Schwartz & Sandy’s Is Scandoval’s Latest Casualty

Recovering from a massive nationwide scandal is not for the weak, and adding in a post-COVID dining climate is a recipe for disaster. Thankfully, as long as you didn’t bet your family’s $250,000 retirement fund on the bar, things should eventually bounce back smoothly. Oh, wait. Schwartz and Sandy’s, a bar and restaurant founded by Vanderpump Rules bad boys Tom Schwartz and Tom Sandoval, announced that they’d be closing up shop by the end of the year, citing the COVID pandemic and Scandoval as some of the reasons for the bar’s failure. “Deciding to close was one of the hardest decisions we’ve made,” Schwartz told People. “We agonized over it for quite some time because we truly believe it’s a great bar, still ripe with potential. Unfortunately, the current climate for this business is pretty rough. Recovering from all the negativity post-scandal wasn’t easy, and the slimmer margins post-COVID made it even harder to bounce back. There’s not a lot of room for error in the restaurant/bar business.” Schwartz and Sandy’s first opened in November 2022 with the help of Lisa Vanderpump and fueled by the success of their first bar, TomTom.

Even if Scandoval was why Schwartz and Sandy’s went under; it wasn’t the only casualty involving the duo. It basically broke Katie Maloney and Schwartz’s marriage. “All of the marital issues and arguments and everything we were having has now just been personified. This bar was the other woman in our marriage, and I’m standing inside of her now,” Maloney told Schwartz on the show. “It nearly broke you, and it nearly broke me. It broke us kinda, so was it worth it?” At least Maloney has her answer now.

The bar is closing at the end of December, per their Instagram, but not without throwing a Taylor Swift-themed night in honor of the singer’s birthday. Don’t they know she’s probably #TeamAriana?