Bravo Lisa Vanderpump of Vanderpump Rules
Lisa Vanderpump gave an update on her restaurant businesses while promoting her new dinner party series, Overserved. In a new interview, the restaurant mogul star shared news about her West Hollywood eateries, and she teased the possible timeline for the return of her SUR-based reality show, Vanderpump Rules.
Vanderpump told E! News that her West Hollywood restaurant Pump will soon open, but TomTom, the bar and restaurant she shares with fellow Vanderpump Rules costars Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz, will be a little slower to reopen after a year-long shutdown.
“Pump will open up Wednesday [March 17],” she said. “It will probably be a little bit of a muddle because that’s how it is. TomTom will open, it’s not worth opening TomTom until they up the capacity inside just a little bit. I mean I know we have 25 percent but that’s a huge bar…I mean we might. We’ve got two big gardens at the back of TomTom so we might.”
Vanderpump also gave an update on SUR, which is the usual setting for Vanderpump Rules.
“SUR is open but again it’s just outside and so we want to get that up and running,” she said. “I think we’re moving quickly in the right direction and everybody will be vaccinated in the next few weeks. I think it’s in the beginning of May or something so it’s only like six weeks away. But we’re opening Pump and that’s got probably the biggest garden in L.A.”
As for the possibility that Vanderpump Rules will resume filming soon, Vanderpump teased that she would like to see the restaurant open at a larger capacity first.
“I think a lot of people want that show back because in the restaurant business there’s always a smorgasbord of stories and relationships and there’s a lot of the original cast,” Vanderpump said. “We want the restaurant to be back to at least 50 percent capacity before.”
Andy Cohen Previously said Vanderpump Rules Was in Limbo Due to Restaurants in L.A. Being Shut Down
BravoVanderpump Rules stars Katie Maloney, Tom Schwartz, Lisa Vanderpump, Brittany Cartwright and Jax Taylor
Vanderpump’s comments about the future of Vanderpump Rules came shortly after Bravo host Andy Cohen revealed that “nothing” was going on with the Bravo reality show.
“The restaurants in LA are not open,” Cohen recently said on Watch What Happens Live. “So hopefully once LA opens up they’ll start rolling… I hope.”
Vanderpump Rules veterans Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix also claimed they didn’t know the status of the show. In an interview with Page Six, the longtime couple said Vanderpump Rules was still on hold due to COVID-19 restrictions even though outdoor dining had resumed at SUR.
“Obviously, they want to do another season and they have every plan and intention of doing that, but it’s just because of the industry that we’re in, they don’t want to see us just like sitting in our houses,” Sandoval said. “You also have a lot of restrictions when it comes to productions as well and liabilities and things like that,” he said.
Madix added that the cast was “kind of just waiting and seeing.”
Lisa Vanderpump Filmed Her Own Reality Show at Home During the Pandemic
While the coronavirus crisis put a hold on Vanderpump Rules, LVP found a way to serve up some reality from her own home with Overserved. The upcoming E! series will follow the restaurateur at home as she hosts dinner parties with celeb guests.
Vanderpump told Us Weekly the show was given to her “after nine months of being literally in solitary confinement” and being a “full-time” homemaker during the pandemic.
After she was forced to shut down her restaurants last March due to the pandemic, Vanderpump was approached by producers to film an at-home show.
“They said to me, ‘If we gave you a camera, what would you do?’ the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star dished. “I said, ‘Well, I’ve been cooking up a storm with [my daughter] Pandora, making really beautiful things and really experimenting.’ And we love setting the table … and they said, ‘Let’s make a show about it.’”
“We did it all ourselves,” Vanderpump added. “Everything was homegrown. … I wanted to make a show that was the most gorgeous show that you would stop, you would press the remote and go back, [like], ‘I want to see what that is again.’”
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