A new restaurant called Significant Other is taking shape on East Sunset Road directly across from Harry Reid International Airport, with an October debut planned for the space at 1725 E. Sunset Road, Suite 150. The exterior sign has just gone up, and general contractor Mike Austin says seeing it installed is what finally made the opening feel real.
Austin and his wife, Kristi Austin, are the owners and operators behind the project, and the restaurant's name is a nod to their own relationship: Significant Other is meant to evoke an intimate partner's romantic counterpart, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Mike Austin decided to create a restaurant of his own after years spent building other people's, and he has called the project deeply personal. Jason Goldwater developed the Significant Other name and brand, and the restaurant can be found on social media at the handle @significantvegas.
Austin General Contracting, the firm Mike Austin runs, is leading the Significant Other build, and the Austins also decided to construct a new Austin General Contracting headquarters across from the airport at the same time. The general contracting firm has built several Las Vegas restaurants over the years, and its reputation carries some weight statewide: Nevada's Safety Consultation and Training Section gave Austin General Contracting its Safe Partner Award in March 2020, a distinction handed to only four employers statewide each year.
A Hospitality Team With Strip Pedigree
To run the food and beverage side, Austin recruited restaurateur Matthew Silverman, who co-founded Las Vegas hospitality group JRS Hospitality in 2012 and previously served as corporate executive chef for the Michael Corrigan Restaurant Group, overseeing Summerlin's Vintner Grill and RoadRunner Restaurants, according to Cuisineist. Austin and Silverman have a history together, having worked on Beer Park and Alexxa's at Paris Las Vegas. Silverman also served as culinary executive for Shaquille O'Neal's Big Chicken concept near UNLV, helping shape the space and set brand standards ahead of its October 2018 launch, per IZ Design Studio.
Silverman brought aboard chef Matthew Piekarski, who has extensive Strip experience. Piekarski previously served as executive chef at HEXX Kitchen + Bar at Paris Las Vegas, home to Nevada's only bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturing facility, and he co-founded the culinary consulting firm Cream City Culinary, according to the James Beard Foundation. Piekarski also collaborated with Silverman on recipe development for Big Chicken.
Menu Spans Breakfast Through Wet-Aged Steaks
Significant Other plans to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, opening mornings with coffee drinks, pastries and breakfast dishes. The lunch menu is set to include salads, house pastas, nori rolls, sourdough pizzas and an all-day signature burger, with fries cooked in beef tallow. Dinner shifts toward creative vegetable dishes, house pastas, seafood, wet-aged steaks and prime rib roasts, rounded out by wines and craft cocktails.
The restaurant will also include a private dining room and an intimate wine room for guests seeking a more secluded setting. New York-based Celano Design Studio, led by founder and CEO Vincent Celano, is creating the restaurant's interior and terrace look. Celano's past work in Las Vegas includes the interiors for ¡Viva! by Ray Garcia and Stubborn Seed at Resorts World Las Vegas, as well as Hearthstone Kitchen & Cellar at Red Rock Resort, according to Celano Design Studio.
A Terrace Built for Plane Spotters
Significant Other is situated near runways 8L/26R and 8R/26L, and its pet-friendly terrace is designed to overlook the airport. The location sits near the long-standing Las Vegas Airport Runways Viewing Area, a free public lot off Sunset Road and Escondido Street that has drawn plane spotters and aviation photographers for years, per Vegas4Locals. The site falls between Town Square Las Vegas and Sunset Park, putting the runway-view terrace within reach of both shoppers and joggers passing through the corridor.
That location places Significant Other across from one of the region's busiest transportation hubs, even as the airport's numbers have cooled slightly from a record year. Harry Reid International Airport processed 54,989,185 passengers in 2025, the third-highest annual total in its history, according to the Clark County Department of Aviation. That figure marked a 5.9% decline from the airport's all-time record of 58,447,782 travelers set in 2024. Aviation consultants told Southern Nevada tourism officials this month that the pullback was heavily driven by the bankruptcy and complete shutdown of Spirit Airlines in May, which had been the airport's second-largest carrier, as reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The airport corridor has also seen labor tension in recent months. Culinary Workers Union Local 226 staged picketing and set strike deadlines in late 2025 for airport food service concession workers at Harry Reid International Airport, pushing for wage parity with unionized Strip resort restaurant employees, according to earlier Hoodline reporting. Union representatives had noted that airport concession workers were earning $3 to $4 less per hour than their Strip counterparts. It remains to be seen how off-Strip concepts like Significant Other, operating just outside the airport's concession footprint, will navigate that same labor and cost landscape while courting both neighborhood regulars and airport-adjacent business travelers.
Significant Other's opening details and updates are available at solasvegas.com as the October debut approaches.
