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curtain call
62 | The Boardwalk Journal | May 2012
By Dav iD Spa t z
TilMan FeRTiTTa:
Atlantic City’s Most Talked About C.E.O.
in the 34 years sinCe the First CasinO OpeneD,
atlantic City has seen more than its share of potential developers
who over-promised and under-delivered.
tilman Fertitta isn’t one of them.
“i’ve always been one to say if you’re gonna talk the talk, you
better make sure you walk the walk,” Feritta, the president, CeO and
Chairman of landry’s inc., told me moments after he cut the ribbon
on april 26 to formally open the new golden nugget atlantic City,
a hotel, casino and marina.
“i’ve never announced deals that we couldn’t perform, and
hopefully that has given us a little bit of credibility over the years,”
he added.
atlantic City’s newest, biggest and richest cheerleader is
a 54-year-old native texan with the requisite drawl, who refers
to his guests as “y’all” and who apologized, with a sheepish, awshucks
grin, for being underdressed at the grand opening of his
golden nugget.
The billionaire developer explained that he left his clothes
on his plane and then lent the bombardier Challenger jet to a
friend, hence the jeans, black t-shirt and sport jacket he wore to
cut the gold ribbon event officially opening atlantic City’s newest
gambling hall.
One year after purchasing the down-on-its-luck trump marina
hotel and casino for the bargain price of $38 million and promising
to pump $150 million into renovating the property, Fertitta delivered
on his pledge.
The casino, built by hilton hotels in the mid-1980s and quickly
sold to Donald trump when new Jersey gaming regulators refused
to license hilton, had been neglected for years. it was teetering on
the brink of collapse last year when Fertitta stepped up to the plate.
he saw beyond the rundown condition of the building when he
checked it out. instead of noticing drab hotel rooms that hadn’t been
updated in two decades and a casino that had been underperforming
for years, he saw “a perfect box” with tons of potential.
The state marina attached to the casino, where Fertitta has
already berthed his 164-foot, helicopter-equipped yacht for the
summer, was another big draw.
“it was a great box that was never finished out right, and i just
love it,” he said. “and because of the size of the box, and the high
ceilings, it looks like a property that was built today, now (that it’s)
just totally modernized.”
landry’s inc. is a company specializing in restaurant brands
and entertainment concepts. it owns and operates more than 300
properties, including popular restaurant chains like the Chart house,
saltgrass steak house, bubba gump, Claim Jumper, morton’s
steakhouse and rainforest Café.
The company recently purchased the mcCormick & schmick’s
seafood restaurant chain, which means Fertitta will essentially be
competing against himself in three ways in atlantic City. There’s a
mcCormick & schmick’s
at harrah’s resort, a
morton’s at Caesars
atlantic City and a
rainforest Café at trump
plaza.
landry’s didn’t get
Fertitti
into the gaming business
until 2005, when it
purchased the golden
nugget casinos in downtown las Vegas and in laughlin, nevada.
being a newcomer to the gaming business worked to his advantage,
Fertitta explained. neither he nor the people running his casinos
brought many bad habits or old gaming philosophies to the table.
“all the executives in my gaming group are really non-gaming
people, and it does give you a different perspective in the way we
do things,” he explained. “people look at (gaming) as a complex
business, but it’s really just a business. number one is customer
service. it’s free to be nice, and that’s what we try to do best…and
give the people the best product that we can give them.”
having multiple restaurant chains under his corporate
umbrella was a huge advantage when landry’s began the golden
nugget metamorphosis. where many casinos have begun looking
to outside chefs and restaurant companies to operate their dining
rooms, landry’s already had a built-in network of restaurants from
which to choose.
“it’s been a big draw for us to have these great restaurants with
very reasonable prices, because we know how to operate restaurants
and we put them in this great box,” he acknowledged.
Fertitta is also rooting for the new revel destination resort to
succeed, because “it’s bringing a lot of people to town” who may
have never considered atlantic City as a leisure option in the past.
“all your gaming analysts (and) wall street people came down
here to check out revel because there’s a lot of debt out on it,” he
said. “and they were able to stop by (the golden nugget) and were
very happy to see what we’ve done. i’m thrilled that (revel CeO)
Kevin (Desanctis) and his group were able to work out a deal to get
it done and i wish him all the luck in the world. i think it’ll be good for
all of us.”
David Spatz is the host and co-producer of the Emmy Award-winning
entertainment series Curtain Call with David spatz on WMGM-TV
NBC40 Saturdays at 6 p.m. He is also a host and co-producer of the weekly
entertainment program Curtain Call - The radio show Sunday from 3-5
p.m. on News Talk 1400 WOND. David contributes daily entertainment
reports, news and special programming for Longport Media’s five radio
stations. He is a weekly columnist for The Courier-post in Cherry Hill, N.J.
and atlantic City weekly. Email David at curtaincalltv@comcast.net
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