Elizabeth Blau, the founder and CEO of restaurant development company Blau + Associates in Las Vegas, is credited with helping the city become a world-class dining destination. A graduate of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, she began her career in New York with legendary restaurateur Sirio Maccioni of Le Cirque, and worked with him to expand the brand to Las Vegas. After opening Le Cirque at the Bellagio, Blau went on to develop and promote hundreds of restaurants as an executive with Mirage Resorts and the Wynn Las Vegas. She founded Blau & Associates in 2002, and opened a series of successful restaurants across the city. In 2012, Blau and her husband, chef Kim Canteenwalla, opened their first solo independent venture, Honey Salt. Blau has appeared in several TV shows, including as a judge on Food Network’s Iron Chef America, and has won multiple business and culinary awards. In February 2020, Blau launched and co-founded the Women’s Hospitality Initiative, a nonprofit seeking to develop and implement programs that help women achieve leadership positions in the industry. In addition, in response to the pandemic, she co-founded hunger relief organization Delivering with Dignity, which provides thousands of meals from local restaurant partners each week to people in need.
SFA News Daily recently spoke with Blau about the Las Vegas restaurant landscape and her charitable initiatives ahead of the Winter Fancy Food Show, which is scheduled for Feb. 6-8 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
How has the Las Vegas restaurant community rebounded from the pandemic?
I think the city as a whole has rebounded incredibly well. The Strip has been very busy. I think our COVID numbers and our restrictions have definitely been a lot milder than say California or New York, and we’ve had football games with 60,000 people, we’ve had hockey games, and the Grammys are moving here. Our casinos are having record gaming numbers. Overall, it paints a rosy picture, but the reality behind those numbers is that there are many small restaurants off the Strip that are facing dramatic labor shortages, dramatic increases in prices for consumer products, and supply chain issues. So there are record numbers for some of the larger Strip restaurants and even some of the off-Strip restaurants, but we have to be very cognizant that there are still a lot of people in our restaurant community that are not weathering the storm, or have not weathered the storm, so it's bittersweet.
One of the major issues that faces our community, from students in school all the way up to our homebound elderly, is food insecurity. Our restaurant Honey Salt and three other local restaurants started an innovative nonprofit called Delivering With Dignity, and to date, we’ve delivered over half a million meals directly to the doorsteps of those most vulnerable in the community. We work with over 50 nonprofit organizations to identify those who are most at risk. To date, we've saved over 35 restaurant jobs by doing this public-private partnership, so even when our industry is as hardest hit, you still have these shining stories of the community working together. I think it’s apropos of the Fancy Food Show coming to town. It’s wonderful to be able to celebrate the best in cuisine, while still having the humility of understanding that this pandemic has only exasperated the problem of hunger in America.
How has your company’s work evolved during the past two years?
Our consulting business involves a lot of international travel and a lot of international projects, and most of those were closed down in the beginning of the pandemic. So, we focused a lot more on our restaurant operations, but it seems that we are a resilient country and planet, and business is really looking up. People are developing again, and so we’ve been very, very busy over the last two years.
Can you describe the goals of the Women’s Hospitality Initiative, and some of the work you are doing?
We launched literally weeks before the pandemic. A woman named Joanna James produced this wonderful documentary called A Fine Line, which highlights a major issue in the hospitality community — that more than 50 percent of people that are attending either culinary schools or hospitality schools are women, and yet less than 7 percent of those women will ever go on to be either a head chef, executive chef, or restaurant owner. That number is incredibly staggering. That was really the impetus. Rather than starting an international women's initiative, or even a national initiative, we thought if we could focus on the hospitality community right here in Las Vegas and get casinos to work together, and get some of the major vendors to work together, and some of the major suppliers to work together, that we could focus on the challenges of advancement for women. Our decision was to focus on education, and so we were able to launch a first ever of its kind executive leadership class for women — it’s called “From the Classroom to the Boardroom: Leadership for Women in Hospitality.” We started as a joint venture between the Culinary Institute of America and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. They launched the course, and now San Diego State and Florida International have also joined, and are all also teaching the class. It’s a seminar that’s partly led by the professor, and partly student-led, and each class has a successful woman leader in the industry as a guest speaker. The mission is to accelerate the development and advancement of women leaders in the restaurant industry.
What have been some of the takeaways from working on that initiative?
Women are falling behind not just coming out of school, but at entry-level jobs. We've always talked about the glass ceiling, and McKinsey and the Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation did a fascinating study where they identified this phenomenon called a “broken rung,” like a rung on a ladder. They find that women are falling behind in their first entry-level job to a management position. Forget about ever having to worry about a glass ceiling; if you’re always behind your male peers, then there’s a problem. So, with this basic focus on giving women leadership tools, philosophical tools, and all the things that are taught in this class, we’re hoping that we can start to move the needle. We'd like to get schools across the country teaching this class. We have an incredible instructor in Dr. Lisa Cain, who is teaching at three of the four schools, and we're working on expanding that.
What are your recommendations for Fancy Food Show attendees exploring the Las Vegas culinary scene?
I definitely suggest doing research in advance. We have an incredible array of amazing restaurants both in the casinos and off the strip. Eater is a great source. Make your reservations in advance and definitely mix it up — try some of the young emerging chefs that are doing some creative things, either downtown or off the Strip, and then book one special occasion meal, because those signature fine dining restaurants here in Las Vegas are really one of a kind, and then maybe book something that’s more fun as well.
What are you looking forward to most about this year’s Winter Fancy Food Show?
What I love about the show is that you get a consolidated look of what’s trending, what’s hot, and what’s new. You see all of the culinary things that are emerging, all under one roof. I love to visit some of my old standby vendors, but I love to see all the incredible creativity of people in the industry. I love to explore and not rush it, and take the time to go up and down all the aisles and see what’s happening in the industry.
Related: SFA President Bill Lynch Discusses Winter Fancy Food Show; Las Vegas Store Tour: Saginaw's Deli.