Tom Sandoval and his BFF-turned-business-partner Tom Schwartz may have said goodbye to their Los Angeles bar and restaurant Schwartz & Sandy’s more than a year ago, but Sandoval has yet to repay his mom the $250,000 she invested in the failed business venture.
As fans of Vanderpump Rules may remember, during a party to celebrate the opening of Schwartz & Sandy’s back in Season 10, Sandoval revealed that his mom, Terri Green, and stepdad had invested a quarter of a million dollars into his bar and restaurant, which closed its doors in December 2024– just two years after opening.
Terri, a former firefighter, reportedly used money from her retirement fund to back her son’s bar business after Sandoval assured her that Schwartz & Sandy’s would be a success and that she would ultimately get her money back.
While his bar has been closed for more than a year now, Sandoval admitted on Tuesday’s episode of Watch What Happens Live that he has yet to reimburse his mom for her “investment.”
“Umm, I am in the process of working on that … ,” Sandoval told host Andy Cohen, before being interrupted by laughter from the audience, as well as some major side-eye from Andy.
Sandoval went on to explain that, like himself and Schwartz, his mom and stepdad were “actually investors” in the bar, noting that the $250,000 they contributed came with “a percentage in the company.” He even argued that his mom and stepdad’s investment was “the same thing” as the investments he and Schwartz made in Lisa Vanderpump’s TomTom restaurant in 2018, though unlike Schwartz & Sandy’s, TomTom remains in operation. (It’s worth noting that Lisa gave Sandoval and Schwartz their initial TomTom investments back the week that Schwartz & Sandy’s opened, as she alleged that the duo “needed money.”)
“I know, but it’s your mom,” Andy said. “She lost her money.”
“I know,” Sandoval replied. “I’m working on it.”
Andy previously asked Sandoval about his mom’s investment in 2023 during Part 1 of the Season 10 Reunion (on Peacock’s Pumped Up Edition), to which Sandoval insisted that his mom was “OK” financially, despite him still owing her $250,000.
“She wouldn’t have give[n] me that if it was like … ,” Sandoval said, with Andy concluding, “If it was do or die.”
Sandoval went on to claim at the time that revenue was down at Schwartz & Sandy’s in the wake of his affair with Rachel Leviss being exposed; however, he assured that he still intended to pay his mom back for her investment.
“I’ll pay her back at some point, eventually, for sure, no matter what,” he said. “Whether it’s with that business or not.”
While Sandoval obviously won’t be repaying his mom using revenue from his now-shuttered bar, he admitted this week that if he and Schwartz hadn’t closed the doors at Schwartz & Sandy’s in 2024, they would have probably been forced to do so eventually due to the bar’s Franklin Village location.
“It’s a tricky area to be in,” Sandoval claimed, as reported by Bravo. “It’s not like West Hollywood that gets all the foot traffic. It was just very hard to get that place going, I think it would have closed eventually.”
While repaying his mom’s retirement fund seems to rank pretty low on Sandoval’s priority list, the 42-year-old made a point to give his mom a shout out on social media back in 2015 while proudly sharing the news that Terri had officially retired from the Creve Coeur Fire Protection District. In his post, Sandoval called his mom “a hero, an example, and all around badass” for her accomplished career.
Watch a clip from Sandoval’s ‘Watch What Happens Live’ appearance below.
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(Photos: Bravo; Instagram)
