Things are looking promising for Landry's Restaurants, the Houston-based dining giant who has made a successful closing on the purchase of Golden Nugget Casino in downtown Las Vegas.  The purchase, which was at $325 million, made several skeptics as to if Landry's could make good on its promise to operate a thriving casino that would help to rejuvenate an ailing downtown Las Vegas.

However, Landry's Chairman, Tilman Fertitta, confidently set forth a comprehensive and strategic plan to do just that during a hearing with the Nevada Gaming Commission, that turned many of the skeptics into believers.  Fertitta, who has quite the likeable personality, responded to Gaming Commissioner, Pete Bernhard's questions, setting forth a plan that showed the restaurant specialists knew what they were talking about when it came to running a casino.

Fertitta seems the perfect man for the job (or at least the closest to knowing a few things about gambling), for he is a cousin of the same Fertitta family that owns Station Casinos.  Fertitta cordially replied to Bernhard that his comparison of Landry's with prior casino owners was not fair since Landry's was a publicly traded corporation with $1.3 billion in assets at the close of 2004.  Bernhard went on to say that he agreed Landry's had the resources to do what it say it is going to do - and that the plan makes sense.  It should probably go without saying that the Commission unanimously approved the casino deal in just under forty minutes.

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