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Tilman Fertitta, the Houston billionaire and hospitality magnate, may not be a household name. But as a restaurant mogul who started his empire with Landry’s Restaurant Group in the 1980s, the chains he operates certainly are: Morton’s the Steakhouse, the Palm, Rainforest Cafe, and Bubba Gump Shrimp among more than a dozen others. And his fame has grown in recent years: He owns the Golden Nugget Casino Hotel, the Houston Rockets, and now more than 10 percent of Wynn Resorts. He’s also longtime friends with failed casino operator Donald Trump (Fertitta purchased the former Trump casino in Atlantic City) — and Trump has claimed that people refer to him and Fertitta as “the twins” and recently tapped the restaurateur to take on his most public role ever: ambassador to Italy. Now Fertitta is in talks to buy Zero Bond, the favorite hangout spot of newly minted Trump lackey Eric Adams.
Fertitta has had a hand in New York’s restaurant scene for more than a decade now — in 2016, he bought BR Guest, a hospitality group of about 15 restaurants that includes Dos Caminos and Bluewater Grill, from Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital. (“He loves New York, and this will give him more time to spend in the city,” his general counsel told the New York Post at the time.) And in 2017, he became a partner in Catch Hospitality, which has also been on a Fertitta-backed buying spree: taking over Principe in Soho and the Frog Club in the former Chumley’s space.
He’s been especially busy lately, however. Last year he partnered with Catch Hospitality to open the super-buzzy Taylor Swift–favorite Corner Store, known for impossible-to-get reservations and middling food. Then, in November, he bought Keens, one of Manhattan’s most storied old steakhouses, for $30 million. Unlike a lot of Fertitta properties, this one came with a pedigree — Teddy Roosevelt and Liza Minnelli had been regulars. Also, the food was known to be excellent.
Last week, Fertitta confirmed to Eater that he was in talks with Zero Bond founder Scott Sartiano and his business partner Will Makris to buy the club and Sartiano’s namesake restaurant in Soho’s Mercer Hotel, but he said a deal hadn’t been reached. It would reportedly involve Makris and Sartiano keeping equity and continuing to run the club and restaurant, and Fertitta buying out the other original investors. Also on the table now, no doubt a boon to the billionaire’s casinos there: opening a Zero Bond in Las Vegas, which actually seems kind of perfect.