The Prime Rib will join the restaurant lineup at new Live! Casino in South Philly

The Prime Rib name will resurface in early 2021 with the opening of the Live! Casino & Hotel in South Philadelphia.

The Prime Rib will be part of the casino’s dining lineup, which will include two Guy Fieri restaurants and a food hall billed as 10th Street Market that will have stands by Lorenzo & Sons Pizza, Sang Kee Noodle Bar & Kitchen, and Termini Bros. Bakery.

This is a new incarnation of the luxe, old-school steakhouse mini-chain run by Rebecca Dolan, a Virginia-based niece of founder C. Peter “Buzz” Beler. Dolan and her family also operate the original Prime Rib locations in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and a newer location at the Live! Casino in Hanover, Md. (Both the South Philly Live! Casino, at Ninth Street and Packer Avenue, and the Live! Casino in Maryland are owned by the Baltimore-based Cordish Companies.)

After Beler’s death at age 90 in October 2019, Dolan, as trustee, exercised the company’s right to move the Philadelphia Prime Rib’s name from its home of more than 22 years in the Warwick Hotel (17th and Locust Streets) to the forthcoming restaurant in South Philadelphia.

That action forced the partners of the Warwick restaurant, Garth Weldon and Peter H. Beler (Buzz’s son), to come up with a new name. After a quick change in early 2020 to 1701 Steakhouse, the Warwick restaurant recently settled on the name Rittenhouse Grill, with the same management, food, and 1940s Hollywood-style atmosphere (leopard carpeting and black-leather booths) that are the signature of the Prime Ribs.

The Prime Rib at Live! will be open to the public with entrances from the street as well as the casino-hotel.

Live! also will include Sports & Social Philly, which Cordish describes as a “dining, sports, and entertainment experience” with a FanDuel SportsBook. It is looking to fill more than 50 food-and-beverage job openings.