NFL legend Emmitt Smith is a renaissance man. A multi-winning Super Bowl champion, philanthropist, father, and businessman, his restaurant, Emmitt’s Vegas’ one-year anniversary hit this March. As one of the few Black celebrity-owned restaurants in Las Vegas, Emmitt’s Vegas is a shining example of how Black entrepreneurship is making a lasting impact.
In less than a year since opening, Emmitt’s Vegas has gained much traction, earning two OpenTable Diners’ Choice Awards, and solidifying its place as a must-visit destination in the heart of Fashion Show Las Vegas. The restaurant is a reflection of Smith’s values, integrity, innovation and a deep sense of pride in Black achievement.
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Smith spoke with PopCulture.com about the ups and downs of being a restaurateur over the past year. He also spoke about potential expansion and what sets Emmitt’s apart from the masses.
PC: So first and foremost, congratulations on your restaurant. Now, there are thousands of hotspot dining towns, and obviously we know more and more thanks to the power of social media, but why was Las Vegas the best choice for your eatery?
ES: Well, I think best choice is a strong word, but I mean, at the end of the day, when you think about Las Vegas and what it all has to offer, it created a very unique opportunity and the uniqueness of this location being right there in front of the Fashion Show Mall right there on the strip, right across from The Wynn, Treasure Island, and just down the road you have, Resorts World with all of those window panes looking back onto that location. It made quality sense, especially when the space that we saw was available and, and we could turn it into something that you see right now.
So, best may not be ideal because some people might say the best place for me to open a restaurant would be here in Dallas, Texas, where I’m well known. But out there in Vegas, it’s a little bit more of a challenge because you have the uniqueness of the hotels and the resorts that’s out there which have quality foods and locations in them themselves.
But when you start thinking about what Fashion Show Mall offers and what we were bringing to the marketplace, people sometimes like to get outside of those hotels and those locations and come and dine at a very unique spot like Emmitt’s. And so we feel very proud of what we have. We feel very fortunate to be in the position that we’re in.
And not only that, but Vegas has become not only a major entertainment hub, which has always been a major entertainment hub, but when you add in Major League Baseball, which is coming, and you also have football there with the Raiders now and hockey and then soon, maybe a basketball team may end up there because they host summer games there. So there’s a lot that happens in Vegas, and not to mention NASCAR as well. There’s a lot that goes on in Vegas that create these unique opportunities for all hotels as well as our restaurant as well.
Now there is a lot of competition out there and there’s always the idea of the success versus failure ratio when it comes to restaurants, and also living in an ever changing market with delivery services and things of that nature. Why did you decide to embark on a journey of opening a restaurant at this time?
You know, that’s a very, very good question. I’ve never really had any aspirations of opening up a restaurant. I’ve heard all the horror stories and some of them, and some of my experience has been partially true, in terms of getting the restaurant open because we had missed a couple opening dates, that we had put out in the marketplace that did not come to fruition and we had our own self, we had our own internal challenges of getting things up and running. However, once we got everybody on the right page, and got the chef lined up, and the quality of the food that we offer and the experience that’s offered within the restaurant itself – and Vegas is very transient. So you got people coming in from all over the world, whether you are coming from Mexico City, Monterrey, or coming from Toronto or coming from England or Africa or Australia, anywhere around the world, people come into Vegas.
And if you’re an avid Emmitt Smith fan or a football fan or sports fanatic, like a lot of people that come into Vegas, Emmitt’s is the restaurant for you. And the quality of food is very good. There are many conventions that come into town. And it is a spot that people get a chance to come in and enjoy because of the pure relationship that’s there as well with the sports community, as well as Dancing with the Stars community.
What would you say sets images apart from what’s currently offered in Las Vegas?
I would like to think that the quality food and the ambiences and the experience of what we offer. We offer a very nice tomahawk, not to say that no one else does. But no one does it the way we do with the branded scenarios. Our ice cubes, and the drinks that we offer and mixed uses the drinks, cocktails and so forth is top-notch as well.
I’ve heard people talk about the sushi itself is better than most sushi restaurants that they’ve gone to. The butter cake speaks for itself. That’s all I can say because it’s absolutely phenomenal.
I think most restaurants has character tied to it. And I think what Emmitt’s is, we are establishing that character, that consistency, and the joy of all the foodies who wanna try very unique food.
You spoke about some of the roadblocks that you hit with opening dates and things of that nature and finding a chef. What are some other challenges you’ve had to overcome with opening the restaurant and then being a Black owned establishment, how do you feel as if your experience has contrasted to some of your white counterparts or non-Black counterparts?
Oh, well, it’s kind of hard for me to even gauge that outside of the simple fact that I have all kinds of cultures within the restaurant – Black, African Americans, Latinos, Filipinos – a lot of different nationalities that have come through the restaurant. So it’s kinda hard for me to talk about what other people experience, but I can say the challenge is trying to get folks who are local to come out of the hills to come on down to the strip because most local people don’t want to come down to the strip.
And so if we can get them to come out of their man caves or their homes to come down and enjoy a nice experience on the strip at Fashion Show Mall at our restaurant, that’s really what we’re looking for and, and most importantly, the transit person, we can get them to leave their hotels, because some people may come there for 3 to 4 days, some come for 24 to 48 hours. But nonetheless, however long you’re there, if you come to the same hotel over and over, sometimes people get sick and tired of eating the same food over and over, and they look for different spots. And I think Emmitt’s offered that unique spot and that unique location and, and most importantly, the experience itself.
Now being a Black-owned restaurateur in Vegas is a huge deal. Talk to us a little bit about the significance of that and what that means to you.
Well, to me, it means a lot, but I think success of a Black-owned restaurant means even more because it shows you have sustainability and durability and you have the quality food and the quality service that Vegas demands and every customer should demand of every restaurant that they go to. It’s significant in the context of being able to see an African American have success, even in Vegas on the strip. You don’t see a lot of that on the strip.
Even if you do see it, you don’t realize who may own it. But in my case, the name itself is out there. I’m out there in front, marketing and promoting our restaurant, whether it’s on social media or doing these things that we’re doing right now. I think having a vision, and showing the ability to be successful in terms of the restaurant itself, not only the visual of the restaurant being successful, but the physical aspect of the restaurant being successful that meets all of the demand criteria of the patrons that we’re serving is important.
And when I play football, I played for the Dallas Cowboys, which is synonymous with excellence and in terms of the brand. And that’s something that I wanted to carry over in this restaurant experience, is to create a brand that people want to come to and people want to come and dine at. And those are things that are important and so whether you’re Black, white, Hispanic, food does not discriminate. It brings people together. And that’s what I believe that we are there to do is to bring people together, to collaborate, to do business, to have great bread, and to have a good time, and to have a great experience.
How does Emmitt’s pay homage to your love of sports? How are you merging your love of sports and entertainment with cuisine?
Let me put it this way, when you become a three-time Super Bowl champion, you didn’t have a perfect year, but you had a year of consistency and a year of dominance because you end up winning the world championship, not once but 3 times in 4 years. That alone sets you and your organization apart from others. When you go on Dancing with the Stars and you translate what you’ve done in life, what you’ve done in football, and you translate that into a ballroom and you learn how to become a champion and persevere through all kinds of obstacles to get there, that says a lot about who you are as an individual. And when you start something as unique as a restaurant in Vegas and you want to take all the things that you’ve done on the football field, and have those things translate into something that you’re doing off the football field, whether it’s business, whether it’s charitable, whether it’s your life itself, you want all these things are lined up and to and to pair well with the brand that you actually have as an individual.
So when you have people coming in the way I see it is I was in the service business, I provided smiles, I provided joy on people’s faces whenever I played football because when we won, everybody was happy. When we lost, people were sad. And when your performance is top-notch and people are counting on you week in and week out and you’re meeting their expectation week in and week out, you established a level of consistency. And that’s the same way we want the restaurant to be. We want that restaurant to take on that type of personality, that type of focus, that type of commitment to the quality of service, the quality of excellence of food, and the experience that we want every patron to have when they come into the restaurant.
Are there any plans for you to franchise the restaurant and expand to other cities?
No plans as of now. This is year one and year one. We have had our challenges, but we’re making hay and that feels good. We still got a room to grow and, and got a ways to go, but we’re getting there and, I think interviews like this and, and social media and people coming in and having experiences, giving us great ratings, winning certain types of awards even in the city of Las Vegas as a restaurateur, those are all good quality things, but there’s nothing more satisfying than to have a satisfied customer coming in, and go out and come back in again on a repeated basis. And not only that, but share the good news of what the experience was like at Emmitt’s.
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