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David Slay Buys Landmark Restaurant in Las Vegas

But, unlike the celebrity chefs from around the country who have been lured to the kitchens of the new hotel-casino resorts, Slay is taking over a free-standing restaurant, a landmark called the Golden Steer, at 308 West Sahara, less than a block west of the Strip.

“This was one of the original fine-dining restaurants in Las Vegas,” Slay told RGT Online. “There’s a great history to it. The Rat Pack hung out there, and John Wayne was a customer. It’s been there about 40 years, and it’s still a big political hangout and entertainer hangout.”

Slay and his partners are buying the Golden Steer. They take over June 6, and will probably start renovations in July. Their liquor license is pending.

The renovations will not result in a drastic change in atmosphere, Slay said. The dark paneling and the booths will remain.

“We want to leave this as an old-fashioned, Las Vegas/Hollywood-type steakhouse,” he said. He plans to add a few “lighter touches” to the menu, such as twice-cooked Ahi tuna with pink peppercorn sauce, and one of his signature dishes, smoked-salmon quesadilla.

Slay said he’s not worried about competing with some of the country’s most famous chefs.

“I’ve been competing against big names here, and succeeded,” he said from his home in Los Angeles. “I always like a challenge.”

The Golden Steer has a strong local following, Slay said, and he thinks it will be easy to market to tourists. “Most tourists take a taxi somewhere while they’re in Las Vegas, and this is less than a $3 taxi ride from most hotels.”

He’s counting on word of mouth to make tourists more aware of the place. “After 40 years, everybody knows the name -- pit bosses, taxi drivers, casino hosts and managers, valets,” he said.

He called dining “part of the experience” of a trip to Las Vegas, and said, “People go there to spend, or lose, money.”

The average check at the restaurant is $65. Slay said the fact that it’s free-standing is a plus, because people get tired of walking through large casinos to get to a restaurant.

The 6,000-square-foot building seats 220. It’s open now from 5-10 p.m., but Slay plans to serve dinner until midnight and keep the bar open until 2 a.m.

He attracted numerous Hollywood celebrities to his restaurant in Beverly Hills, La Veranda, which he sold in 1996 after a six-year run. He still operates Slay Catering L.A., which counts movie stars and studios among its clients. Through his Slay Foods L.A., he sells specialty quesadillas in the frozen foods section of supermarkets in California, Nevada and Missouri.

The Golden Steer marks a return to Las Vegas for Slay, who worked in the kitchen of the original Aladdin Hotel-Casino in 1997 and 1978. It was owned at the time by the late Sorkis Webbe and his brother, Peter Webbe, who, like Slay, were from St. Louis. Slay’s wife, Gail, is Sorkis Webbe’s daughter.

Gail’s brother, Sorkis Webbe Jr., is one of Slay’s partners in the Golden Steer, and will be the general manager.

Slay opened his first restaurant in 1979 in a small building in South St. Louis that had been a Dairy Queen. The restaurant, Café Hampton, established his reputation as one of the city’s most creative young chefs. He was the first in St. Louis to prepare the type of gourmet pizzas that Wolfgang Puck originated in Los Angeles.

In 1985 or 1986, he changed the name to La Veranda, and in 1987 moved the restaurant downtown. In 1990 he opened La Veranda in Beverly Hills, California, and competed with restaurateurs like Puck for the celebrity clientele.

In 1999, Slay returned to St. Louis as chef of the Seven Gables Inn, a boutique hotel. He left that to become a partner in Zuzu’s Petals, a popular restaurant that opened last December in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood. This fall, he plans to open a restaurant in Clayton, another St. Louis suburb, in partnership with Ozzie Smith, the former shortstop of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Slay said he’s also working on a deal to run the restaurant of a hotel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

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