Former restaurateur Deale dies at 75

Friday, June 27, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

If it wasn't the top-notch prime beef, huge baked potatoes or mouth-watering seafood that brought customers into Philips Supper Club, owner Philip Deale had other imaginative ways to fill his elegant eatery.

In the early 1980s Deale tipped cabdrivers $3 a piece to suggest to tourists that they had to go to the restaurant near Sahara Avenue and Decatur Boulevard, far off the Strip's beaten path, to enjoy the meal of their lives.

Deale eventually settled a lawsuit brought by other restaurant owners who claimed he lured away their customers with his promotion. But in his affidavit from the case, Deale denied diverting customers and argued that there is nothing wrong with tipping cabdrivers.

Philip Q. Deale, a restaurateur who sought out the town's top chefs and for two decades provided amenities ranging from a romantic atmosphere to individual meeting rooms, died Tuesday of heart complications in Las Vegas. He was 75.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 45 years, who sold his restaurant a few years ago when he was diagnosed with a heart condition and other health concerns, will be 11 a.m. Wednesday at Palm Mortuary-Jones.

"He was a class act -- a fearless, hands-on businessman who was not afraid to go up against other powerful restaurant owners if he believed he was right," said longtime Las Vegas attorney Albert Marquis, a friend of 20 years who represented Deale in the 1983 cab-tipping case.

"He was a great businessman who served the best steaks and seafood in town. The baked potatoes seemed as big as footballs."

Marquis and his wife Jonanie got married at Philips Supper Club in 1999.

Born May 10, 1928, in Toledo, Ohio, Deale was a veteran of the Army. He settled in Las Vegas in 1958.

Deale operated another supper club before opening the one he named after himself in the late 1970s. Deale leaves no survivors.