts. Now you can't find shit for that person.
No. Not even a condo, nothing.
Yeah. Even like houses that are like three, 400K are like kind of regular out here, you know? Yeah.
I mean, it depends on your expectations, I guess, but times have changed for sure. Oh, I suppose.
Man. What do you- For the better.
Yeah. For the better.
Well, for you guys, yeah. Cause you want as many people here as possible, right? Load it up.
Yeah. Load it up.
Some days I come to your spot, it's fully packed. It's impressive.
You guys got a big location too. Great location, right? We didn't- Yeah.
I mean, it's, what do we got? 17,000 square feet between the kitchen a little bit a little more eight that's gotta be one of the biggest stay houses in town right we got lucky with the with the build out on that because we're the only uh only location in the basement at circa so everything at circa is floor one ground level which is fremont street level yeah two and three uh and we've pretty much got the whole basement to ourselves, right? Yeah. There's a bunch of back of house stuff going on, right? Offices, storage, et cetera.
But so we kind of had a carte blanche in terms of how we wanted to get that kitchen design, how big we wanted to make the dining room. I mean, we went full shebang.
This, again, we opened pre COVID and the design process was, was about a year and a half prior to COVID or a year before COVID. So we designed the entire restaurant based off of wanting to do a lot of group dining.
So we have, I mean, you've seen the restaurant. You guys usually sit in the front like where the DJ is.
But if you walk all the way through the back, we've got 350 seats, flexible room. Yeah.
I sat there last time actually in the back. I didn't even know that was there.
Yeah. So that restaurant that we designed is everything that we always wanted and we didn't have in other restaurants, which really caters to larger parties and make it more private, you know? Yeah.
It's worth how great. No, I feel spacious, man, because other steakhouses, we don't have to name anyone, but you feel cramped, you know? You get in there, it's loud as hell, and you can't even hear the person across the table from you.
We're pretty loud on weekends.

Yeah.

I mean, the design allows us to be a little more spread out.

The restaurant business is cutthroat as it is, and an empty seat costs a lot of money,

so everyone tries to pack them in, overbook reservation slots, stuff.

We're very fortunate with the amount of space we have to not have to cram them in that much, except for Valentine's Day.

That's my birthday.

It will be Deuce Alley's. Did you say it's your birthday? Yeah.
Oh, yeah? It's my fast daddy's birthday too. No way.
Yeah. Wow.
I've never met another person born on Valentine's Day. I haven't either.
Pretty cool. Yeah, it's a rare thing, man.
Yeah, you guys would be packed that day, but I was trying to do a little staycation. Damn, shit was like 600 a night.
At where? At Venetian. Wow.
It's usually like 200, 300, but Valentine's Day, people are guests too. Why go to the Venetian when you can come to Circa? I've actually never stayed in Circa.
I want to try it. It was a great room.
Yeah? Yeah, they're really comfortable. Okay.
Yeah, definitely. I want to have some of my networking events there too.
I've been talking to Richard. Shout out to Richard.
Yeah. Yeah, that's the guy right there.
Absolutely. He's the one who put us in touch, right? Yeah.
Richard Wilk. Yeah great how did you two get together we uh we first worked together at uh nine steakhouse back in uh 2010 11 something yeah very very i mean he was a local all right shout out to today's sponsor specialized navigating the professional job search is hard you know the perfect job there.
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I mean, George had visions and these guys had great visions. And what was to come with the real world, with, you know, the first filming of the real world at the Palms when we opened.
I mean, that was the hurricane, right? That just put us on the map. And then with the nightclubs and Ghost Bar and Club Rain, and they had the Buddha Bar and Cardunios and Johnny Brennan with his theaters, the Palms was the Studio 54 Vegas ahead of its time.
I mean, you had everybody coming in. Them owning the Sacramento Kings at the time.
Right. I mean, it was just a hotspot, a celebrity haven for athletes, actors, musicians, everything.

Then the recording studio goes in.

Man, it was just perfect.

It was popping.

It was, it was, and I, I don't think that could ever be repeated.

I mean, you know, every hundred years, something great comes along, right?

Vegas, that was just the perfect storm for me.

I mean, you know, it was amazing.

I'm very blessed to be a part of it.

I always see the suite there with the basketball, the half court. Yeah.
Yeah. That looks so fun.
Chris Brown plays there. That was pretty, that was, that was a lot of fun.
Yeah. They, they paved the way.
I mean, they were thinking outside of the box and no one else during that time, which was what, late nineties, early two thousands. Yeah.
No one, no one was really taking that risk. Right.
Vegas was a little more traditional. They were catering to the Vegas went through that phase where they were trying to cater to families.
Right. Yeah.
Everyone had a theme park and a water park. That was way early nine.
I like the circus circus. And then, and then that left.
And then, and then the Maloof family paved the way with the nightlife and restaurant portion. And then what happened is everyone else picked up.
And the thing is you have an advantage. If you're Steve Wynn, you were on the strip.
If you're a Cosmo, you're on the strip, you're in the hub. So now you have the formula that someone else tried and worked out for them ready you apply it you spend more for bigger name djs and it's done you know yeah i think that was i wouldn't say the downfall of the palms but i would say that was what took the uh the uh the trophy away and give first place to a lot of other spots you know yeah now it seems like the win is the spot right from what i hear yeah i mean for night when you when you talk about the perfect combo of nightlife and high-end and big spending customers there's no way you can discount the fact that the wind is probably the uh the the mammoth on the strip right yeah i mean i was there for dinner the other night and uh we we walked by excess and i'm like i'm saying to my friend tony i says can we do this 20 years ago? He said, yeah, but they just, they dress a lot worse these days.
It's like, you should see the way these girls are dressed and the way these guys are dressed. It's just like, man, where did the time go? You know? They're practically naked these days when they show up there.
Naked, clothes ain't matching. It's just a disaster.
But listen, I heard you can't even, what is the table there? 15,000 on a Friday or Saturday night? Yeah. At a table like 10 to 15.
Yeah. So depending on who's performing, it could be even more.
Yeah. Like New Year's is like 25.
And then what place was rocking? And it was, what's today? Today's Friday. We went Thursday night.
We went Wednesday night for dinner. Yeah.
And it was rocking on a Wednesday night? Excellent. Wow.
I didn't want to go. I didn't go in.
I'm not a big club guy, man.

People always like, because I say I live in Vegas, they assume like I go out and stuff.

I don't even drink, you know?

Man, you want to talk about clubs.

Then the days of the Palms, Club Rain was where 9th State Coast was in a little setback towards the pool.

I remember the line would be to the end of Brennan Theaters.

Totally.

That's like 300, 400 yards. People waiting to get in line.
No shot of them even getting in. Damn.
I mean, it was crazy. Just crazy.
The club scene was just, that was like probably, I think it made like top 10 clubs in the country. I could see that, man.
Yeah, I wonder where Vegas ranks in nightlife. I know LA just got ranked the worst in nightlife.
Did it? Yeah. As of recent? It was like a few days ago, yeah.
Wow. Because people just go on their phones when they get inside the club.
What are the metrics for that? Yeah, I wonder how they polled it, but I'm assuming they just polled people out of 10 and said, how much fun did you have or something? I don't know. People complaining.
Yeah. Because no one's really dancing anymore.
Like my generation, we're just pulling up to the club and the bar and we're on our phones. I'm sure you see that at the restaurant too, right? Everybody's on their phones.
People in a booth sitting on top of the chairs pouring a vodka Red Bull and on their phone. I could see that.
Yeah. No one enjoys their meal anymore without being on the phone.
It's crazy. How about enjoying the people you're with? Forget about the food, right? Enjoy the people you're with.
Like how often you all get to go together and have dinner, right? Put mean, put your damn phones down. What's going on? You know, we say that, right.
We say that as customers when we go out or like we don't want everyone to be on the phone. But as as restauranteurs, it's almost that's it's almost hypocrisy.
Right. Because we want people to be on their phones because the more they're on the phones, the more coverage we're getting as a restaurant.
So when you're designing a menu nowadays or you're designing a restaurant, one of the first questions is, what's Instagrammable? What dish is going to be Instagramable? Of course, you want it to be good. You want the flavor to be there, presentation to be there, consistency.
But you want it to be an Instagrammable dish. And you want your restaurant to have multiple Instagrammable locations.
I mean, if you go to Barry's and you look at the women's restroom, for example, load it up. Yeah, I mean, that's right.
Number one, most Instagram. We have the most selfies out of any other restaurant in the bathroom.
Wow. We almost do an Instagram page for Barry's or selfie page for Barry's of just bathroom selfies.
Yeah. Everyone that goes in there loves it, right? With the pink marble.
And then you have our garden room with the tree and then you have the DJ area. So, yeah, we criticize it as guests and maybe because you and I are getting old.
Yeah. You go out with each kids are on their phones, but you, as a business owner, you want that, right? Yeah.
I mean, I'm glued even dinner at home. I'm on my phone while I'm, I'm watching YouTube while I'm eating and my girls always pissed, but you phone to the bathroom too, right? Yeah.
So addicting, man. It's addicting, man.
Um, how much did like food influencers and social media change the business for you guys? Like people like Keith Lee and all those food influencers night and day over the years. And we, you know, we saw it happen.
I remember overnight, overnight, I remember we were, we were running nine steakhouse and in about, I would say 2010 or 11, uh, is when people started hiring social media managers or promoting someone who was, you know, fluent in the social media world to that position in the hotel. And we have a meeting with our entire staff and the property marketing VP was like, Hey, you got to meet our social media manager.
We're like, what the heck's a social media manager? And she comes in and she makes us all sign up on Twitter at the time and Instagram, create a page. And okay, now you guys are gonna have to sign something.
And we want all of your hourly staff to tag these hashtags. And we're, like, scratching our heads.
And then from then on, there was no return. We started hosting.
Within six months of that, we were hosting hashtag Tuesday events. And then it changed completely, right? Now it's to the point where most restaurants or a lot of restaurants, including us, don't even have a print marketing budget anymore.
It's all a social marketing budget. Wow.
Yeah. I mean, you want to do some quid pro quo with some of these social media guys, invite them in for dinner in exchange for a post.
Yeah. That's way more valuable than you're paying five, six grand for an ad in a magazine that your demographic's probably not even going to see.
Yeah. You know? No, I agree.
Because they'll tell their friends and they'll send you guys business. It's like a domino effect.
Yeah. I mean, that's what happened with me, man.
Richard brought me in once he paid for my meal and then I've sent you guys like probably hundreds of people at this point. Thank you.
Yeah. So shout out to you guys.
So there's that portion, right? Which is to make sure you get the guys in to hashtag it, but then you only have one shot to impress them, right? Cause if you come in and you didn't have a good dinner, maybe you would have done, hey, you know, Richard, for a favor, I'm going to hashtag these guys or include them. And then after that, you'd be like, I'm not going back.
Yeah. Yeah.
So you have that one shot when they come in to wow them. And then you've got a customer.
First impression, yeah. Because there's so many steakhouse options in Vegas.
100. It's got to be one of the most competitive.
Yeah, but you know, it is. You're right about that.
But when I first started, you know, with Charlie Palmer Steak, there was just a handful of steakhouses. They weren't really, it was different restaurants and hotels and whatnot.
But I mean, Emeril had his steakhouse and Charlie came in and then Mandalay Bay followed up with another steakhouse. And it just seemed like everybody's doing steakhouses throughout the years.
So every hotel has a steakhouse. At least one.
At least one. Yeah, it's crazy.
Some of them have like two or three. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's nuts. Even though hotels off strip, like you got Hanks and Green Valley.
It's a staple. If you're a hotelier, you're building your food and beverage program.
Usually the main restaurant, the main attraction is going to be a steakhouse. Yeah.
That's what, I mean, for, for, for Americans and for this country, that's what fine dining and social environments require is a steakhouse. Yeah.
Yeah. Talk business at a steakhouse, go to romantic dinner at a steakhouse.
Steakhouse doesn't necessarily mean that, Hey, we just have steaks. You have everything.
We have a vegan menu at a steakhouse. Yeah.
Yeah. You these days, right? Where do you rank Vegas Steakhouses compared to New York Steakhouses? The best.
The best in the world. You think Vegas is the best? Vegas for me has the best restaurants in the world because mostly every chef is here.
Whether they're here or not, their business is here. Right.
Here are Joe Robichon, Guy Savoy, Charlie Palmer, all the great ones are here. Michael Mina.
Yeah. I mean, they're here.
That's true. John George.
John George, Thomas Keller. Everybody's here, buddy.
Yeah. You know, he's got their hair.
They just brought the famous New York one to Caesars, right? Peter Lucas. Yes, Peter Lucas.
Yeah. Yeah, I haven't tried it yet, but I heard that one's really good, right? Same.
In New York. Have you had it in New York? Yeah, sure.
How was it? Well, New York's off the charts. That's a staple.
I used to go there when you couldn't use a credit card. You'd have a Peter Luger credit card or it was cash.
Oh, wow. But the times have changed.
You know what I'm saying? So, yeah. New York was an experience, you know? We haven't been to the one out here yet.
We've got a few restaurants that are on the list. Yeah.
Sometimes it's hard to replicate because some of the pizza spots come out here. It doesn't hit the same amount.
I grew up in Jersey. Yeah.
And Vegas is a different beast, right? A lot of chefs come out here and think they can do what they do, where they're from. It just doesn't work.
Right. It just doesn't work.
You have to know your clientele. We're going 28, 27 and 28 years strong.
We know our clientele well. We know what they want.
We know how to, we know how to produce. That's, that's what we do.
Great. Yeah.
You know, do you guys, oh God. No, I was going to say a lot of that has to do when you see these restaurants that are successful in other locations, including overseas.
A lot of that doesn't have to do with the actual owners or restauranteurs saying, hey, let's take a shot at Vegas. A lot of that has to do with, it's like sports scouting, right? And like, I'm a big soccer fan and soccer clubs have scouts that go around the world and try to spot talent to bring them to the team.
So hotels have that here, right? Their VP of food and beverage and their departments go around the world and try restaurants and try to convince people who own a restaurant in, you know, I don't know, the Amalfi coast or in London to open in Vegas. Wow.
And a lot of times you see people turn it down because they, they, they feel that it's, uh, succumbing to, uh, and selling out. Right.
So yeah, to the capitalism and selling out. So they're like, Nope, we're successful, we're successful here in Tokyo, so we don't want to open in Vegas.
But a lot of times it's too good. It's really an awesome opportunity for them.
Yeah. They have a couple of VPs in nice suits that dine at your little restaurant in New York and convince you that, hey, we can open one in Caesars or at MGM.
You guys are going to be successful. And then sometimes it's a flop because exactly what Chef was saying, it's like, it's a great little cute location.
Mom and pop joint in Brooklyn that's been successful for years, but it's not necessarily going to work when you have the masses that are walking through Caesar's palace looking for, um, looking for the best deal. Right.
Yeah. And a cheap bite.
So that's kind of what happens with these restaurants that come out. Some works, some don't.
I mean, look at Bavette's. Bavette's is a famous eatery in Chicago,

and it works great out here.

I love Bavette's, man.

That's my favorite spot for bone marrow.

Yeah.

Holy crap.

They hook you up on bone marrow there.

You have bone marrow with me or no?

No.

Oh, you got to do it.

I got to try it.

Okay.

Yeah, please, come on.

I'll definitely cut it.

Bone marrow is one of my favorite appetizers.

It's so good.

I didn't know hotels were doing that.

That's really interesting.

Yeah. Other than Circa, which hotel do you think has the best dining in vegas i think it would be hard to deny that you have uh i would i would say when yeah well he has a good platform but venetians been known i mean especially with their former leadership in the food and beverage department i think that they have one of the one of the biggest platforms one of the most renowned platforms they're bringing kote to the korean steakhouse yeah there you go see so they're always on the front and look they just uh they finally closed the deal with jose andres i uh that a bizarre meet right i saw that yeah longest time was i actually opened that place oh you did it's the hard even back in is that leaving the sahara yeah i think it's are they staying and it's gone already or is it supposed to be gone yeah it's gonna open up at um at the venetian okay yeah uh and then you have then of course you have cosmo aria that whole combo i mean it's hard to it's hard to battle them too i think they're very uh very aggressive with their their plan too overall hotels serve good for it yeah it's hard to pick their yeah aria's solid carbone john george's uh dente fung is pretty good the asian spot yeah yeah i'm sure you guys are doing a lot of r&d on the side right always i mean here in vegas and then traveling mostly you know to get ideas yeah uh europe a lot um middle east soon and then i mean just going around town and trying stuff should we go to chicago for the the restaurant show review to stay on top of what's happening in our industry.
Chicago and New York are great spots. I love it.
What's your guys' most popular dish and what's the story behind the creation of it? How did it come about? Well, I mean, there's so many popular dishes we've done all through the year. My favorite dish now is the lobster flambe.
That's my ultimate favorite dish. I think it's just an amazing dish.
A seven pound Maine lobster taken out of the shell, sauteed in some truffle oil with shallots and garlic, flamed with some brandy, finished with some truffle butter, a splash of cream and lobster stock, fresh truffles, asparagus, potato gnocchis, all combined together. Finished with a little sea salt.
It's my favorite dish. The lamb chops, parmesan pine nut crust is one of our staple dishes.
Bone marrow flies out of the restaurant, right? Damn, I didn't know that. Yeah.
And our rib cap, our primal cap is my alice muscle. So we've got so many great dishes, but my favorite dish is the lobster flambe that I prepare table side for the guests when they come in.
It's quite pricey, but listen, we're in Vegas. Treat yourself.
Don't cheat yourself. Yeah.
You make some money, hit the restaurant after, you know? My boy just made 500K last week. What, Parley? Cosmo, no, Blackjack.
Oh, you got to be on a sick run. He was betting 10K a hand.
He actually usually loses like 100 or 200K, but this trip he just ran hot. Really? Yeah.
so what's his dining etiquette when he's playing does he actually stop for a full meal or yeah i actually grabbed a meal with them at uh what's that asian restaurant in the cosmo uh momofoku yeah um and they comp his meals and stuff so yeah he eats i mean they comp you a lot when you're gambling that much all his shows and everything that's the cool the cool part about Vegas. Some of the most interesting guests for us over the years have been gamblers, right? Yeah.
They're different types of gamblers. They're poker players and poker players just take a full on two, three hour break and go have a dinner.
Then you have blackjack players and you have sports bettors at Circa, obviously with what Derek Stevens built with sports book wise. But the most interesting is picking these guys' brains when they eat.
Some of them want to talk. Some of them are just like, Hey, I'm here at the bar.
I want to grab a bite and go. Right.
But they're also some of the best tippers is, you know, gamblers. And I don't know if that has to do with the fact that they just won or not, but I think it's just part of their, yeah.
Could play a role. Plus they believe in karma.
I feel like, right. Good energy.
Vinny Paz won. My friend just got inducted into the boxing hall of fame.
Yeah. Right? Good energy.
Yeah. Vinny Paz won, my friend,

just got inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Yeah.

And he was in Vegas after,

Roy Jones had just beaten him.

There's a big story behind it.

He was in Vegas.

I think he dropped like $100,000 and he had a couple of dollars in his pocket

and he's walking down the street

when it was Bally's at the time.

And I don't know,

casino host sees him walking. He says, hey, Vinny.
He says, what's happened? He goes, hey, what's up? He goes, you going to come and play? He goes, ah, I didn't get too much money on me right now. He says, but he says, I got to, I'll give you a line.
I think it was $10,000 or $15,000. He wins almost a million dollars.
What? That night, yeah, with a $10,000 or $15,000 line. Holy crap.
Marty Kunkel was the dealer, and I met Marty throughout the years, and he comes in with him every once in a while. They still talk to each other.
But you know, for like $10,000 or $15,000 to win a million dollars, and a guy was splitting tens, doubling down on tens and getting an ace, that's the luck and the horseshoe he had in his ass, right? I mean, that's crazy. Dude, that's the biggest ROI I've ever heard.
That's a true story. Yeah, because usually to win a million, you need to start with six figures at least.
10 to 15. Might even have been 12.
I don't know what the exact number is. Oh my gosh.
Did he come in? He was in town this week. I didn't see him.
Yeah, that's nuts. Vegas is known for legendary stories like that, right? I'm sure a lot of guys celebrate historic nights at your spot, right? Yeah.
i've seen you guys cook for a lot of famous people after fights and stuff a lot of famous fighters singers everybody comes in yeah it's really cool we're blessed that's impressive you guys really crush it i think on the word of mouth and the marketing aspect thank you compared to other steakhouses i don't really see other steakhouses doing that thank you right yeah i mean it's uh you know it's also respecting the privacy of these people when they come in a lot of places have uh automatically call their whole pr and marketing department down from the hotel to start doing pictures and making them sign stuff and for us it's like hey we just you know let them let them come in have dinner and if if they're in the mood you know we'll do a picture and if they're not in the mood we're like hey here's my card here's my. Here's my number.
Right. The owners.
And then that just makes them come back, you know?

I love it.

I love coming back like that.

Yeah.

I tell them sign it or you're not eating.

I also think downtown is kind of more low key too.

For sure.

You know?

It's, you know, a lot of people thought when we were going downtown, they're like, you

guys ain't going to make it downtown.

There's nothing happening there.

It's a dead, it's a dead horse, you know?

Right.

And I'm like, you don't know who you're dealing with.

You know, we got a great team.

We produce great product.

Punch Design did our restaurant.

Jem did our kitchen.

I mean, we know how to, we know how to,

people just have to come.

We know how to put it together, you know?

And it's this very special place.

Very, very special.

Yeah, not many reasons for me to go downtown,

but you guys, I will make that trip for, for sure. It's, it's, it's, and you know what? People don't think it's hard to get there.
You just pull into Circa Valley under the hotel part. You pull right in.
You're less than what? 150 feet from the escalator to go down. You can take an elevator or an escalator down.
That's the luxury of being in that basement is easy access to the restaurant. Yeah.
You don't have to wait. Super easy.
Super easy. Even the self park's not that bad of a walk.
No, it's not that bad of a walk. I love it though.
They made it good. What do you guys got planned for this year? Any events or anything cool coming up? What do we have cool coming up? February.
Of course, Super Bowl this weekend, Mother's Day coming up. Well, let's go into the future.
This year was the first year that we did Thanksgiving to go, right? And it went really well. I think we did, what, 300 dinners to go? Maybe 300.
Damn. Close to four.
Close to four. And, you know, the best way to learn is by doing something and seeing what the mistakes are and how you can get better.
And next year, this year is going to be much, much better. You know, we're going to do some different sides.
The price will be right around the same. It's going to be bigger and better and easier.
I mean, first of all, it's very, very easy. You just pull into valet.
We personally take the food out to you. But we're going to make that.
That's for me. I'm excited for that in Thanksgiving time.
It's going to be pretty cool that's such a smart idea who came up with that thanksgiving it was a collaborative effort with uh circa uh jumped in on that a lot as well yeah their marketing department and derrick stevens give us the blessing to use the valet but uh in this day and age especially after covid with with the cost of goods yeah it's very hard for restaurants to survive anymore so you throw competition in there which already exists in a city like Vegas. Now you're not only fighting for top line revenue, you're scrambling to make your bottom line, you know, be successful.
So you've got to think outside the box. So to-go, most restaurateurs prior to COVID didn't like to do to-go orders because you feel as a chef or as a restaurateur that your best product is served right there at the restaurant.
Most people take it to-go and it's in a box, it's not going to be a good representation of your restaurant. But after COVID and everyone was doing to-go orders and you have the advent of all of the Uber Eats and all the rideshare eateries, you kind of have to jump on board.
So now every year, we close the year planning for the next year to think, how are we going to make the bottom line larger by not sacrificing anything for the guests and then doing to-go orders the way we did Thanksgiving is definitely a successful way to do it. Yeah.
That's going to be cool to see this year, how that turns out the rising costs. I did want to talk about that.
Cause, um, you see people on social media complaining about like price of eating out, but you guys hit hard on that right super hard so the meat industry poultry industry got hit a couple years ago i mean it's it's great when you look at sometimes i sit back and i look at a pnl profit loss statement from a restaurant we were running maybe five six years ago and you compare it to today it's almost like you're in a different country in a different era wow it's that drastic five years in five years? And listen, if you have anyone on the show that has a breakfast restaurant, they're dying right now because they're dying. Eggs.
Oh. Eggs are, it's just nuts.
I just paid $14 for a dozen of organic eggs. I couldn't believe it.
Wow. That's crazy.
Yeah. So you're constantly having to think of creative ways to, um, to, to maximize your bottom line.
And then there's just some things that hit you just out of control. Right.
So if, you know, we don't have as much, uh, eggs on our, on our menu as breakfast restaurants do, but you have to find ways to get creative all by not sacrificing your quality. So, I mean, the easy answer is you raise your prices, right? But how much can you keep raising your prices in a restaurant business? There's a point where you raise your prices and you're going to lose revenue because people are going to be like, dude, I'm not paying $100 for a filet.
When I saw filets go up in the last couple of years, when we were doing our R&D before opening berries, we went to, I want to say it's prime at the Bellagio maybe in 2020, 2019 or 2020. And when I saw that bill at the end and the filet or even on the menu, I was like, this is freaking, it's a face.
Then we went to Mayfair, have a cocktail at the bar, and it wasn't a table-side cocktail. It wasn't anything.

It was... the end and the filet uh or even on the menu i was like this is freaking it's a face then we went to mayfair have a cocktail at the bar and it wasn't a table side cocktail it wasn't anything it was just a regular old-fashioned and it was like 28 bucks damn for a drink what's going on here yeah so there's only so much you can do i guess bellagio and on strip maybe you can get away with that you can't do that downtown no so 20 max for drinks is like my rule oh yeah i mean right otherwise you feel it's an insult, right? Otherwise, psychologically, it just doesn't feel good.
So with that in mind, you've got to find ways to keep your bottom line going, you know? And it's just consistency and taking care of people and hoping more people come back because you don't want to sacrifice on quality. Some places do, and I guarantee you, you'll stop going to places where you go back and you're like, that dish didn't taste the same.
It's the same price as it was, but it didn't taste the same. You're not going back.
No, that's happened to me so many times actually in Vegas. That was a lot.
Yeah. You guys saw New Siret just closed last week, Salt Bae's restaurant.
Yeah. I remember their first week it opened.
I think it was too expensive personally. I mean, I know he has the brand and everything, so he could probably charge more, but I think it was too much more.
Well, people will try it like i think i agree people will try it the first time and then they see the bill at the end like we we had dinner there i think it was three of us and the bill was like twenty five hundred dollars holy crap right and we didn't we had you got the gold no we didn't get we didn't even get that we tried a lot of things you know and he came out and said hello and whatnot. But it was an expensive restaurant.
And I mean, you know, you're next to T-Mobile. Yeah.
Eataly is across the street. There's a lot of action when the games are going on and whatnot, right? But I mean, it was probably a hard place to get to.
And it is a hard place. The parking was horrendous.
Parking was terrible. It's also not a pregame.
That's why location is such a key factor in opening a restaurant. Because, I mean, you can argue that that's a great location.
I would argue that it's not for that concept, right? It's not really a pre- or post-game type restaurant. And when right across the street inside MGM.
MGM, yeah. Eataly, right? Eataly, yeah.
That's a pre-post-game type of place, right? You're not going to sit down and have a $5,000 dinner in a Turkish roast steak, right? I think there's so many things with that. First of all, shout out to all the guys that worked there during the opening, that opened it.
We know the GM, the former GM. And it's always sad to see a restaurant go down, but you can kind of see the writing on the wall.
And it also didn't help the whole World Cup debacle. I mean, he lost a lot of respect internationally i saw that yeah the pitch yeah grabbing the cup grabbing forcing messy into a full yeah what was he doing that was long yeah that was just a lot of uh a lot going on in one shot and a lot of people a lot of people took offense to that yeah and i mean the rest of the world is huge on soccer so when you disrespect the the cup and and the number one player in the world like that i think that affects your brand brand image.
I mean, soccer is the biggest. Somebody got him on the field.
So somebody's head's rolling. Yeah.
Someone, someone got fired in that situation. But no, you're right.
Soccer is probably the biggest sport in the world, right? In terms of viewership. So yeah, that was damaging to him.
I never got into soccer until I met him. Yeah.
And we were in the Caribbean and we opened up our friend's place down there and the World Cup was out. Was it the World Cup? Yeah, 2018.
Yeah. The World Cup was here.
Have you had like any soccer players come through? Yeah. Who's from Croatia? Oh, we have former soccer players.
Former soccer players. Yeah.
Davor. Yeah, former soccer players.
We haven't had any, honestly, we've had every other sport in there. Well.
My dream would be whenever there's like a game in town yeah we've got to find the right context for it but like there was a classical uh two years ago real madrid barcelona oh nice yeah that was that would have been sick to have uh some of those players yeah that would have been cool i'll put you guys in touch with gary brecca do you know him he's a health name he does dana white's health he's his uh like a health yeah yeah health advisor players on his roster he's uh ronaldo's health guy oh nice Yeah. Yeah.
So maybe you guys can get Ronaldo in there. You know who Jose Bautista, he used to play for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Yeah. He just purchased the local soccer team.
What is it? It's like a AAA soccer team here. And they play at Cashman.
Yeah. Yeah.
So he actually brought a bunch of the players in. Oh, that's cool.
I don't know who those guys are, you know. Yeah, I can't name any AAA players personally.
Have you guys seen a trend health-wise? People care more about their health at the restaurant? Because that's like a big thing right now on social media. I haven't seen it in our restaurant because it is a steakhouse, and when you're ordering lobster flambés and desserts and all those kind of crazy dishes, right? I really haven't seen it.
I haven't. Have you? I mean, there are some people that...
We do on a different scale. Here's how it works.
So a lot of the guy, Flex Lewis, who was Dragon's Lair and his entire team, they come to Berries religiously. And they're great.
And they send us tons of business. And the way it works is they'll make a reservation for someone who's a bodybuilder from Brazil or someone from the UK.
Like both Mr. Olympia's 212 and main Mr.
Olympia came and dined right after. So there's two ways they do it.
If they are dining after their show, they're splurging. But a lot of times they're in prep.
So we'll get texts from people at Dragons Air or their coaches telling us, hey, when they come in, can you guys please do this? And it's very specific instruction. Right.
Cook a filet, no butter. No seed oils, right? No seed oils.
Yeah. So you see that.
Then there's the vegan trend that picked up and became a way of life, which is why we actually have on our regular dinner menu, we have an entire vegan section because people tend to eat less um, you know, uh, less red meat and they want vegan. So yeah, there is a trend in that manner.
Wow. I didn't know the vegan trend was that strong.
So you got to make it really strong. Holy crap.
But also the hospitality factor kicked in for us because in the past, if you're a vegan or you have to eat gluten-free or you have a dietary restriction and you're eating with a group of six, you kind of stand out. Right.
And it's not the best way to make a guest feel. So let's say you're the vegan and it's us three dining, you have to ask for a separate menu or they're going to talk to the chef for you.
So if you include those items on the regular menu, it makes them feel included into the dining experience, which for us is what hospitality is about. That makes sense.
Are you guys on the food delivery ops too or no? We are not. Was that by choice? Yeah.
And I don't think, there was a whole debacle with that before we even started. It was during COVID, the rates of Uber Eats and everyone jumped in with all of the local restaurants in terms of how that works.
But I don't think that there's going to be much of a demand for higher end. We don't foresee anyone going on there and ordering $300 worth of steak on Uber Eats.
I could be wrong. I mean, maybe that's something we need to explore.
I don't think so because I think if somebody wants something to go, we do, we do a lot of to go food, believe it or not. People come on pickups, but I, I agree.
I don't, I don't, I don't think we should. Yeah.
I was asking cause I don't see many good steakhouses on, I order Postmates like five times a week and I i never see any like nice steakhouses on there would you order from a fine dining steakhouse if you wanted a filet mignon i would try it but it probably wouldn't taste as good to be honest no because stay traveling yeah steak you gotta eat hot yeah so that's a good point it'd have to be quick delivery for it to be worth it because if it gets there cold then paying 100 bucks for cold steak you know yeah it was damn and then you So if you're, you know, if you're, if you're keen on your temperature of your steak, you're changing that completely. Yeah.
Depending on how you're eating. No, that's facts.
Like when I microwave food, it doesn't hit the same ever, you know? Um, well guys, where can people find both of you on, uh, social media and, uh, learn more about Barry's and Circa? So we're, uh, for the restaurant, we're at Barry's Prime, B-A-R-R-Y-S-P-R-I-M-E, right? At Barry's Prime. We're pretty active on there.
We repost a lot of the stories people post and a lot of our events and food is on there. Yeah.
At Chef Barry. At Chef Barry.
Chef Barry. Cool.
We'll link it below, guys. Definitely check them out.
One of my favorite steakhouses in Vegas. Thanks for coming on, guys.
Thanks for having me. Great to thank you for having us come and have some bone marrow oh i will that's on my list next week all right guys take it easy thank you thank you