Mulberry Street Pizzeria, the New York-style pizzeria long considered an L.A. classic, is closing its Resorts World Las Vegas location for good, with its last day of service set for September 14. The closure ends a five-year run on the Las Vegas Strip for a brand that built its name on Bronx family recipes and Hollywood flair.
The restaurant, named after Mulberry Street in New York's Little Italy, opened at Resorts World in September 2021, three months after the casino resort itself debuted in June 2021, according to Wikipedia. It marked Mulberry Street's first location outside California, according to the pizzeria, and its first location outside the Los Angeles area entirely. As reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Resorts World venue served New York-style slices and pies for five years before its lease came to an end.
Founder Richie Palmer, a New Yorker who brought his family recipes west, launched the original Mulberry Street Pizzeria in Beverly Hills in 1991, per the Review-Journal's reporting — though other accounts, including Chowhound, place the founding in 1992 and credit Oscar-nominated actress Cathy Moriarty, star of Raging Bull, as a co-founder. That original Southern California pizzeria has been open 35 years and remains part of a four-location Los Angeles-area footprint that includes storefronts in Beverly Hills, Encino, and Sherman Oaks, per PMQ Pizza.
A Licensing Deal Behind the Strip Location
Unlike Mulberry Street's corporate-owned California stores, the Las Vegas location operated under a licensing arrangement in which Resorts World owned the property while designing the space in tandem with Palmer, PMQ Pizza reports. That setup produced a distinctly Vegas-meets-Bronx interior: the restaurant featured a 10-foot statue of boxer Mike Tyson alongside Hollywood and sports memorabilia, blending Bronx Italian pizzeria roots with West Coast culture, according to Modern Restaurant Management.
The pizzeria also leaned into celebrity ties on its drink menu, partnering with actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a longtime friend of Palmer's, to serve frozen cocktails made with his Teremana Tequila brand, including the Rockarita and Teremana Sunrise, according to Las Vegas Magazine.
What Pushed the Closure
Mulberry Street has said the Las Vegas closure does not mean it's leaving the city, adding via an Instagram post that it could find another Las Vegas location. But industry reporting points to friction behind the scenes. Vital Vegas reported that the pizzeria's five-year lease at Resorts World was not renewed as part of the resort's broader effort to phase out third-party dining operators in favor of in-house food and beverage concepts, according to Vital Vegas.
The same outlet reported that Resorts World had already imposed operational restrictions on the pizzeria before its closure, requiring it to close on Tuesdays and Wednesdays starting in 2023 — a restriction Vital Vegas says was intended to steer foot traffic toward other resort dining options.
Financial Pressure at the Host Resort
The exit comes amid wider financial strain at Resorts World Las Vegas, which opened on June 24, 2021, as a $4.3 billion megaresort built by Malaysia-based Genting Berhad — the first new casino resort constructed on the Strip in over a decade, according to The Nevada Independent. Genting Berhad reported a 46.3% quarter-over-quarter revenue drop to $117 million in the third quarter of 2024, the resort's lowest quarterly performance since opening, with ownership citing extreme summer heat and election-year slowdowns for the dip, per the same outlet's later reporting.
For now, Mulberry Street's Southern California locations remain untouched by the changes on the Strip, continuing to serve the New York-style pies that made the brand an L.A. classic over three and a half decades. Whether the pizzeria finds a new home in Las Vegas remains an open question, one the company itself has left unanswered beyond its social media assurance that this isn't a full goodbye to the city.
