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I remember that a long time ago, you answered a question about who the Battista in Battista's Hole in the Wall restaurant was. As I recall, at the time he was retired and in his seventies. We love Battista's and are planning to eat there again on our next trip and it would be nice to know what happened to him? Can you give us an update?
Wow. You have a great memory.
Our original answer was posted on 11/11/09, which you can read to refresh your recall about Battista Locatelli's deeper background. We also answered one on 8/23/15 about the celebrity scene and accordion player (plus a mini-review of the food) at Battista's.
To bring you up to date, Battista Locatelli and his wife Rio opened Battista's Hole in the Wall in 1970. It was so successful that in 1978, the Locatellis purchased the entire shopping center where the restaurant is located, at the corner of Flamingo Road and what's now known as Linq Lane. In 2005, Battista sold the land, and his restaurant, to Harrah’s and, after 36 years, retired, presumably a very wealthy man.
What we didn't know at the time of the original answer was that Battista had a quadruple-bypass operation in 2002. Years before that after a stay at a health resort, he adopted a regimen of healthy eating (adhering to the Pritikin Diet) and regular exercise, so he sailed through the surgery and resumed his active lifestyle at his home in Parowan, Utah: arising at 3 a.m. to begin his daily routine of 60–100 pushups, 100 leg lifts, weight-lifting, and other exercises, then walking 10,000 steps (about six miles) by pre-dawn flashlight and often taking a short cruise at sunrise in his private plane.
At age 80, he challenged his cardiologist to a race up to Angel's Landing in Zion National Park, which by then he'd climbed 70 times. His doctor said, "His heart and lungs are in the best shape an 80-year-old can get.”
It was a good thing, too. Three years later, Battista had to be rushed to the hospital due to a burst gastric ulcer. It necessitated a massive blood transfusion (11 units) and the doctors geared up for organ failure. But within three days, Battista was transferred out of intensive care with no major complications. The next day, he was up and walking around the nursing unit, taking his morning constitutional. “Bleeding of that magnitude would have killed most people half his age,” his surgeon commented.
If you want the entire story of Battista's life, you can go to Amazon and buy Ciao, Battista: Memoirs of My Life, which the octogenarian published in 2015.
Today, this 86-year-old marvel of longevity and joy says about himself, "When I got up this morning, I felt like King Kong. I could climb the Empire State Building, grab that little airplane, fling it down, and say, ‘Arrivederci!’”
Thank you for asking about Battista. It was great catching up with him and a pleasure and inspiration penning this answer.