Developer Tutor Remaking Le Dome
By ANDY FIXMER
Staff Reporter
Construction tycoon Ronald Tutor is getting into the restaurant business.
Tutor, owner of Sylmar-based Tutor-Saliba Corp., one of the state’s largest public works contractors, has become the controlling partner in the famed Sunset Strip bistro Le Dome, and may become an investor in a new bar at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
Though no deal has been struck, Tutor and Sam Cole the Roosevelt’s general manager both confirmed there have been talks. However, Tutor said he may pull out of the partnership since a deal has been hard to achieve.
“I don’t know whether I’m going to participate in that or not,” Tutor said. “It seems to have a life of its own. It’s been dragging on and on for months.”
The efforts mark Tutor’s first foray into the restaurant industry.
“If they relied on me in the kitchen, we’d be out of business in 24 hours,” he said. “But I’ve always had a desire to be in the restaurant business. Now we’ll see if that desire is worth anything.”
Restaurants can be short-lived enterprises, especially when opened by novices, but some restaurant brokers said Le Dome stood a good chance of thriving under Tutor’s stewardship.
Getting into the restaurant business for the cachet is “not his trademark or his M.O.,” said Christopher Bonbright, chief executive of Ramsey-Shilling Commercial Real Estate Services. “He’s known as being a businessman first.”
Tutor took control of the Le Dome when he struck a deal with its longtime owner, Eddie Kerkhoff, to foot the bill for its ambitious renovation.
Kerkhoff, now a minority partner, will continue to oversee day-to-day operations. Though Tutor declined to say how much the renovations will cost, Kerkhoff said the price tag is between $1.5 million and $2 million.
“It’s been expensive, let’s just leave it at that,” said Tutor, whose net worth was estimated at $427 million by the Business Journal’s list of 50 wealthiest Angelenos. “It’s more than I would like to think about.”
Le Dome, which has been closed for several months while its interiors were gutted, will reopen in September with a Tuscan-Mediterranean theme, Kerkhoff said.
He said it had been one of the top grossing restaurants in Los Angeles since it opened in 1977 with annual revenues of about $5 million, and Tutor is hoping the costly renovation will enliven the restaurant’s business once again.
“We want to recapture in the new Le Dome, the Le Dome of its heyday,” he said. “We hope to elevate it to a level above what it was 10 to 15 years ago when it was a leading restaurant in Los Angeles.”
