2 Las Vegas restaurateurs debut amid coronavirus shutdown

When Gov. Steve Sisolak announced the temporary closure of nonessential businesses, Jack Jarukasem already was more than a month past his target date for opening his western valley restaurant. The chef and owner of The Legends Oyster Bar and Grill was awaiting permits, inspections and deliveries.

Then came the news that restaurants would be limited to delivery and curbside pickup. While many established businesses opted to temporarily close, saving their resources for the post-COVID-19 struggles they expected to face, more delays were not an option for him.

“There was no way to turn back,” Jarukasem says now. “I already had all my money spent. And I need to feed my family, and my workers.”

When Legends was finally ready to open, on April 10, it did so with an abbreviated “quarantine” menu.

A week earlier, less than 10 miles away, Nicholas Sord had made a similar decision — opening his new Boca Park spot Sunny Side Up on April 3. Like Jarukasem, the Chicago transplant decided to move forward with a project that already was slightly delayed.

“I just moved here in November, and I moved here to open up this restaurant,” says Sord, who also owns a restaurant in Chicago but had decided to make Las Vegas his home. “I moved out here. I got a home. I’m fully, 100 percent invested in Vegas.”

In both cases, the restaurateurs were forced to dramatically alter their menus and their plans. For Jarukasem, that meant a menu devoid of what should have been its signature items.

“Mostly we wanted to do oysters and raw fish, stuff like that. But it doesn’t travel well. So I’m not doing anything raw.”

Sord, who had expected business at his 150-seat “upscale breakfast restaurant” to be close to 100 percent dine-in, says he hadn’t even considered paying the high commissions of third-party delivery services prior to the shutdown.

“I had to scramble and call Uber. I had to call Postmates. I had to call Grubhub. And it was so hard to get in contact with them because they were so overloaded with phone calls. I think I spent a week, every single day, on the phone, trying to get these apps rushed out for me as fast as they can. Because that was the only way I was possibly going to survive.”

Over the past few weeks, both restaurants have managed to find enough of a customer base to justify their efforts, and hopefully carry them through to the other side of this crisis. Jarukasem, who grew up in Las Vegas and has worked in kitchens at the Rio, Caesars Palace and the Linq Promenade, says his social media followers from across the valley have been coming in “to support small businesses and local restaurants.”

“A lot of them came out,” he says, seated in the newly renovated 40-seat dining room that’s yet to host a customer. “They came from the north side of town. They came from the Green Valley side of town. They came from all different areas.”

Sord credits his success to spillover from neighboring restaurants.

“Thank God I’m right next door to Cheesecake Factory, because the business they do is amazing,” he notes, explaining that he spends a lot of time on his patio speaking to the chain restaurant’s customers.

“Everyone has been so frigging nice. Everyone I talk to is like, ‘Oh, my God, we feel so bad for you! We want to support you.’ The neighborhood has been so great.”

Both, of course, are anxious as they await the day they can give their customers the full experience they’ve envisioned for their restaurants.

“Hopefully this will be over soon,” Jarukasem says. “And then everybody can come in and enjoy the seafood and hospitality that we offer.”

The Legends Oyster Bar and Grill, 3220 S. Durango Drive, 702-250-4788, thelegendsoysterbar.com

Sunny Side Up, Boca Park, 750 S. Rampart Blvd., 725-777-3737, sunnysideuprestaurant.com

Contact Al Mancini at amancini@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlManciniVegas on Twitter.