Las Vegas has emerged as a magnet for celebrity-backed restaurants, according to a report by JLL.

The brokerage released its report on celebrity eateries in the gambling mecca on Monday during the ICSC conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The study listed a bevy of such restaurants in Sin City, where Guy Fieri, Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsay, Bravo TV star Lisa Vanderpump, Nobu Matsuhisa, "Cake Boss" Buddy Valastro, Wolfgang Puck and José Andrés all have dining outposts.

Celebrity restaurants are tourist attractions, so they often are located in popular tourist corridors such as The Strip in Las Vegas and Nashville, Tennessee’s Lower Broadway, JLL said.

Celebrity restaurant openings took off three years ago, and they haven't significantly subsided, according to JLL. This year, 70 celebrity-backed eateries are scheduled to debut in the United States and Canada compared with 67 in both 2022 and 2023, JLL said.

That follows a spike in these restaurants from 2020 — the height of the pandemic — to 2021, when the number of openings doubled, from 40 to 81, according to JLL. By contrast, overall U.S. restaurant openings only increased 13% in that time. JLL identified 361 restaurant openings in North America by celebrities from 2019 through 2024.

The dining industry is a tough arena, but the famous have an edge over other restaurateurs, according to the real estate services firm.

"In this competitive atmosphere, attracting investors, appealing to landlords and connecting with customers is a big challenge," JLL said in its report. "Celebrities have the advantage of name recognition and legions of loyal fans."

The study found that 37% of the restaurant openings were venues from celebrity chefs, and 32% were backed by actors.

A growing pool of landlords across the country are eager to ditch tenant improvement allowances in favor of extended rent abatement periods in order to bypass headaches such as municipal permitting delays and higher construction expenses.

While the demand for retail space is still at historical highs, retail property owners are having to navigate the same financial hurdles plaguing the rest of the commercial real estate market, leaving some to look for ways to do as little work as possible while still landing a tenant, said Julie Fox, the senior vice president of leasing and development for New York-based developer Ashkenazy Acquisitions.

"It's become about how can I give a tenant the space with as little work as possible," she said at an ICSC panel. "We just need to get the numbers to work on the rent and the delivery, so we prefer to give more rent abatements. A lot of tenants would prefer that we do the work, but as landlords, if we have to finish out a vanilla box, that's eating into time before I can even deliver the space to a tenant and before they can even start construction."

What's more, considering the increased cost of capital, more landlords simply don't have the necessary funds to put toward tenant improvements, meaning a lot of deals simply can't get done unless the property owner comes up with an alternative way to fill their space.

Tenant improvements "have become the opioid of the industry," Cushman & Wakefield Executive Director Bill French said at ICSC. "You can't make a lot of deals with them, and a lot of landlords just don't have the cash available."

Retail landlords' approach to tenant curation has become especially critical as many look to position their properties as so-called experiential destinations rather than transactional pit stops.

For Hines Retail Director Starr Cumming, she likens her merchandising strategy to "menu planning," or something that involves a lot of different components that can easily be tweaked but all add up to something that will keep people coming back for more.

"From day one, whether it's a new development or one we're looking to reposition, we're trying to create an atmosphere that will be active seven days a week," she said at ICSC. "We want to create that experience and give people a reason for being there."

For some landlords, that means incorporating a mix of uses such as restaurants, housing, medical office space or coworking. Regardless of what fills the space, the most important elements are what will drive foot traffic, said Bill Brown, the chief redevelopment officer for Brixmor Property Group.

"All transactions can be done online, so when we're repositioning a property, we have to think about how to create a better environment for our customers," he said on a panel. "We want to be at the center of the communities we serve, not just a parking space and a front door. That means we have to give people a reason to be there outside of just the transaction."

Retail landlords have long required prospective tenants to prove their financial stability. Now some are beginning to ask these businesses to prove how quickly they can open their doors.

Whether it's permitting delays, a struggle to line up financing or organizing the planning and construction crews, there has been a widening gulf over the past year between the time it takes to sign a lease and when a retailer can officially open, according to some industry professionals. That's pushing certain property owners to begin requiring new tenants to hire permit expediters in order to speed up the process.

"We're now asking our tenants to use a permit expediter and a local architect to avoid any problems or delays," Azor Advisory Services President Beth Azor said during a panel discussion. "We have heard horror stories where a tenant will use an architect based three states away, and those architects never win with local planning departments."

Even small-shop deals can now take just as much time as getting a big-box or an anchor tenant open, other landlords said, with the process for what used to be a straightforward location taking between a year to 18 months. The mounting frustration isn't saved entirely for property owners either, since tenants are also scrambling to keep up with their own growth plans and get lease agreements done.

"Deals are now taking four months longer compared to a year ago," said Natalie Pebbles, sandwich chain Jersey Mike's director of real estate for the Western region, said at ICSC. "In recent years we're just accepting a lot more if it means getting those deals done. We do about 300 stores a year, and to do that, you have to just cut directly to the chase."

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