No and yes.
It’s always been Piero’s Italian Cuisine, founded under that name in 1982 by Freddie Glusman, according to the restaurant’s official history. It moved to its present location, at 355 Convention Center Dr., just west of Paradise Road across from the Convention Center, from Karen Avenue in 1988. Its current location was formerly the Villa d’Este, whose regulars included volatile Mob enforcer Tony "the Ant" Spilotro. And as Piero’s somewhat euphemistically puts it on its website, "It quickly became a hangout for … some of those businessmen in the casino industry with Italian surnames, the ‘local color’ guys."
The Dec. 10, 2006, New York Times describes Piero’s as "an upscale Italian restaurant decorated in a style known as Mob Vegas and frequented by local wiseguys as well as by Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci during the filming of Casino." Piero’s also figured in Casino as one of the film’s many filming locations, for the scene where Joe Pesci pushes Sharon Stone out the back door.
Owner Glusman is no stranger to show business, having been briefly married to singer/actress Diahann Carroll in 1972, when she was on the rebound from a broken engagement to David Frost. Carroll cited Glusman’s "violent and jealous behavior" as the cause of their eventual split, according to The Telegraph, (Dec. 16, 2008).
According to the Orange County Weekly, in an April 27, 2006, story, "Glusman doesn’t hide the fact that Piero’s is a mob hangout … He boasts that these men like his restaurant for ‘confidential encounters.’" In fact, in 2005, the FBI arrested two mobbed-up former New York City cops-turned-triggermen at Piero’s, an incident later depicted in the book The Brotherhood by Guy Lawson and William Oldham. (It was Oldham who made the bust.)
Or as Glusman himself once put it, "The boys still come in here, but now the FBI follows them in." At the time of the arrest, however, he wasn’t feeling jocular, complaining to local gossip columnist Norm Clarke that his restaurant "is not a mobster place." He added, "Thanks for the publicity." Black Book member Joey Cusumano is another "local color guy" who has enjoyed a meal or two at Piero’s.
Former Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn has rubbed elbows with alleged Mob associate Rick Rizzolo in Piero’s (San Diego Union Tribune, May 31, 2003). "We are who we are and we don’t need to make excuses," Guinn’s press secretary, Greg Bortolin, said by way of explanation. Added Rizzolo attorney Tony Sgro, "They're not going bowling together every Thursday night, but they've known and respected each other for many years."
Other encounters at Piero’s have been less than friendly. On Aug. 25, 2000, it was the site of a violent altercation involving former Stratosphere owner Bob Stupak, his daughter Summer, and three men identified as R.D. Matthews, Chance LeSueur, and Benny Behnen, son of then-Binion’s owner Becky Behnen. (To add to the bizarre nature of the fight, Matthews was an eighty-something World War II veteran and blind in one eye.)
Glusman vouched for Benny Behnen’s innocence to Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith, while also maintaining, "I didn’t see anything. I was in the other room." He then tried to make a joke of the incident. Glusman’s stepson, Charlie Skinner, corroborated his stepfather’s account.
In her police statement, Summer Stupak contradicted Glusman’s version of events, telling officers Glusman was an eyewitness who did nothing to intervene. Bob Stupak -- who Glusman accused of being abusive toward restaurant staff -- became persona non grata at Piero’s, following in the footsteps of boxing promoter Bob Arum, who had a 1999 falling-out with Glusman.
Another prominent Vegas figure who gave Piero’s a wide berth was then-City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald. After Glusman characterized her to police on Oct. 18, 2000, using a Yiddish racial epithet, she told local gadfly Steve Miller: "It was definitely within a derogatory context as he was extremely angry. I can tell you this … and I have no problem with you attributing it to me, I have not frequented Piero’s since that incident and won't even attend fundraisers or other special events that are held there."
The most recent throw-down at Piero’s occurred in July 2007, a hair-pulling incident that involved former Ted Binion girlfriend Sandy Murphy, Benny Behnen (again) and – according to Clarke – "two unidentified NBA coaches … Murphy had a clump of hair ripped from her scalp as she was trying to escape her assailant." Ted Binion was Benny Behen’s deceased uncle and some held Murphy responsible for his 1998 death.
Glusman shrugged the fight off, telling Clarke, "Sandy got hit. Don't know who hit her, it all happened so fast." He then reverted to wisecracking mode, saying, "It was like old wild, wild West." Murphy was seen showing off the severed hair the next day during a court hearing.
An otherwise laudatory review of Piero’s in American Way Magazine (July 15, 2007) describes Glusman as "bombastic" and recounts a waiter joking of the osso buco, "We’ll take the bullet out before we cook it."
Most recently, the 71-year-old Glusman made headlines when he was arrested last June 25 for committing battery on a former waitress from The Ritz, his Newport Beach, Calif., restaurant. The woman, Jennifer Kennedy, lost a tooth and suffered a bloody nose in the incident, and filed for a temporary restraining order. Glusman was released on $25,000 bail, whereupon former casino owner Gary Primm flew him to Hawaii.
However, Kennedy’s story didn’t hold up on closer examination and it appeared that she’d inflicted some serious damage to Glusman’s own dental work. He said he’d punched Kennedy "strictly [in] self defense." The district attorney’s office subsequently dropped the case, telling the Orange County Register, "We couldn’t prove an assault occurred beyond a reasonable doubt."
Previously, Glusman had been stripped of his badge as a reserve deputy in the Newport Beach sheriff’s department. He had the poor judgment to flash it as a means of settling a July 4, 2005 argument over a parking space. (Glusman had obtained the badge after befriending a crooked Newport Beach sheriff.)
On a more respectable note, Piero’s has also been a popular venue for holding product showcases during the Consumer Electronics Show, held every January at the nearby Las Vegas Convention. Celebrities who have been spotted there include Wayne Newton, Jerry Lewis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Tarkanian (Glusman was a part of Tark’s inner circle when he was running UNLV’s basketball program), Debbie Reynolds, Don King, Dick Van Dyke, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Glusman sits on the local advisory board for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
His son Evan (who’s also run afoul of law enforcement) went into the restaurant business, too. With Skinner, he opened Piero’s Trattoria in the Hughes Center on the less-than-auspicious date of Sept. 10, 2001. The restaurant had begun life several years earlier as Piero’s spinoff Freddie G’s Deli. A staffer at the original Piero’s, though, tells us it was sold "about three years ago."
