Downstate, Chicago-based Fifty/50 Group, parent of Roots Pizza and West Town Bakery, just opened a country-western themed restaurant at a Fairmont Park casino and horse racetrack outside of St. Louis.
Chefs, particularly celebrity chefs, have long partnered with casinos in Las Vegas, lending their name and culinary prowess to restaurants on and off the strip. The phenomenon is spreading to Midwestern casinos. They, in turn, hope the restaurants will help recruit a customer base that extends beyond the usual gambling crowd.
“The bar continually gets higher in food and beverage, and I don’t think that’s lost on mid-central regional casinos,” said Shawn McClain, a former Chicago restaurant operator and founder of McClain Camarota Hospitality, which will operate Hollywood Casino food halls. “Gaming alone — although an important part of the big picture — is only part of the picture. Food and beverage is hugely important now.”
For chefs and restaurants, an expansion into a Chicago-area casino can mean reaching new customers at a time when people are eating out less. Restaurant visits have slumped in the first part of the year, as consumers peel back spending amid economic uncertainty. Some Chicago operators said their restaurants saw traffic and revenue decline 10% to 15% in the first few months of the year.
On top of that headwind, the cost of running a restaurant in Chicago has increased. Restaurant product and labor costs have gone up 35% since 2020, according to data from the Illinois Restaurant Association. Fixed costs, which include property taxes, insurance and rent, have increased 18%. There’s more to come, too. On July 1, the second phase of the city’s elimination of the tipped wage will kick in, pushing tipped employees’ hourly wage up to $12.62 from $11.02.
For Fifty/50 Group, getting into the gaming world is “a matter of survival,” said co-owner Scott Weiner.
“I don’t find that it’s very viable to own and operate a neighborhood restaurant anymore. I only see that becoming harder and harder as the rest of the tip credit phases out,” he said. “Gaming could help alleviate that.”
Fifty/50 Group is partnering with Accel Entertainment, a Burr Ridge-based gaming company that completed its acquisition of Fairmont Park in December. Accel is executing a plan to invest up to $95 million to build out the casino and add a hotel, among other investments.
Fifty/50 Group recently revamped the track’s concessions, which now serve food made from scratch. It opened Longshots, the country-western restaurant, earlier this month. Longshots has music five nights a week, and pulls in crowds who aren’t necessarily interested in the races or gaming.
Weiner recognizes that playing such a bet is a long game. He hopes that one day, if Chicago allows bars and restaurants to install slot machines, his company will have a leg up.
“Something tells me that gaming is on the horizon in the city of Chicago,” he said. “If that can help keep some of my neighborhood bars and restaurants more viable, then we have to do it.”
Hospitality groups and chefs that operate in casinos must receive approval from the Illinois Gaming Board, which controls the state’s gaming industry. Learning to navigate in such a highly regulated industry can create challenges.
Additionally, operating in a casino is not the same as running a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
“If you are running your casino venue the same way you think you’re going to run your brick-and-mortar . . . you will fail,” said Viviani, whose hospitality group has operated in casinos for more than a decade. “Different crowd, different numbers, different needs, different purpose, different timing. Everything’s different.”
Fabio Viviani Hospitality is running most of the food and beverage in the newly built Wind Creek Casino and attached hotel and spa. That includes a rooftop Italian steakhouse, an oyster bar, an American diner and a “food bazaar” full of stations that offer Mexican, Italian, seafood and dessert.
Added benefits
On the other hand, being in a casino does provide some cushions for restaurants. Casino companies provide marketing support, and there’s a captive audience. Those are vital lifelines for businesses in a famously low-margin industry.
There are also buildout costs to consider: Dana Cree, founder of Pretty Cool Ice Cream, said it typically costs her company $250,000 to build, stock and train staff for new locations. With those costs covered, it makes economic sense for Pretty Cool to open in the Hollywood Casino food halls.
There’s also a marketing play, Cree said. Pretty Cool sells its ice cream products at about 45 wholesale locations, including convenience stores and specialty grocers. As it expands that reach, planting a flag in the suburbs will help raise brand awareness.
“The first thing I thought of when I started this company certainly wasn’t casinos,” Cree said. “With the shift toward them becoming less about just gambling and more about this entertainment aspect, my ideas about my own company shift too.”
Izard also was looking for a way to expand her brand.
She developed a new concept called Lucky Goat for the food halls inside casinos. It will be Izard’s first casual restaurant, selling burgers, chicken sandwiches and soft-serve ice cream. McClain’s team will operate it, but Izard was confident giving up a little control to him — the duo worked together at McClain’s Chicago restaurant Spring, which closed in 2010.
Izard said adding a casual concept to her repertoire will allow people to try her food at a lower price point. It’ll also tap into a market that’s new to her — the Chicago suburbs — without having to travel across the country.
“A lot of folks are close enough to Chicago to know our brand . . . but maybe they don’t get up to the city very often,” she said. “It’s close to home, but also it gives me the opportunity to create a new brand.”
