Lisa Vanderpump finally reopens Pump and gushes over new dinner party series Overserved

Los Angeles is slowly coming back to life in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and one of West Hollywood’s most popular hot spots, Pump, is opening its doors once more.

Lisa Vanderpump exclusively sat down for a virtual chat with DailyMailTV to dish on the exciting reopening of Pump after a ‘truly devastating’ year for the restaurant industry.

Plus, LVP returns to the small screen with her new E! series Overserved with Lisa Vanderpump where she – along with husband Ken and daughter Pandora – hosts celebrity pals for an elegant and ‘very naughty’ dinner party at her stunning Beverly Hills home.

Lisa and Ken reopened Pump this week after months of being closed down due to the pandemic.

‘It was really, truly devastating. We were prepared for everything, but we weren’t prepared for this,’ Lisa said, reflecting on the pandemic shutting down the entire restaurant industry. ‘It was unsustainable for so many.’

‘We did open briefly, but then we shut down again,’ she explained. 

Los Angeles restaurants were forced to close their dining rooms last spring were later allowed to reopen and then forced to shut down again when the city issued a second stay at home order. Once restaurants were given the green light to safely open back up, and the couple ironed out a minor tax snafu, they were ready to welcome diners once more.

‘It costs a lot of money to open up and then shut down again. So, that was kind of hard,’ Lisa said. ‘We watched the numbers very, very closely because my staff and the safety of customers [is] of utmost importance. I’ve been encouraging my staff to get vaccinated,’ Lisa said, adding that she already got her shot of the vaccine.

Meanwhile, Lisa and Ken’s other hot spot, Sur, had already reopened its doors and the Vanderpump Cocktail Garden at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas is also up and running.

‘My first love is really the restaurant business,’ she quipped. ‘To open that back up and welcome people back through the doors [is] great.’

Los Angeles is slowly allowing indoor dining again at a reduced capacity but Pump, with its enormous garden space, is already set up for success in a pandemic-era restaurant world.

‘It is really a great space,’ Lisa said of her West Hollywood mainstay, ‘especially for what’s going on now.’

Due to the restaurant closures, Lisa’s fan-favorite Bravo reality series Vanderpump Rules – which films inside her establishments – was also forced to suspend production.

Now that things are opening back up, fans are eager to know when and if Rules will resume filming – but Lisa revealed that the future of the series is really in the hands of the network.

‘I think we need to be at least 50% capacity and Bravo needs to pull the trigger,’ she said. Lisa explained that since Sur, Pump and Tom Tom were all closed because of COVID-19 the series ‘couldn’t come back until now anyway.’ Then she added coyly: ‘I think we’ll know pretty soon one way or another.’

The production team behind Vanderpump Rules actually got together to help Lisa create her latest reality show, Overserved with Lisa Vanderpump, which debuts later this week.

When producers asked her what she had gotten up to during lockdown, Lisa revealed she’d become a ‘maestro’ at all things domestic and decided to turn her time in the kitchen alongside daughter Pandora into a dinner party show.

‘We were really kind of doing intricate cooking,’ she explained. ‘So we thought, let’s do a fun, cooking, entertaining show and let’s have people over.’

Lisa said the show had a very small production team as COVID-19 safety protocols were ‘very, very stringent’ and most of the heavily lifting, which viewers will see throughout the episodes, is done by Lisa, Pandora and Ken.

‘If you look closely at the show, you’ll see we’re all six foot apart and we were tested before and during so it was very, very safe,’ Lisa explained. ‘It’s very elegant, it’s very beautiful … but it’s also very naughty.’

Vanderpump invited an all-star cast of characters to dine at her home like Vivica A. Fox, Lance Bass, Jeff Lewis, Cheryl Hines and Iggy Azalea who were all treated to gourmet meals, craft cocktails and stunning tablescapes all prepared by Lisa.

‘One thing they all had in common, I was sure of, was a sense of humor,’ she said of her guests. ‘Everybody came to play. They really did.’

Each dinner party has a different theme and vibe such as French, Mexican and Italian, and Lisa dipped into her impressive collection of housewares to make each table look spectacular.

‘We set out to do to a show [about] the beauty of entertaining at home – but, you see us do all the work as well,’ she said. ‘It’s a real giggle. There’s no nastiness, there’s none of that. It’s fun, it’s playful, and you can’t help but laugh.’

In addition to her new television series, Lisa kept herself active at home during quarantine with her new podcast All Things Vanderpump. 

The podcast, which first debuted in late 2020, was recently relaunched with a fresh, faster paced format. 

Lisa said she made a conscious effort not to dip into the reality television pool too much for guests on All Things Vanderpump, opting instead for ‘different people from all different walks of life.’

‘One of the things I’ve loved about the podcast is that you get to meet so many incredible people, it’s just fascinating people that you wouldn’t normally cross paths with,’ Vanderpump explained.

Overserved with Lisa Vanderpump premieres March 18 at 9 p.m. ET on E! and the series moves to a 10 p.m. ET time slot starting March 25. Lisa’s Podcast, All Things Vanderpump, is available now.