Las Vegas restaurateur Warren Klein among COVID-19 victims

Growing up, Sam Klein didn’t really know his older brother Warren, who left home when he graduated from high school. When they did get together, Warren would regale him with his adventures in the Midwest, the Northwest and Japan.

“I always looked up to him because he was so smart,” said Sam, who was eight years younger. “His political views, the way he looked at life.”

Warren eventually moved to Las Vegas, while Sam settled with his wife and children in Orange County, Calif. He was there March 30 when he learned that Warren had died at age 66 in a Las Vegas hospital.

While absorbing the news, Sam received a CNN alert that the national COVID-19 death toll had reached 1,000. It comforted Sam to think his brother’s death might have marked that sad milestone because milestones were a way of life for Warren.

Born in New York City in 1954, he was a teen when the family moved to Miami, where he was valedictorian of the 1972 class at Miami Norland Senior High School.

He attended Beloit College in Wisconsin for a time before studying in Japan for a year. Further study in Japanese and Chinese at Florida State University led to a degree in Japanese language and literature from the University of Washington in 1979. Warren also spoke some Hungarian and German.

But an interest in cooking led to an associate’s degree in culinary arts from a Seattle community college, and then to UNLV, where he earned a master’s degree in hospitality management. Afterward he worked at hotels including Palace Station, until he left for Tokyo in 1989 to be food and beverage director at the Hotel New Sanno. Back in Las Vegas in 1990, he worked for Big Dog’s Hospitality Group and a sports bar before opening The Garlic Cafe in 1993, at Decatur Boulevard and Twain Avenue, partnering with Sam and their sister, Linda.

Dishes on the garlic-centric menu could be ordered at stages of intensity, and some were named for family members. The restaurant had a statue of Atlas, but instead of bearing the weight of the world, he hoisted a huge bulb of garlic. On trips to Las Vegas, Sam still encounters cab drivers who remember and rave about The Garlic Cafe.

They closed the restaurant in 1998, and Warren spent the next decade and a half in various food and beverage management positions while pursuing a career in real estate. At the time of his death, he was selling commercial real estate to Japanese businessmen and helping them with gaming and liquor license applications.

But his health was a liability. Warren, who was diabetic, also had asthma and circulation problems, and an inflammatory disorder that made it difficult to walk, which sent him to the hospital toward the end of February.

“I left on March 7. He was getting better,” Sam said of the last time he saw Warren. “I kissed him on the forehead, which I never did.”

Warren was released from the hospital on March 13, but seven days later he called 911 because he was dizzy. By that time, the coronavirus had really taken off in Las Vegas.

“They weren’t letting (visitors) in the hospital, period,” his brother said.

Sam got the phone call from the hospital three days later.

Family friends helped arrange a virtual service at which Sam spoke to honor his brother one last time.

Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at Hrinella@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter.