Credit: Jen Lowery / MEGA TheMegaAgency
Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval are getting ready for the grand opening of their new bar, Schwartz and Sandy’s.
After first sharing their plans to open the new venue on the ninth season of Vanderpump Rules in 2021, Schwartz and Sandoval, who took on the project sans Lisa Vanderpump and Ken Todd, their partners at TomTom, are offering an update on the bar’s upcoming opening.
“We don’t have a hard date, but we’re gonna open it looks like in July, towards the end of July,” Sandoval said on the May 25 episode of the Deux Me After Dark podcast, via Heavy. “We pretty much had to commit to an event, so we have to be ready for that event in July. So we’ll probably open there to the public very shortly after that.”
According to Schwartz, he and Sandoval are “hyped” about opening their doors, which he admitted has been “a long time coming.” And while getting their new spot open has “been rough,” he believes fans will enjoy the vibe.
“It’s kind of a groovy, funky, semi-tropical cocktail lounge,” he teased. “We’ll be playing music, delicious cocktails. It’s like a friendly neighborhood lounge. I think people are really gonna dig it. We love Franklin Village. I think I can speak for Tom and I, it’s like one of my favorite neighborhoods in all of Los Angeles.”
“It’s just a really cool neighborhood… We hope the neighborhood accepts us because we’re super proud to be a part of it,” Schwartz continued.
Regarding his and Sandoval’s cocktail offerings, Schwartz said his favorite is their Pistachio Mai Tai.
“Everyone likes Mai Tais. You have a Mai Tai in your hand, life is good, things are looking up,” he explained.
Looking back at the creation of their drink lineup, Sandoval said that while he and Schwartz developed the concoctions themselves, they are getting second opinions from other professionals.
“We came up with, I think we had roughly 30, we’ve narrowed it down to now 20. We’re gonna continue to narrow it down, of course. …It’s always nice to be able bounce ideas off somebody versus if I just give [Scheana Shay] a drink, she’s gonna be like, ‘Oh! Its good!’ But somebody who’s in the industry, you know, a well-known mixologist, you can just be like, ‘Ok, I’m thinking about chili-chocolate bitters or do we go more of like the’…all those things,” Sandoval explained.
“We have a nice balance of cocktails and I think also you’ll be just as comfortable getting a shot and a beer there. And trust me, that will be on the menu,” Schwartz added.
In other Pump Rules, Sandoval became a hot topic of conversation on Reddit last month after his girlfriend, Ariana Madix, shared the photo seen below on her Instagram Story, garnering comparisons to Macaulay Culkin, Mickey Rourke, and others.
“Sandy looking like Ethan Hawke,” one person said.
“I thought Kevin Bacon – lol,” another replied.
A third fan said they “legit did not recognize him for a moment” and noted that the “lighting’s making him look a little grey but not necessarily in a bad way.”
“I’m getting Stephen King vibes,” someone else stated.
“I was thinking Jim Carey lmao,” another shared.
A different fan asked, “That’s not actually Tom, is it!?” And another wrote, “Oh my god… I didn’t even think that was Sandy, he looks so different.”
Vanderpump Rules season 10 is expected to go into production sometime in the coming weeks, which means fans will likely get to see the opening of Schwartz and Sandoval’s new bar.