She revolutionized the Las Vegas restaurant scene.

Elizabeth Blau is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon, joining you from the Las Vegas restaurant Honey Salt.

Its cofounder was a disrupter in the Las Vegas dining experience and looks to change the culinary industry through the nonprofit she helped create, the Women's Hospitality Initiative.

A restauranteur, a CEO, and a philanthropist, Elizabeth Blau, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

(Elizabeth Blau) Oh, thank you.

So happy to be here.

-I want to start with where we are now, Honey Salt.

This is one of your how many restaurants that you currently either own or operate?

-We have nine: Buddy V's here at the Venetian and Honey Salt, and then we've got Crown Block in Dallas, and then we have five restaurants as part of the Parq Vancouver in Canada.

-Why Canada?

-Well, my husband's Canadian.

-Okay.

-But we had an incredible opportunity to work with Diana Bennett and Scott Menke on the development of this project, gosh, over a decade ago.

And it's part of a casino that's in downtown Vancouver, and it is the most magical city.

-You have vast experience with restaurants in casinos.

Before we move on, though, your husband is who?

He's also the cofounder of this restaurant.

-Kim Canteenwalla, and he is a celebrity chef and just restauranteur extraordinaire.

And so we are partners in this adventure together.

-Where did you meet?

-Kim was the executive chef of the Beau Rivage, which during the days of Steve and Elaine Wynn and Mirage Resorts was one of their properties in Biloxi, Mississippi.

So we actually met and fell in love in Biloxi, Mississippi, of all places.

-What did you like about him?

Was it his food?

-You know, the funny thing is, is that people say, Was it love at first sight?

And I say, I didn't even think he wanted the job.

He was so serious at the time.

But I think really it's his passion for his craft.

It never wanes.

He just has such a love for food and this industry, and, of course, he supports all the crazy ideas and endeavors that I come up with.

So it's a great partnership.

-So when you started Honey Salt, that was 2012.

-Yes.

-What was that time in your life like compared to the previous work you had been doing with Steve and Elaine Wynn?

-Honey Salt was the first project of Kim and I together.

And, you know, we live less than a mile from here.

A friend of ours had the lease and said, Hey, you know, I negotiated a great deal on this space.

We came and looked at it and just thought, You know what?

We love to entertain at home, especially the proximity, it was just going to give us the opportunity, and right in our neighborhood, to do the food, do the interior design of, you know, of what we love.

And so it's just become a great neighborhood spot, but it's also been a great opportunity to amplify our commitment to our philanthropy in the community.

And so it's really one of our core pillars here that community, because it's been the community that whether it was during the pandemic or afterwards, it's this incredible community in Las Vegas that's supported us here at Honey Salt.

And 12 years, people say, in the restaurant business is like dog years.

So I feel like it's been here 100 years, even though it's, it hasn't been quite that long.

-And we're going to talk more about your philanthropy ahead.

But let's first establish for our viewers who do not know, what role did Steve and Elaine Wynn play in your career?

-Pivotal.

The two of them really changed the entire trajectory of my life.

I had visited Las Vegas a few times, but never thought I would call it home, and it has been for almost 30 years now.

And the experience at Bellagio, the idea was that I was going to move out for six months and work for-- -From?

-From New York.

I was working for the Maccioni family, who had Le Cirque and Osteria del Circo.

And so the idea was I would come for six months and open the restaurants and then go back.

I was a New Yorker.

That was where my heart was.

But seeing the magnitude of what Bellagio was going to be and the excitement and bringing more ideas of other chef collaborations and just crazy things, like seeing this incredible Dale Chihuly chandelier with thousands of pieces of blown glass in the, in the lobby, and coming up with the idea to partner with Petrossian and to make the lobby lounge a caviar bar, or to partner with Nancy Silverton and do an in-house La Brea Bakery to be able to provide the breads for all of these incredible restauranteurs who would eventually end up coming, just proved too exciting and enticing an opportunity.

So somewhere in the process, I got stolen away and have never looked back.

You know, people make fun of me because I have trouble saying Nevada, and I say "Nev-ah-da" because that's what-- -Still after this many years?

-Yes.

No, I just got that the other day.

But Nevada has, has definitely-- I've lived here more than anywhere else, and it really has my heart.

It's an incredible community.

-So how old were you when you moved out here?

-I was 27 -Wow!

-Yes.

-That's a lot to take on.

-It was an incredible opportunity.

I was the vice president of restaurant development, and they took a big chance on me.

But what I learned from both Steve and Elaine Wynn and, really, I credit my dedication and passion for philanthropy for, first, the incredible example that she set and then for the foundation that she created, first for Mirage Resorts and then for Wynn Resorts as to what it meant to be a community partner.

-She's done a tremendous amount for this community.

I want to read a quote she said about you.

"Elizabeth is, more than any person in the city, single handedly responsible for the culinary upheaval in Las Vegas."

-That's very nice.

-So what was it before?

What was it like when you got here?

And this was in the '90s?

-It was in the '90s.

And, you know, the funny thing is, is that one of my passions is education.

And so sometimes I do lectures to students, and I bring this slide where it says, "$1.99 All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, 99-cent Shrimp Cocktail."

And the billboard looks like it could be from the '40s or the '50s, but I snapped the picture, you know, when I when I moved here, so it was in the '90s.

And, you know, I think that, you know, it was a different time.

When you look at some of the the restaurants, I mean, they didn't have general managers.

They had maitre d's who really just ran the door and the dining room.

Some restaurants, many restaurants in Las Vegas didn't even have bathrooms.

And I never could understand that.

You know, like, Honey, I'm gonna go to the restroom.

And, you know, were you gonna hit a slot machine or what the thought process was.

-They still don't, though.

-Well, some of that is because of the old architecture, but it was a very different time and a very different industry.

And so Wolfgang Puck was here.

He had his groundbreaking restaurant at The Forum Shops.

Jean-Louis Palladin was at the Rio Hotel with Napa, and Emeril Lagasse and Mark Miller had restaurants at the MGM.

But really, other than that, I mean, you know, there was a lot of those all-you-can-eat buffets.

And so I think, like with entertainment and with retail, the city was really ready for this, you know, enormous change.

And certainly the Bellagio was the catalyst for that.

And so, you know, working with incredible people like Randy Morton and Bryan O'Shields and Gamal Aziz and Kevin Stuessi, there was an incredible team of people who, you know, were part of this enormous revolution.

-And all of this from being a taco girl, self-described taco girl at 16?

-At 16 I was business manager of my school newspaper, and I went to an Irish-Mexican Cantina called Pancho McGee's to sell them an ad.

-Irish-Mexican?

-And they said, We'll do two-for-one margaritas.

And I said, Um, we're a high school.

And they said, Okay, two-for-one appetizers, and would you want a job?

And I said, Doing what?

We need a taco girl at happy hour.

And as crazy as that sounds, that is really what began my lifelong passion with the industry.

I had never worked formally in restaurants.

I was the kid that, you know, when I was, you know, 10 or 11 years old, we played restaurant.

And I would take orders from my parents and grandparents, because I could make pancakes and waffles, and I learned how to make crepes.

And remember, we also, in the day, had home ec in school.

So, you know, as early as junior high school, you know, we learned cooking at school, and I just had a love for it.

And so all through college, I worked in restaurants and just have developed this lifelong passion for this career.

-Is home ec something you'd like to see return?

-I actually would, because I think that it is ridiculous that, you know, my son has college friends who literally can't boil water, and I think it's an incredible skill to be able to have that, that comfort level in the kitchen.

And you know what?

We also learned how to sew.

And we had metal shop and a lot of things that, you know, were more practical.

Because, you know, I think that with our magnet schools here, it's great that kids can go and try and find a path that might not just be STEM and core curriculum.

And so, yes, because as I told you, I'm passionate about education, and I think that whatever you do in your career or in your studies, it is so much easier when you have a passion for what it is you do.

-We're running out of time.

I want to make sure we talk about women in hospitality.

You have the Women in Hospitality Leadership Conference coming up.

You also are part of the nonprofit Women's Hospitality Initiative.

There is a statistic on that website that is alarming.

It's less than 7% of head chefs and restaurant owners are women.

Why do you think that is?

-You know, it's a crazy statistic and really was part of the impetus for us starting this hospitality initiative.

Over 50% of people attending hotel schools, culinary schools, are women, but yet, less than 7% will go on.

And so Mary Choi Kelly, who is one of my cofounders along with Jolene Mannina and Kristin Whittemore, Mary and I were sitting here having lunch.

Our kids went to preschool at Dawson together.

And she said, I really want to do something for women in this industry.

And that was really the genesis of us starting this and why we focused initially on education.

And so we have created a course.

Mary has spearheaded creating a course called From the Classroom to the Boardroom: Leadership for Women in Hospitality.

And if you can believe, when we started this five years ago, there are leadership classes for women at the collegiate level, but there was none specific to the hospitality industry, which, you know, is such a specialized industry.

And so we were able to launch this class in partnership with UNLV and the Culinary Institute of America.

Then we were able to expand to Florida International.

And you know, our goal is that this is taught at Hospitality programs, not only across the country, but, you know, really around the world, because we believe that you need to start with education and making sure that our women have the confidence, the skills, the tools.

Because what's even more alarming than that figure is Sheryl Sandberg and her Lean In Foundation did a study with McKinsey.

And you know, we all know about the glass ceiling.

We've heard about the glass ceiling, but what they identified was something called the "broken rung," a rung on a ladder.

And so they found that women and men were entering the workforce in the United States in equal proportion, but women were falling behind in that entry level-job.

So that's the broken rung.

They weren't making it up the ladder because that first rung was broken, and so they were never getting anywhere near a glass ceiling.

You know, it was, you know, like the gerbil on the rabbit trail, just, you know, kind of trying to get up.

So that's why we decided that we were going to focus on education and make sure that we were really providing those tools.

-There's a lot more to your story, but we've run out of time.

Hopefully we can have you back on.

-I would love that.

-Elizabeth Blau, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thanks for having me.