Credit: Bravo
The 11th season of Vanderpump Rules is coming to a close with part one of the reunion recently airing. However, fans still have questions as Schwartz & Sandy’s, which is the bar Tom Sandoval owns with Tom Schwartz, was not featured on the show. Many wondered if it was closing. Luckily, the Toms have addressed why it didn’t serve as a backdrop on the show.
The pair and a partner opened Schwartz & Sandy’s in 2022 to much fanfare. Of course, Vanderpump Rules is also partially responsible for its initial success as it was heavily featured in scenes.
While the Toms’ explanation about their bar wasn’t on the reunion that aired on Bravo, it is on the extended and uncensored version on Peacock. In it, fans can see Andy Cohen say, “I have to ask. Sandoval, we have not seen Schwartz & Sandy’s at all on the show this season. I have to assume there’s a story behind that.”
Tom responds by saying, “Well, yeah. When everything sort of happened I obviously took a step away [from the bar]. And our other partner had an issue with filming. He didn’t want anybody filming [in the restaurant].”
Schwartz then says, “Obviously, this is the best platform in the world to promote your sh-t, but it turned on us.”
He shared earlier this year that the bar is not closing and that they are even upgrading the venue.
However, he recently spoke to Entrepreneur about how the scandal from VPR season 10 impacted his business. He told the publication, “I’m glad we persevered, [but] there was a moment there I wasn’t sure if we were going to.”
Tom goes on to share that they initially saw an increase after the scandal broke but that things quickly changed.
“Immediately following ‘Scandoval,’ though, we saw a quick rise in business, but it was short-lived. After experiencing a 30% increase in our revenue numbers within four to five weeks, we watched as our numbers declined precipitously. Week after week, we watched the numbers tumble, sometimes down 50% per week. At our lowest, we dropped approximately 80% of our business.”
Tom then discusses how great the reviews for the bar were initially, but that “keyboard critics” started to leave negative opinions without even visiting the venue.
“We had great reviews on Yelp and Google before, I think we had 4.6 stars. And in the wake of that, I think we were down in the dumps to around 2.5 stars. It’s really detrimental to businesses — cancel culture and keyboard critics. It was such a bizarro world experience to be in. People were irate; they were fired up. Things got dark and weird.”
Tom went on to say that things became so toxic that angry fans were bombarding their staff with calls and emails. However, as the dust has settled, they have regained about 70% of their business.
Fans can watch part two of the reunion on May 21 on Bravo.
