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Setting Restaurant Records by Selling the Sizzle
Tao Las Vegas at the Venetian hotel and casino in Las Vegas is said to be the highest grossing independent restaurant in the United States. By JOE DRAPE
LAS VEGAS
The allure of Chilean sea bass satay often competes with sightings of celebrities, like New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady or the actor Jamie Foxx. This is Tao Las Vegas, the highest grossing independent restaurant in the United States, according to Restaurants & Institutions magazine, which for 24 years has been ranking the top 100. In 2006, its first full year open, Tao did $55.2 million in business, or $16 million more than its closest competitor, Tavern on the Green in New York.
Even judged against other huge-volume restaurants, where revenues in the tens of millions are not unusual, Tao is setting a new standard. In figures for 2000, when Tavern on the Green was in the No. 2 spot behind Windows on the World, the gap between them was a razor thin $485,000.
Michael Desiderio, the chief operating officer of Tavern on the Green, marvels at the vital statistics for Tao Las Vegas: it served 600,000 meals, its average dinner check was $70, and 50 percent of its revenues came from alcohol.
“It’s really a nightclub with the food to complement the club,” Mr. Desiderio said.
The philosophy at Tao Las Vegas is at once high concept — multiple opportunities for eating and drinking under one roof — and blue collar. Much like a factory, Tao wants to squeeze revenue from every square foot of its plant as close to 24 hours a day, seven days a week as possible.
“We want you to never leave our building,” said Richard Wolf, who with his longtime partner, Marc Packer, created the multilevel complex as well as Tao Asian Bistro in New York, which ranked fourth with $26 million in revenues. “We’re offering all these different experiences — a drink in the lounge, a meal in the restaurant, a dance club, a beach club. It gives us a tremendous edge over our competition.”
To that end, they recently opened Tao Beach Club, home of the $1,000-minimum poolside cabana stocked with food and drink, and equipped with high-definition plasma screen televisions and Xbox gaming consoles. Preprogrammed iPods are available, as well as staff members who look plucked from the fashion runway and whose attentions extend to cleaning your sunglasses or massaging your muscles.
Come nightfall, however, the fire columns burn in the desert air, the DJs take their place in the booth and Tao Beach becomes a rooftop nightclub. The club’s Opium Room, too, is rented out for corporate or private events from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m., when it transforms back into another level of the nightclub.
Keeping all these parts in motion is a huge endeavor. The $20 million complex employs more than 700 people, many of whom are constantly moving like ninja — dark clothes, ear pieces — through the shadows.
Tao Las Vegas’s culinary neighbors in the Venetian hotel and casino include more acclaimed restaurants by Mario Batali, Thomas Keller and Emeril Lagasse. But like Tavern on the Green and other high-grossing restaurants, Tao Las Vegas does not rely on well-known chefs or, for that matter, the approval of restaurant critics for its popularity.
Assessing the original Tao in Manhattan in The New York Times in 2001, William Grimes wrote, “Tao is not so much a restaurant as a nonstop party interrupted by funny food.”
The emphasis here is on small-plate eating, where spare ribs and lobster wontons and sushi are shared. The proliferation of Buddhas, pulsating music and sensuous décor are perhaps the signature of what Mr. Wolf calls “vibe dining,” and others say is simply scene making.
The New York nightlife impresarios Noah Tepperberg and Jason Strauss are co-owners of the nightclub component and use many of the same tactics found at other successful clubs: importing celebrities and charging exorbitant prices.
People like Bono, Paris Hilton, Madonna, Chelsea Clinton and the entire roster of England’s Manchester United soccer team have become fodder for Tao Las Vegas’s marketing blitz.
This in turn gives the club heat and allows Tao to charge $300 to $5,000 for bottle service. What does $5,000 get you? “A table on the dance floor on a busy holiday weekend,” Mr. Tepperberg said, “or for a Dom Pérignon Mathusalem,” the equivalent of eight regular bottles of Champagne.
“We sell stratification, but we have an entry point for everyone — from retirees to 21-year-olds who have saved up to blow it out on their first trip to Vegas,” Mr. Tepperberg said. “You can come to our lounge and just have a drink, or stay for dinner and then get a premier table in the club.”
As any habitué of the nightclub demimonde in New York knows, the sizzle of a new establishment can quickly subside. Mr. Wolf says Tao spends $3 million annually on marketing, and revenues so far are up more than 10 percent for 2007. With the addition of Tao Beach, he said, he expects to exceed $65 million this year.
Mr. Wolf concedes that Las Vegas is probably the only city that can sustain a venture like this. Some 38.9 million visitors came to Las Vegas last year, and a local population base has grown by about 18 percent in the last six years. In fact, Las Vegas now accounts for 21 restaurants on the list of the highest ranking 100, more than twice as many as it had in 2000.
“You’ve got a constant stream of people,” he said. “You have a new customer every two or three days, and many of them are here only once a year or a couple of times.”
Even then the hard-sell does not stop for Tao Las Vegas. They hope their patrons stop by the gift shop and take home a bronze Buddha head ($39) or a mango-scented pillar candle ($20).
A staff member at the Tao Beach Club, who look plucked from the fashion runway and whose attentions extend to cleaning sunglasses.
