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

Speaker 1 We want people to be on their phones because the more they're on their phones, the more coverage. What we're getting as a restaurant.

Speaker 1 So when you're designing a menu nowadays or you're designing a restaurant, one of the first questions is how do we, when do we, what's Instagrammable? What dish is going to be Instagrammable?

Speaker 1 Of course you want it to be good. You want the flavor to be there, presentation to be there, consistency.

Speaker 1 But you want it to be an Instagrammable dish and you want your restaurant to have multiple Instagrammable locations.

Speaker 1 I mean, if you go to Berry's and you look at the women's restroom, for example, load it up. Yeah, I mean, that's right.

Speaker 1 Number one, most Instagram.

Speaker 1 We have the most selfies out of any other really restaurant in the bathroom we could almost do an instagram page for berries of just bathroom selfies i mean everyone that goes in there loves it

Speaker 1 all right guys got chef barry and your scene here today from uh their famous steakhouse thanks for coming in guys of course thank you for having me with 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 I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 And you guys are new, right? Because circa's 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?

Speaker 1 I've been in Vegas now, what? When were you coming here? 98? I'm here in 97. Damn.
27 years.

Speaker 1 That's when I was born. Yeah.
Holy crap. You guys have seen a lot of development there.
A lot of development. Did you see Vegas kind of blowing up like the way it has?

Speaker 1 Well, man, I never thought it would get to this, but

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 In hindsight's 2020. I wish I'd go back.

Speaker 1 I remember even after that when it got really crazy in what was that, 04, 05, and people were lining up outside of like all the home builders for two, three days in a row to try to buy homes.

Speaker 1 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.
I mean,

Speaker 1 everybody was buying houses

Speaker 1 prior, right? And then 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Now you can't find shit for that price. No.

Speaker 1 Not even a condo, nothing. Yeah.
Even like houses that are like 300, 400k are like kind of regular out here, you know? Yeah. I mean, it depends on your expectations, I guess.

Speaker 1 But times have changed for sure. Oh, so would.
Man. What do you for the better? Yeah, for the better.
Well, for you guys, yeah, because you want as many people here as possible, right? Load it up.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Great location, right? We didn't. Yeah, I mean, it's what have we got? 17,000 square feet between the kitchen.
I think a little bit, a little more, eight, the most eighth.

Speaker 1 That's got to be one of the biggest steak houses in town, right?

Speaker 1 We got lucky with the with the build out on that because we're the only

Speaker 1 location in the basement at Circa. So everything at Circa is floor one, ground level, which is Fremont Street level, two and three.

Speaker 1 And we've pretty much got the whole basement to ourselves, right? Yeah, there's a bunch of back-a-house stuff going on, right? Offices, storage, et cetera.

Speaker 1 But so we kind of had 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.

Speaker 1 Again, we opened pre-COVID and the design process was about a year and a half prior to COVID or a year before COVID.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But if you walk all the way through the back, we've got 350 seats, flexible rooms. Yeah, I sat there last time, actually, in the back.
I didn't even know that was there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so that restaurant that we designed is everything that we always wanted and we didn't have in other restaurants,

Speaker 1 which really caters to larger parties and make it more private, you know? So

Speaker 1 it's working out great. No, it feels spacious, man, because other steakhouses, we don't have to name anyone, but you feel cramped, you know?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I mean, the design allows us to be a little more spread out.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 We're very fortunate with the amount of space we have to not have to...

Speaker 1 to cram them in that much, right? Except for Valentine's Day. That's my birthday.
We'll be Deuce Alley's. Did you say it's your birthday? Yeah.
Oh, yeah. It's Fast Daddy's birthday, too.
No way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you guys would be packed that day, but I was trying to do a little staycation. Damn, shit, it was like 600 a night.

Speaker 1 At where? At Venetian. Wow.
It's usually like 200, 300. But Valentine's Day, people were guests too.
Why you go to the Venetian when you can come to circa? I've actually never stayed in circa.

Speaker 1 I want to try one. It was a great room.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the guy right right there. Absolutely.
He's the one who put us in touch, right? Yeah. Richard Wilk.
Yeah, he's been great. How did you two get together?

Speaker 1 We first worked together at Nine Steakhouse back in 2010, 11. Something like that.
Very, very, I mean, he was a local.

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SRG Pros. They were so far ahead of their times.

Speaker 1 I mean, George had visions, and these guys had great visions. And

Speaker 1 what was to come with the real world, with

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And then with the nightclubs and Ghost Bar and Club Rain, and they had the Buddha Bar and Cardunos and Johnny Johnny Brennan with his theaters. The Palms was the Studio 54 Vegas ahead of its time.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Then the recording studio goes in. Man, it was just

Speaker 1 popular. It was, it was, and I, I, I don't think that could ever be repeated.
I mean, you know,

Speaker 1 every hundred years, something great comes along, right? Vegas, that was just the perfect zone for me. I mean, you know, it was amazing.
I'm very blessed to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 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 paved the way.

Speaker 1 I mean, they were thinking outside of the box, and no one else during that time, which was what, late 90s, early 2000s. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No one was really taking that risk, right? Yeah. 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.

Speaker 1 Everyone had a theme park and a water park. That was way early 90s.
Oh, like the circus circus.

Speaker 1 then, and then that left, and then the Malou 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.

Speaker 1 If you're Steve Wynn, you were on the strip. If you're the 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.

Speaker 1 They'll 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

Speaker 1 the trophy away and give first place to a lot of other spots, you know? Yeah. Now it seems like the win is the spa, right? From what I hear.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, for night, when you talk about the perfect combo of nightlife and high-end and big spending customers,

Speaker 1 there's no way you can discount the fact that the win is probably the

Speaker 1 mammoth on the strip, right? Yeah, I mean, I was there for dinner the other night and

Speaker 1 we walked by XS

Speaker 1 and I'm like, I'm saying it to my friend, Tony, I says, Can you believe this? Did we do this 20 years ago? He said, yeah, but they just, they dress a lot worse these days.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 15,000 on a Friday or Saturday night? Yeah.

Speaker 1 At least 10,000. 15, 10 to 15.
Yeah. So depending on who's performing, it could be even more.
Yeah. Like New Year's is like 25.
And that place was rocking. And it was, what's today? Today's Friday.

Speaker 1 We went Thursday night. We went Wednesday night for dinner.
Yeah. And it was rocking on a Wednesday night.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Man, you want to talk about, you want to talk about clubs? Then the days of the Palms, Club Rain was where Ninth Steakhouse was in a little setback towards the pool.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Just crazy. The club scene was just, that was like probably the, I think it made like number top 10 clubs in the country.
I could see that, man. Yeah, I wonder where Vegas ranks in nightlife.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 What are the metrics for that? Just like the

Speaker 1 yeah, I wonder how they pulled it, but I'm assuming they just pulled people out of 10 and said how, how much fun did you have or something? I don't know. People complaining.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because no one's really dancing anymore. Like my generation, we're just pulling up to the club in the bar and we're on our phones.
I'm sure you see that at the restaurant, too, right?

Speaker 1 Everybody's on their phone. People in the booth sitting on top of the chairs, pouring a vodka red bowling on their phone.
I could see that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No one enjoys their meal anymore without being on the phone. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 How about enjoying the people you're with? Forget about the food, right? Enjoy the people you're with. Like, how often do you all get to go together and have dinner, right? Put your damn phones down.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But as restaurateurs, it's almost, yeah, that's, it's almost hypocrisy, right?

Speaker 1 Because 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Of course, you want it to be good.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I mean, if you go to Berry's and you look at the women's restroom, for example, load it up. Yeah.
I mean, that's right.

Speaker 1 The number one most Instagram, we have the most selfies out of any other restaurant in the bathroom. We also do an Instagram page for Berries or so pitch for berries of just bathroom selfies.

Speaker 1 I mean, 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.

Speaker 1 And maybe because you and I are getting old. So you go out with your kids are on their phones, but as a business owner, you want that, right? Yeah.
I mean, I'm glued.

Speaker 1 Even dinner at home, I'm on my phone while I'm watching YouTube while I'm eating. Yeah.
And my girl's always pissed.

Speaker 1 You saw your phone to the bathroom, too, right? Yeah. Yeah.
So addicting, man. It's addicting.
Man.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 we saw it happen. I remember overnight.
Overnight. I remember we were running Nine Steakhouse.

Speaker 1 And in about, I would say 2010 or 11 is when people started hiring social media managers or promoting someone who was fluent in the social media world to that position in the hotel.

Speaker 1 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 is a social media manager?

Speaker 1 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 going to have to sign something.

Speaker 1 And we want all of your hourly staff to tag. these hashtags.
And we're like, you know, scratching our heads. And then from then on, there was no return.
We started hosting within six months of that.

Speaker 1 We were hosting hashtag Tuesday events. And then it changed completely, right?

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 you want to, you know, do some quid pro quo with some of these social media guys, invite them in for a dinner in exchange for a post. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's way more valuable than you're paying, you know, five, six grand for an ad in a magazine that your demographic's probably not even going to see. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, I agree because they'll tell their friends and they'll send you guys business. It's like a domino effect.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 So shout out to you guys. So yeah, 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?

Speaker 1 Because if I 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 uh or include them and then after that you'd be like i'm not going back yeah yeah so you have to you have that one shot when they come in to wow them and then then you've got a customer first of impression yeah because there's so many steakhouse options in vegas hundred it's got to be one of the most competitive uh yeah but you know when it is you're right about that but when i first started you know uh with charlie palmer steak there was there was just a handful of steakhouses they weren't really it was different restaurants and hotels or whatnot but um i mean uh uh emerald 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.

Speaker 1 So every hotel has a steakhouse. At least one.
At least one. Yeah, it's crazy.
Some of them have like two or three.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's nuts. Even the hotels off-strip, like you got Hanks in Green Valley.
It's a staple.

Speaker 1 If you're a hotelier, you're building your food and beverage program. Usually

Speaker 1 the main restaurant, the main attraction is going to be a steakhouse. That's what, I mean,

Speaker 1 for Americans and for this country, that's what fine dining and social environments require is a steakhouse. Yeah.
Talk business at a steakhouse, go to romantic dinner at a steakhouse.

Speaker 1 Steakhouse doesn't necessarily mean that, hey, we just have steaks, you have everything. We have a vegan menu at a steakhouse.
Yeah. You need everything these days, right?

Speaker 1 Where do you rank Vegas steakhouses compared to New York steakhouses? Best, best in the world. You think Vegas is?

Speaker 1 Vegas,

Speaker 1 for me, has the best restaurants in the world because

Speaker 1 mostly every chef is here, whether they're here or not. Their business is here.
Right. You know, Joe Robichon, Guise Avoir, Charlie Palmer,

Speaker 1 all the great ones are here. Michael Mina.
Yeah. I mean, they're here.
That's true. Yeah.
John George. John George, Thomas Keller.
Everybody's here. Buddy.
Yeah. You know, and they've got it.

Speaker 1 They're here. They just brought the famous New York one to Caesars, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, Peter Luke. Yeah, Peter Luke.
Yeah. Yeah.
I haven't tried it yet, but I heard that one's really good, right? Same

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 So, yeah,

Speaker 1 New York, New York was

Speaker 1 an experience, you know.

Speaker 1 I have not, we haven't been to the one out here yet.

Speaker 1 We 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 man.
I grew up in Jersey. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Vegas is a different beast, right?

Speaker 1 A lot of chefs come out there out here and think they can do what they do where they're from it just doesn't work right just doesn't work you have to know your clientele we're going 28 27 to 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 gonna 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 restaurateurs saying, hey, let's take a shot at vegas a lot of that has to do with uh it's like sports scouting right and and like so i'm a big soccer fan and soccer clubs have scouts that go around the world and and try to spot talent to bring them to the team so uh hotels have that here right they they're they're vp of food and beverage and 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 amafi coast or in london to open in vegas wow and a lot of times you see people turn it down because they don't they they feel that it's uh succumbing to and selling out, right?

Speaker 1 Succumbing to the capitalism and selling out. So they're like, nope, we're successful here in Tokyo, so we don't want to open in Vegas.
But a lot of the times it's too good.

Speaker 1 It's really an awesome opportunity for them. You 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.

Speaker 1 You guys are going to be successful. And then sometimes it's a flop.

Speaker 1 It's because exactly what Chef was saying, it's like it's a great little cute location, mom and pop join 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 Caesars Palace looking for um

Speaker 1 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 work, some don't. I mean, look at Bivet's.

Speaker 1 Bivets is a famous eatery in Chicago and it works great out here. I love Bivets, man.
That's my favorite spot for Bon Marrow. Yeah, holy crap.
They hook you up on Bon Marrow there.

Speaker 1 Do you have Bone Marrow with me or no? No. Oh, you gotta do it.
I gotta try it. Okay.
Yeah, please come on here. I'll definitely come.
Bowen Marr is one of my favorite appetizers. It's so good.

Speaker 1 I didn't know hotels were doing that. That's really interesting.
Yeah. Other than Circa,

Speaker 1 which hotel do you think has the best dining in Vegas?

Speaker 1 I think it would be hard to deny that.

Speaker 1 I would say Wynn.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, he has a good platform, but Venetian's been known. I mean, especially with their former leadership in the food and beverage department, I think that they have one of the...

Speaker 1 one of the biggest platforms, one of the most renowned platforms. They're bringing Kote too, the Korean steakhouse.
Yeah, there you go. See, so

Speaker 1 they're always on the front. And look, they just finally closed a deal with Jose Andres.
I

Speaker 1 a bizarre meet, right?

Speaker 1 The longest time was, I actually opened that place. Oh, you did? In Sahara? Living? Is that leaving the Sahara? Yeah.
I think it's. Are they staying? And it's gone already.
Is it going to be gone?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's going to open up at

Speaker 1 the Venetian. Oh, okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then you have, then, of course, you have Cosmo, Arya, that whole combo. I mean,

Speaker 1 it's hard to battle them, too. I think they're very

Speaker 1 aggressive with their plan, too. Overall, hotels serve good food.
Yeah, it's hard to pick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Arya is solid. Yeah, Carbone, John George's.

Speaker 1 Dente Fung is pretty good. The Asian spot.
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.

Speaker 1 Europe a lot,

Speaker 1 Middle East soon. And then, I mean, just going around town and trying stuff.
We go to Chicago for the restaurant show over us to stay on top of what's happening in our industry.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, there's so many popular dishes we've done all through the year. My favorite dish now is the lobster flambé.
That's my ultimate favorite dish.

Speaker 1 I think it's just an amazing dish, a seven-pound main lobster

Speaker 1 taken out of the shell, sautéed in some truffle oil with shallots and garlic, flamed with some brandy.

Speaker 1 finished with some truffle butter, splash of cream and lobster stock, fresh truffles, asparagus, potato gnocchis, all combined together, finished with a little sea salt.

Speaker 1 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 prime

Speaker 1 muscle.

Speaker 1 So we've got so many great dishes, but my favorite dish is the lobster flambe that I prepare tableside for the guests when they come in. It's quite pricey, but listen, we're in Vegas.
Treat yourself.

Speaker 1 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, it's blackjack. Oh,

Speaker 1 you gotta be on it. Wait, you gotta be on a sick run.

Speaker 1 He was betting 10K a hand. He actually usually loses like 100 or 200K, but this trip he just ran hot.
Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So what's his dining etiquette when he's playing? Does he actually stop for a full meal or does he? Yeah, I actually grabbed a meal with him at what's that? Asian restaurant in the Cosmo.

Speaker 1 Mumofoku. Mamofoku? Yeah.
And they comp his meals and stuff. So yeah, he eats.
I mean, they comp you a lot when you're gambling not much. All his shows and everything.

Speaker 1 That's the cool part about Vegas, you know. Some of the most interesting guests for us over the years have been gamblers, right? Yeah, and they're different types of gamblers.

Speaker 1 They're poker players, and poker players just take a full-on, you know, two, three-hour break and go have a have a dinner.

Speaker 1 Then you have blackjack players, and you have sports bettors at Circa, obviously, with the what Derek Stevens built with a sportsbook-wise.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 could play a role. Plus, they believe in karma.
I feel like good energy.

Speaker 1 Vinny Paz won. My friend just got inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 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 dollars in his pocket.

Speaker 1 And he's walking down the street and when it was bally's at the time and um

Speaker 1 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're gonna come and play he goes ah i didn't get too much money on me right now he says but uh

Speaker 1 he says i gotta i gotta i'll give you a line i think it was ten or fifteen thousand dollars

Speaker 1 He wins almost a million dollars

Speaker 1 that night. Yeah, with a $10,000 or $15,000 line.
He wins almost

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But you know, for like 10 or 15,000 to win a million dollars, and the guy was splitting 10s,

Speaker 1 doubling down on 10s and getting an ace, that's the luck and the horseshoe we had in his ass, right? I mean, that's crazy. Dude, that's the biggest ROI I've ever heard.
That's the biggest, dude.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Did he come in? He was in town this week. I didn't see him.
Yeah, that's nuts. Vegas is known known for legendary stories like that, right?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Compared to other steakhouses, I don't really see other steakhouses doing that.
Thank you. Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it's...

Speaker 1 You know, it's also respecting the privacy of these people when they come in.

Speaker 1 A lot of places have automatically call their whole PR and marketing department down from the hotel to start doing pictures and making them sign stuff.

Speaker 1 And for us, it's like, hey, we just, you know, let them come in, have dinner. And 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.

Speaker 1 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 early and not eat.

Speaker 1 I also think downtown is kind of more low-key, too. For sure.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 And like, you don't know who you're dealing with. You know, we got a great team.
We produce great product.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Very, very special. Yeah, not many reasons for me to go downtown, but you guys, I will make that trip for, for sure.

Speaker 1 It's, it's, it's, and you know what's simple, people don't think it's hard to get there. You just pull into Circa Valet under the hotel part.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's the luxury of being in that basement is easy access to the restaurants. Yeah.
You don't have to wait. Super easy, yeah.
Super easy. Even the self-parks are not that bad of a walk.

Speaker 1 No, it's not that bad of a walk. You know,

Speaker 1 I love it, though.

Speaker 1 They made it good. What do you guys got planned for this year? Any events or anything cool coming up?

Speaker 1 What do we have cool coming up? February.

Speaker 1 Of course, Super Bowl this weekend, Mother's Day coming up.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 let's go into the future.

Speaker 1 This year was the first year that we did Thanksgiving to go, right?

Speaker 1 And it went really well. I think we did, what, 300 dinners to go? Maybe 300.
Damn. 300.
Close to four. Close to four.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You just pull into valet. We personally take the food out to you.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 It was a collaborative effort with Circa jumped in on that a lot as well. Yeah.
Their marketing department and Derek Stevens give us the blessing to use the valet.

Speaker 1 But in this day and age, especially after COVID, with the cost of goods, it's very hard for restaurants to survive anymore.

Speaker 1 So you throw competition in there, which already exists in a city like Vegas. Now you're not only fighting for top-line revenue,

Speaker 1 you're scrambling to make your bottom line

Speaker 1 be successful. So you've got to think outside the box.
So to go, most restaurateurs...

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 Uber Eats and all the rideshare eateries, you kind of have to jump on board. So now every year,

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 The rising costs, I did want to talk about that because you see people on social media complaining about like the price of eating out, but you guys got hit hard on that, right? Super hard.

Speaker 1 So the meat industry, poultry industry got hit a couple years ago. I mean, it's, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 When you look at, sometimes I sit back and I look at a PL, a profit and 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.

Speaker 1 Wow, it's that drastic in five years. And listen, if you have anyone on the show that has a breakfast restaurant, they're dying right now because

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 maximize your bottom line. And then there's just some things that hit you just out of control, right?

Speaker 1 So if, you know, we don't have as much eggs on our menu as breakfast restaurants do, but you have to find ways to get creative. all by not sacrificing your quality.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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 fillet.

Speaker 1 Like when I saw fillets go up in the last couple of years, when we were doing our RD before opening berries, we went to, I want to say it's Prime at the Bellagio maybe in 2020, 2019 or 2020.

Speaker 1 And when I saw that bill at the end in the filet

Speaker 1 or even on the menu, I was like, this is freaking, it's to the face. Then we went to Mayfair, have a cocktail at the bar, and it wasn't a table-side cocktail.
It wasn't anything.

Speaker 1 It was just a regular, old-fashioned, and it was like 28 bucks. Damn.
Jeez. For a drink? What's going on here? Yeah.
So there's only so much you can do.

Speaker 1 I guess Pelagio and on the strip maybe can get away with that. You can't do that downtown.
No. 20 max for drinks is like my rule of preference.
Oh, yeah. I mean, right?

Speaker 1 Otherwise, you feel it's an insult, right? Otherwise, psychologically, it just doesn't feel

Speaker 1 good. So with that in mind, you've got to find ways to

Speaker 1 keep your bottom line going, you know? And it's just consistency and taking care of people and hoping more people come back because

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 Big Bang. That happens a lot.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You guys saw a new Surrey just close last week, Salt Bay's restaurant. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You know, 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 had dinner there.

Speaker 1 I think it was three of us, and the bill was like $2,500. Holy crap, right? And we had winter.
You got the gold point.

Speaker 1 No, we didn't get that.

Speaker 1 We didn't get that.

Speaker 1 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. Italy is across the street.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of action when the games are going on and whatnot, right?

Speaker 1 But I mean, it was probably a hot place to get to, and it is a hard place. The It was horrendous.
Terrible. It's terrible.
It's also not a pre-game type.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 It's not really a pre- or post-game type restaurant.

Speaker 1 And when right across the street inside

Speaker 1 MGM. MGM, yeah.
Italy, right? Italy, 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 roll steak, right?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 the whole World Cup debacle. I mean, he lost a lot of respect internationally.
I saw that. The pitch, grabbing the cup, grabbing, forcing Messi into a full.
Yeah, what was he doing? That was long.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was just

Speaker 1 a lot going on in one shot. And

Speaker 1 a lot of people took offense to that. And I mean, the rest of the world is huge on soccer.

Speaker 1 So when you disrespect the cup and the number one player in the world like that, I think that affects your brand image. I mean, soccer is a big deal.
Somebody got him on the field.

Speaker 1 So somebody's heads rolling. Yeah,

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 yeah, that was damaging to him. I never got into soccer till I met him.
Yeah. And we were in the Caribbean.
We opened up our friend's place down there, and the World Cup was out. Was it the world?

Speaker 1 What year was it? Yeah, 2018? Yep. The World Cup was here.
Have you had any soccer players come through?

Speaker 1 Yeah, who's from Croatia?

Speaker 1 Oh, we have former soccer players. Former soccer players, yeah.
Davor.

Speaker 1 Yeah, former soccer players. We haven't had any, honestly, we've had every other sport in there.

Speaker 1 Well, my dream would be whenever there's like a game in town, we've got to find the right context for it. But like there was a classical two years ago, Real Madrid, Barcelona.
Oh, nice.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was cool. That would have been sick to have some of those players.
Yeah, that would have been cool. I'll put you guys in touch with Gary Bracco.
Do you know him? He's a health.

Speaker 1 He does Dana White's health. He's his, I guess, health.
Yeah, yeah. Health advisor.

Speaker 1 He's Ronaldo's health guy. Oh, nice.
Yeah, yeah. So maybe you guys can get Ronaldo in there.
You know who

Speaker 1 Jose Batista used to play for the Toronto Blue Jays. Yeah.
He just purchased the local soccer team. What is it? It's like a triple-A soccer team here.
Oh, Crockett. And they play at Cashman.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So he actually brought a bunch of the players in.
Oh, that's nice. I don't know who those guys are.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 because that's like a big ding right now on social media I

Speaker 1 haven't seen it in our restaurant because it is a steakhouse and when you're ordering lobster flambets and desserts and all those kind of crazy dishes right um

Speaker 1 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, Dragons Layer, and his entire team,

Speaker 1 they come to Berry's 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.

Speaker 1 It was a bodybuilder from Brazil or someone from the UK.

Speaker 1 Like both Mr. Olympia's 212 and the main Mr.
Olympia came and dined right after.

Speaker 1 So there's two ways they do it. If they are dining after their show, they're splurging.

Speaker 1 But a lot of times they're in prep. So we'll get texts from people at Dragons Lair or their coaches telling us, hey, when they come in, can you guys please do this? And it's very specific instruction.

Speaker 1 Like cook a filet. Yeah.
No butter. No seed oils, right? No seed oils.
Yeah. So you see that.

Speaker 1 Then there's, 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,

Speaker 1 you know, 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 a teacher. That was really strong.

Speaker 1 Holy crap.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Are you guys on the food delivery ops too or no? We are not. Was that by choice?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I don't think

Speaker 1 there was a whole debacle with that before we we even started.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 higher end.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I don't think so because I think if somebody wants something to go, we do a lot of to-go food, believe or not. People come and pick up some stuff.
But

Speaker 1 I agree.

Speaker 1 I don't think we we see yeah i was asking because i don't see many good steakhouses on i order postmates like five times a week yeah and 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 steak 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 a hundred bucks for cold steak

Speaker 1 you know yeah i was yeah damn and then you're reheating 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.

Speaker 1 Depending how you're eating. No, that's facts.
Like when I microwave food, it doesn't hit the same ever. You know?

Speaker 1 Well, guys, where can people find both of you on social media and learn more about Barry's and Circa?

Speaker 1 So we're for the restaurant, we're at Berry's Prime. B-A-R-R-Y-S-P-R-I-M-E, right? At Berry's Prime.
We're pretty active on there.

Speaker 1 We repost a lot of the stories people post and a lot of our events and food is on there.

Speaker 1 Yeah. At Chef Berry, at Chef Barry.
Chef Berry. Cool.
We'll link it below, guys. Definitely check him out.
One of my favorite steakhouses in Vegas. Thanks for coming on, guys.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Great, great to be here, and thank you for having us. So, come and have some bone marrow.
Oh, I will. That's on my list.
Next week.

Speaker 1 All right, guys. Take it easy.
Thank you. Thank you.