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A great brand new venue for entertainment, new restaurants and more from The Palazzo Las Vegas

Checking into the palatial all-suite Palazzo is like entering an Italian villa which happens to house a casino. Located next to its adjacent sister property, the Venetian, the modern European-themed Palazzo stands 50 stories tall and houses luxury shops, entertainment and over 3,000 all suite rooms.

We arrived via the new KIA Telluride, which was very roomy with three rows of large comfy seats, great driver assist features to make the drive from LA a breeze and easy touchscreen tech that provided entertainment and mapping.

The VIP check-in is a breeze with complimentary champagne, an elegant waiting/lounge area and snacks throughout the day and evening. The new Prestige Club Lounge on the 23rd floor include complimentary breakfast, snacks and cocktails with sweeping views of the city. Guests also can enjoy access to the Prestige Business Center with copying, printing and internet service.

The spacious 134,000 square foot Canyon Ranch Spa has a variety of exercise classes (Pilates, yoga, spinning and kinesis). The centerpiece of the bright and airy two-story facility is the 40-foot-high climbing wall, but less vertically inclined guests will be content in one of the 62 treatment rooms enjoying a vast array of facials, body treatments and massages. There's also plenty of beautiful places to take selfies throughout the resort.

Take a cool diversion with a dive into one of the six pools at the Palazzo’s expansive pool deck. Lush greenery, outdoor sculptures and gushing fountains span the 4-acre space, which also includes four spas and a variety of smaller lagoons and dipping pools. Opt to lounge on the comfy chaises or stay cool in one of 41 private cabanas.

Guests of Palazzo and Venetian have easy access to the new Sphere at The Venetian which officially opens September 29. The Sphere is powered by cutting edge technology and houses the world’s largest beamforming audio sound system. It stands at more than 360 feet tall, providing a new iconic landmark for the Vegas skyline. U2 will kick off the first concert at The Sphere, U2:UV Achtung Baby Live, which will run September 29 through December 16.

The resort and adjoining sister resort Venetian also offer some of the best dining options on the Strip. If you are planning a weekend getaway or just dinner, here are some restaurants to entertain your palate.

HaSalon

HaSalon recently moved into the old 11,000 square foot Majordomo Meat and Fish spot at the Venetian. It’s a combination club and restaurant, where diners enjoy Israeli/Mediterranean inspired dishes with French and Japanese influences early on and then can dance on the table to live DJ playlists later in the evening. Standout dishes include the Horrible Hammer, a beef carpaccio adorned with flowers and herbs; potato diamonds with caviar; salt covered turbot; skirt steak in tomatoes; Dungeness crab; lobster and a dessert plate with crème caramel, pistachio olive oil and raspberry cake, chocolate mousse and a salted butter cookie.

Miznon

Located just across from HaSalon is Miznon, Chef Eyal Shani’s quick-service pita eatery. The Mediterranean fast-casual menu includes pitas filled with roasted cauliflower and tahini, wild mushrooms and sour cream, falafel and tahini, rib eye with spicy green peppers, a folded cheeseburger, lamb kebob, rotisserie chicken, brisket with aioli and Branzino with potatotes. Also available is their ratatouille place with eggplant, zucchini, tahini and hard boiled egg; roasted baby cauliflower, loaded baked potato, brisket, rotisserie chicken and a delicious hummus plate.

Wakuda

Bouchon

Go for the perfectly brewed coffee, the flakiest croissants outside of Paris, or the French country fare, but don’t leave Sin City without a visit to Bouchon for breakfast. Renowned for his French Laundry fame, chef Thomas Keller’s Parisian bistro atop the Venetian’s Venezia Tower is relaxed, large and airy with tall mahogany columns running down the center, murals, and floor to ceiling paneled windows overlooking a flowering garden patio. Ask for a table outside and dine al fresco on fresh French bread with butter and pistachios, Croque Madame (toasted ham and cheese sandwich on brioche with fried egg and mornay sauce), Oeuf and Bourdin Blanc (white sausage with scrambled eggs and croissant) or select from Bouchon’s extensive bakery items including muffins, pastries, croissants, quiches and breads. They also have great lunch and dinner menus.

The Palazzo is located at 3325 S. Las Vegas Boulevard. Reservations available at https://www.venetianlasvegas.com.

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Radford Studio Center, a storied movie lot in Studio City that has been home to generations of landmark television shows — including “Gunsmoke” and “Seinfeld” — is set to get a $1-billion upgrade to expand its facilities and bring them further into the digital age.

The owners of the lot formerly known as CBS Studio Center submitted plans to Los Angeles officials Friday to revamp and enlarge the aging studio and broadcasting complex, adding as much as 1 million square feet of new soundstages, production facilities and offices.

Founded by movie comedy legend Mack Sennett in 1928, the lot became known as “Hit City” in the decades after World War II as popular TV shows such as “Leave It to Beaver,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Will & Grace” were made there. Current shows include “Big Brother 24” and “Physical.”

“It’s got this mystique that if you come there you’re going to make it,” said studio President Mike Klausman, who has worked on the property since he started there as a CBS page in 1971.

The Radford complex was the very studio lot that gave rise to the name Studio City. It’s had numerous incarnations, including decades as Republic Studios, home to such screen legends as Roy Rogers, John Wayne and Joan Crawford. Among Republic’s popular movies were “The Quiet Man,” “Sands of Iwo Jima” and “Johnny Guitar.”

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The current state of the 55-acre studio is less glamorous than its heritage would suggest, having evolved like an old city where new additions, often built on a tight budget, were layered over and around existing structures.

“There was never really a master plan,” Klausman said. “You would never tear down anything, just add on. We had to work around what was there.”

Bungalows for writers and stars — often quaint structures from Hollywood’s Golden Age on other historic movie lots — are clusters of mobile homes delivered in the 1990s when times were lean, he said. The vast roofs of soundstages used to drain rainwater directly onto the asphalt roads below.

“You almost needed a boat to get from one studio to another,” Klausman said. “It was like a river in that place.”

The drainage issue has been fixed, and times are no longer lean as the rise of streaming has escalated demand for soundstages and other production facilities and prompted the development of new studios in the Los Angeles region. Radford and other studios are booked year-round.

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July 30, 2021

Though it is outwardly unassuming with its main entrance tucked around a corner from Ventura Boulevard on Radford Avenue, the Radford studio is among the most valuable in the world based on price. It sold in 2021 for $1.85 billion to Hackman Capital Partners, one of the largest providers of entertainment production facilities, and New York real estate investor Square Mile Capital Management.

“The history of hit shows that have been produced at Radford trace the trajectory of culture and entertainment in Los Angeles,” said Zach Sokoloff, a senior vice president at Culver City-based Hackman, who plans to complete its makeover.

Its location in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood near other illustrious movie studios beloved by filmmakers made Radford highly sought after when it hit the market nearly two years ago, said real estate broker Carl Muhlstein of JLL, who represented seller ViacomCBS in the deal. There were multiple bidders for the property, he said.

“Between Studio City and Burbank there are four iconic studio lots. Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal haven’t changed hands for over 100 years,” he said. “Here was an opportunity to buy something that only became surplus with the merger of CBS and Viacom” in 2019.

In addition to the real estate assets, ViacomCBS (which now goes by Paramount Global) turned over its lucrative studio operations business at the former CBS Studio Center, which includes stage rentals, facilities management and production support services on the Radford lot.

ViacomCBS sold another former CBS property, Television City in L.A.’s Fairfax district, to Hackman for $750 million in 2019. Paramount Global controls legendary Paramount Studios in Hollywood.

CBS’ two L.A. television stations, KCBS-TV (Channel 2) and KCAL-TV (Channel 9), are housed at the CBS Broadcast Center on the Radford lot, and the local news operation will stay put as part of a long-term lease-back.

CBS, which acquired the property from Republic Pictures in the 1960s, will continue to occupy stages and produce content on the Radford lot. CBS-produced shows there now include “SEAL Team,” “Entertainment Tonight,” “The Neighborhood” and “The Talk,” which is recorded before a live audience.

In its present form, Radford Studio Center offers tenants 18 traditional soundstages and four other stages. The site also has about 210,000 square feet of production office space and its own mill to provide carpentry services and special effects, a commissary and a carwash.

It has a backlot with a “Central Park” and a “New York Street” with 11 building fronts, including four brownstones. It also includes simulated residential neighborhoods with a hodgepodge of houses in different architectural styles, including a facade used as the Cleaver residence in the sitcom “Leave It to Beaver.”

Hackman’s proposal calls for creating a largely new studio with 2.2 million square feet of buildings, including up to 25 soundstages and 300,000 square feet of production support space such as wardrobe, storage and a mill. There would be 725,000 square feet of offices to support productions and an additional 700,000 square feet of offices available for rent to companies in the entertainment industry.

Historic structures, including the Mack Sennett Building and Stages 9 and 10, would be preserved.

To improve access, an entrance off Ventura Boulevard at Carpenter Avenue would be “resurrected,” Sokoloff said. The studio once had an entrance there, but it closed several decades ago.

Also planned is a new bridge over Tujunga Wash at Moorpark Street that would make Radford Avenue a through street. Only vehicles going to the studio could cross the bridge, but it would be open to members of the public on foot or on bicycles. The Los Angeles River Greenway, a 51-mile bike and pedestrian path, is currently interrupted at Radford Studio Center and a new bridge would close that gap.

Hackman owns five studios in the L.A. region, along with facilities in New York, New Orleans, Ireland, Canada, London and Scotland.

March 26, 2021

The company plans $1.25 billion worth of improvements to Television City that will add soundstages, production support facilities and offices for rent.

Though the Los Angeles area has the largest number of soundstages of any city in the world, studios are operating near 100% capacity with waiting lists as long as five film productions deep for those spaces, financial advisor Deloitte said in a 2021 report.

“To meet the booming demand, supply would need to more than double in Los Angeles County” in the next few years, Deloitte said. Planned projects for more studio space fall far short of that.

The Radford Studio project would add more than 4,000 workers upon completion, doubling the number of people employed there now, according to a study by the L.A. County Economic Development Corp.

A Starbucks Coffee in Studio City is drawing attention after the store removed all customer seating.

Only to-go orders are allowed at the 10965 Ventura Blvd. location of the popular coffee shop, as indicated by a sign posted to the door.

While Starbucks did not directly attribute the decision to any one cause, a spokesperson implied that the seating was removed due to a safety concern and that the decision was made at that specific store, and not at the corporate level.

Customers tell KTLA they regularly witness baristas being harassed and threatened by people who appear to be homeless.

“There have been people throwing things at the window, the baristas being harassed,” said a regular customer.

A statement from Starbucks read:

“Our local leaders are, and have always been, empowered to use the many resources at their disposal to modify store operations and create the best experience for our communities. Our first priority is to make sure our partners are safe at work. We will continue to work to make sure that partners can focus on crafting exquisite beverages and creating connections in a safe, warm, and welcoming environment.”

Some regular customers are unhappy at the lack of seating to enjoy their coffee while others recognize why the decision was made.

“I understand because of safety issues,” said customer, Albert Alatorre. “This area does tend to get a little harsh later at night.”

While no direct connection has been made to the Studio City location’s decision to remove seating, at least six other Starbucks stores in Los Angeles have closed in the past year due to what the company described as “challenging incidents.”

At the time those closures were announced, Starbucks implied that safety was the motivation behind the decision.

“I voted for our mayor, but there are just so many complex problems,” said customer Melony Ronning. “My friend works at city hall and talks about all the hoops that people have to go through to try and make changes to house the unhoused.”

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Sarah Hymanson and Sara Kramer maintain a firm position in Los Feliz after introducing Kismet in 2017 and debuting Kismet Rotisserie on the same block in January 2020. The latter proved so promising that the chefs plotted two additional locations for Southern California; Kismet Rotisserie Studio City opened at the Sportsman’s Lodge over the weekend, and a forthcoming location is headed for Culver City. This time, the duo are opening the two spots as independent operators.

Hymanson and Kramer formerly operated under the Joint Venture Restaurant Group umbrella, which is operated by Jon & Vinny’s Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo. The pair recently secured new capital partners with Karpreilly, whose portfolio includes the Habit Burger Grill, Pitfire, and California Fish Grill. Hymanson and Kramer are now ramping up operations with an expanded Kismet Rotisserie Studio City kitchen while implementing their own approach to the business by giving bigger roles to longtime management and employees, working with local farmers and produce growers, and using sustainable packaging.

“[We] are growing this organization in alignment with our values,” says Kramer. “We got rid of the service charge at Kismet when we changed ownership. Anyone who is working an hourly position in any of our restaurants gets the same share of tipped earnings based on hours worked.”

The Studio City location features a larger 1,200 square-foot space and kitchen to service walk-ups and what Hymanson and Kramer hope to be a robust takeout and delivery program. There’s ample outdoor seating right in front of Kismet Rotisserie’s takeout window and scattered throughout the retail and other restaurant areas.

Amongst the bright interior — designed by Lovers Unite — the Studio City menu remains the same as the original with whole and half chickens, pita sandwiches, hummus, chicken salad, chicken sandwich, those schmaltzy potatoes, and an emphasis on market vegetables for salads.

Hymanson and Kramer share that Kismet Rotisserie Culver City will open in the coming months. This location — which is next to the Sony Studios lot — will be the only to feature indoor seating.

Kismet Rotisserie Studio City hours are 10 am. to 9 p.m. at Sportsmen’s Lodge next to Erewhom, 12833 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, CA 91604.

Kismet Rotisserie Studio City

4220 Coldwater Canyon Avenue, Studio City, CA 91604 Visit Website

A Starbucks in Studio City will serve only to-go orders after management removed its guest seating last month out of “safety concerns” for customers and employees.

It’s unclear if a specific incident prompted the change or when the coffee shop in the 10900 block of Ventura Boulevard removed its seating, but complaints posted on social media over the decision date back to late April. The move comes nearly a year after the popular coffee chain closed six stores in the Los Angeles area due to “challenging incidents that make it unsafe to continue to operate.”

A sign posted at the entrance of the Studio City store said “due to safety concerns for our customers and partners, we have removed seating temporarily at this location,” according to KTTV-TV News.

A Starbucks spokesperson said Thursday that the sign has been removed but declined to answer questions about when the seating might return or if other stores in the region might take similar action.

“We use various criteria to ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers, and have a variety of store formats in Los Angeles and the surrounding area, including drive-through, pickup and cafe,” the spokesperson said.

In a statement, the Seattle-based coffee giant said it prides itself on “creating a safe, warm, and welcoming Third Place environment,” meaning a place that is separate from a person’s work and home. But the statement said store managers are “empowered to use the many resources at their disposal to modify store operations and create the best experience for our communities.”

“Our first priority is to make sure our partners are safe at work,” the statement said.

Several stores in the San Francisco Bay Area have also seen their furniture disappear in the last year, including a store in the Castro neighborhood, according to reports on the online publication Hoodline. The approach forced customers to grab-and-go with their coffee, much like the Studio City Starbucks.

While the company has not announced plans to close the Studio City location, it previously shut stores over safety concerns.

When it closed the six L.A. stores and 10 others across the nation last year, Starbucks cited “a high volume of challenging incidents that make it unsafe to continue to operate,” according to a Starbucks spokesperson. The company cited mental health issues, drug use and chronic homelessness as contributing factors to their decision.

L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who represents the district where the Studio City outlet is located, said her office has heard from numerous business operators who say that mental health and homelessness are the biggest issues they’re facing.

“For a very long time, the city didn’t do enough to address our homelessness crisis,” Raman said in an interview Thursday. The lack of response has forced employees, like baristas at Starbucks, to become the “front-line response to the ongoing crisis,” she said.

Raman said she is working to expand the Crisis and Incident Response through Community-Led Engagement (CIRCLE) program, which is an alternative to non-emergency 911 calls involving people experiencing homelessness.

“We are laser-focused on ending homelessness,” Raman said. “We need to be acting with greater urgency on this.”