Elizabeth Blau, MS ’97, got her start in the restaurant industry as a “taco girl” making chimichangas and quesadillas at happy hour for Pancho McGee’s, an Irish- Mexican cantina in her hometown of West Hartford, Connecticut. “It was so much fun,” she said. Decades later, as founder and CEO of restaurant development company Blau + Associates, she left her fascination with fast food behind to lead the way in transforming Las Vegas into a world-class culinary destination.

But first there was New York City, where Blau worked with legendary restaurateur Sirio Maccioni, proprietor of Le Cirque, and helped him expand the iconic brand to Las Vegas. After opening Le Cirque at the Bellagio in 1999, Blau became vice president of restaurant development for Mirage Resorts. In that role and later as executive vice president of restaurant development and marketing for Wynn Las Vegas, she developed and oversaw all aspects of food and beverage for hundreds of restaurants.

In 2002, she and her husband, award-winning chef Kim Canteenwalla (“our culinary tour de force”), founded Blau + Associates with Jason Lapin ’90, president and chief operating officer. The company’s magic, she said, comes from their partnership. “Together we combine left-brain creative with operations expertise, and it all works seamlessly.” Their efforts have made the company one of the most prominent in its field with a client list that includes nearly every luxury hotel brand, master plans worldwide, professional sports arenas, cruise lines, casinos, and Fortune 500 companies.

In June, Blau, a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of the Nolan Hotel School, received the 2022 Cornell Hospitality Innovator Award from the school’s Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship.

A Dual Mission with a Community Focus

Blau + Associates has two areas of practice: restaurant operations and consulting. On the restaurant side, its flagship brand is Honey Salt, a popular farm-to-table concept that opened in Las Vegas in 2012. It now has a second location in the JW Marriott at Parq Vancouver Resort & Casino and a quick-service outlet at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The company also conceptualized, developed, and assembled a world-class portfolio of four other restaurants for Parq Vancouver that it continues to oversee. Additionally, Blau + Associates is the operating partner of Buddy V’s Ristorante at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas, which it opened in 2013 with Buddy Valastro, star of TV’s Cake Boss.

The company partnered with Illuminarium Las Vegas, a tech-driven entertainment experience, to open Lumin Café & Kitchen, a contemporary dining concept designed by the Rockwell Group, in April. “That was a new direction for us because it’s more of an attraction than a traditional restaurant,” Blau said. Blau + Associates conceptualized three restaurant outlets—Blue Aster, the Lounge at Blue Aster, and Thistle & Rye—in the new Conrad Nashville, which opened in late June.

On the consulting side of its business, Blau + Associates recently completed a project with the Golden State Warriors, developing the master plan for food and beverage at the team’s new arena in San Francisco. Current engagements include Wynn Resorts; a Saudi Arabian giga-project; a Fortune 500 corporate campus development; and the Lodge at Blue Sky, an Auberge property just north of Park City, Utah. “Our sweet spot is in the casino industry and the luxury food and beverage segment, but we’ve worked with companies as diverse as IHOP and TGI Fridays,” said Blau, noting that “our grounding in operations makes us stronger and more agile as consultants.”

The company has three pillars: “our families, our restaurant operations team, and our community. Community is at the core of everything we do,” Blau said, listing children, education, and food insecurity as her philanthropic passions. She is chairwoman of the Culinary Council for Three Square, a food bank in southern Nevada, and a member of the state board of Communities in Schools. At the higher-education level, she serves on the international advisory board for the École hôtelière de Lausanne and as an emeritus board member for the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).

In 2020, Blau cofounded the Women’s Hospitality Initiative (WHI), a Las Vegas-based nonprofit committed to developing a pipeline of female leaders in the restaurant industry. Despite its establishment weeks before the start of the pandemic, WHI successfully launched From the Classroom to the Boardroom: Leadership for Women in Hospitality, a course now offered by the CIA, UNLV, Florida International University, and San Diego State University.

In response to the pandemic, Blau cofounded Delivering with Dignity, a program that brings together local restaurants, nonprofit agencies, and volunteer drivers (“our army of food heroes”) to provide thousands of meals each week to food-insecure communities in southern Nevada. The effort has delivered over 700,000 meals and kept restaurant staff employed during the most challenging periods of the pandemic.

Ultimately, Blau hopes to follow in the path of José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, “through a passion for our restaurants, by marrying corporate philanthropy with the fight to eradicate local food insecurity.”

Well Deserved Recognition

Blau’s vision and leadership, which inspired awardwinning chefs to venture to Las Vegas and transform a dining culture once known for its buffets, has made her a respected and trusted figure in the industry. She has been honored as a James Beard Award nominee; appeared as a judge on the Food Network’s Iron Chef America; and been featured on the Travel Channel, The Martha Stewart Show, the CBS This Morning Saturday segment “The Dish,” and CNBC’s Restaurant Startup. In addition, she is a judge for Hotels magazine’s annual Great Hotel Restaurants list.

The book she coauthored with Canteenwalla, Honey Salt: A Culinary Scrapbook, was named Best Cookbook of 2018 by Food & Beverage Magazine.

Blau’s other honors include the 2006 International Foodservice Manufacturers Association Gold Plate Award, the Nolan Hotel School’s 2017 MMH Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award, and the 2019 Stevie Award for Women in Business. In 2020, she received the Silver State Awards’ Innovator Award. And in March 2022, OpenTable named her one of the 20 Most Influential Female Chefs and Restaurateurs, calling her “the brain behind a cavalcade of splashy Las Vegas hotspots.”

An Exciting Time

“There’s never been a more exciting time to be in this industry,” Blau said. Among trends she’s watching are “the tremendous amount of development” taking place in the Middle East; the proliferation of boutique hotels; the growth of zero-waste restaurants; food and beverage in entertainment experiences; and food involvement with tech platforms.

Blau sees great benefit from the Nolan School’s inclusion in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. “To be a leader in our industry today, it’s not just about great food and great service. There are so many new challenges.” The school’s legacy, she said, is its students, faculty, and “gold” reputation. “The brilliance of the school is that you can follow a path in so many different directions. Today’s Hotelies are courageous. They’re fearless. Their opportunities are limitless,” she said.

“Without a doubt, Cornell changed my destiny and my trajectory. It helped me develop a passion not only for operations, but for marketing and business development. And it gave me the launchpad for creating, I think, the really extraordinary business that we have today.”