Multi-Michelin Starred Chef Gordon Ramsay Celebrated Grand Opening of Canada’s First Gordon Ramsay Steak at River Rock Casino Resort

RICHMOND, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 22, 2025--

Culinary icon and multi-Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay made a grand entrance into Vancouver’s dining scene with the official opening of Gordon Ramsay Steakat River Rock Casino Resort Friday night. The waterfront restaurant welcomed approximately 200 VIP guests to an unforgettable evening, marking the official Grand Opening of Chef Ramsay’s first fine dining restaurant in Canada. The partnership with Great Canadian Entertainment was announced in 2023, with the popular and more casual Gordon Ramsay Burger opening at Great Canadian Vancouver in December 2023, before construction on the highly anticipated steakhouse was complete.

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Since taking its first reservations just a few short weeks ago, the 266-seat Gordon Ramsay Steak - the centrepiece of a reimagined lobby at River Rock Casino Resort - has been met with rave reviews. With a dining experience that seamlessly blends Ramsay’s culinary excellence with breathtaking waterfront views, it has quickly become a must-visit destination for delighted diners.

Great Canadian Entertainment CEO Matthew Anfinson and Canadian soccer legend Christine Sinclair joined Chef Ramsay for a ribbon-cutting ceremony prior to the red carpet. During a champagne toast, which included welcome remarks from Anfinson and Chief Wayne Sparrow of the Musqueam Indian Band, Sinclair presented Ramsay with a Team Canada soccer jersey and a scarf from the brand-new Vancouver Rise women's soccer team of the Northern Super League.

He immediately endeared himself to the 200 invited guests, acknowledging Canada’s Four Nations Cup overtime win, and praising his entire local 150-person team. “Getting to spend time with the chefs, the front of house, back of house, receptionists, waiters… the passion and the desire that’s running this restaurant is just extraordinary,” said Ramsay. “Chefs depend on their brigades, we’re only as good as our brigades, so thank you.”

“I’m blessed to confirm that 85% of our ingredients are sourced locally,” said Ramsay to massive applause. “That’s quite rare. I fell in love with Richmond and Vancouver BC over 20 years ago, and this whole area blew my mind. So, on behalf of the entire Gordon Ramsay team, from Vegas to London to Richmond, it’s very special to be here, and now it’s my turn to help continue this legacy and respect the ground it’s been built on.”

The evening began when Chef Ramsay, alongside Anfinson and Sinclair hosted a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony. After entering the party, he graciously spent time meeting the guests, taking photos and encouraging them to try the restaurant’s specialties.

Guests indulged in an exquisite menu featuring Ramsay’s signature dishes, including Beef Wellington, Miso Glazed Sablefish and Tuna Tartare, a tower of fresh seafood including lobster, crab and oysters displayed in a massive ice sculpture, alongside expertly crafted cocktails. Among the highlights was the cheekily named “ Notes from Gordon ”, a cocktail served with a rolled-up note featuring a punchy message from Chef Ramsay. Dessert naturally included his signature Sticky Toffee Pudding.

During a brief ceremony to officially inaugurate the restaurant, Ramsay led a champagne toast and was joined by Chief Sparrow, City of Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie, Anfinson and Sinclair.

“This process started about three years ago. Gordon Ramsay has 88 restaurants around the world, and we thought, “why not give Canada a shot? And here we are today,” said Anfinson.

“As a kid growing up just 15 minutes from here, kicking a soccer ball around, this was definitely not on my bingo card,” said Sinclair. “I am a very proud Canadian. My Canadian roots, my Vancouver roots run deep. So, Gordon, thank you for choosing to open your first fine dining restaurant here in my backyard in Richmond. Welcome to the lower mainland of BC.”

While presenting a Team Canada soccer jersey to Ramsay, she quipped, “I’m sorry that it’s not Chelsea Blue, it’s more of a Liverpool red,” teasing him about his well-known reverence for the Chelsea Football Team.

She went on to proudly remind everyone that Canada is about to launch its first ever women’s professional soccer league, and after presenting him with one of the first official team scarves, invited Ramsay to join her for the opening match on April 16, and promised she would bring the team for dinner at Gordon Ramsay Steak afterwards.

Earlier in the day, Chef Ramsay made a memorable journey on the Canada Line and praised the ease of travel between downtown Vancouver and River Rock, with the Bridgeport Station conveniently located on-site. At lunchtime, Ramsay hosted a fun and interactive burger making competition for eight lucky guests at Great Canadian Casino Vancouver.

Throughout the day, Chef Ramsay spent time in the kitchens with his teams, ensuring every menu item and service met the restaurant’s elevated standards.

Gordon Ramsay Steak is open for dinner daily from 5:00 PM. Reservations are recommended and available via OpenTable. For more information, please visit grsteak.ca or follow River Rock Casino Resort on Instagram and Facebook.

About River Rock Casino Resort

Located along the scenic Fraser River, River Rock Casino Resort is British Columbia’s premier gaming and entertainment destination. Home to the newly opened Gordon Ramsay Steak, the first fine dining restaurant in Canada from Michelin-starred chef and television personality Gordon Ramsay, the resort offers an unparalleled culinary experience alongside world-class gaming and live entertainment. With thrilling casino action featuring 1,150 slots and e-tables, over 80 live table games, live racebook, poker room, nearly 400 hotel rooms, a tranquil spa, and exceptional service, River Rock continues to set the standard for hospitality in the region.

About Great Canadian Entertainment

Founded in 1982, Great Canadian Entertainment is Canada’s premier gaming and hospitality company with gaming, entertainment, hospitality and resort facilities in Ontario, British Columbia, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

Committed to investing in and offering opportunity to those in the communities in which it operates, Great Canadian supports over 1,400 charitable and non-profit organizations across Canada under its PROUD program; “PROUD of our people, our business, our community”. A significant portion of gross gaming revenue from Great Canadian’s gaming facilities is retained by Crown partners on behalf of their provincial governments for the purpose of supporting programs that benefit healthcare, education, and social services in Canada. To learn more, please visit greatcanadian.com or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or X.

About Gordon Ramsay North America

Gordon Ramsay North America comprises the U.S. and Canada restaurant business of acclaimed chef, restaurateur, TV personality and author Gordon Ramsay. The company currently has restaurants across Las Vegas, New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, Chicago, Connecticut, Indiana, Orlando, North Carolina, Atlantic City, Baltimore, Lake Tahoe, Kansas City, Miami, Oklahoma City, Lake Charles, and Vancouver, several of which are in partnership with Caesars Entertainment.

The group is scaling dining concepts as the company taps into several of Gordon Ramsay’s successful U.S. and international key brands including Gordon Ramsay HELL’S KITCHEN, Lucky Cat by Gordon Ramsay, Ramsay’s Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay Steak, Gordon Ramsay Burger, Gordon Ramsay Street Pizza, and Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips.

Including Gordon Ramsay’s North America restaurants, there are 60 international restaurants, in the Gordon Ramsay Restaurants portfolio world-wide and 34 in the UK. To date Gordon Ramsay holds a total of 8 Michelin stars, including the flagship Restaurant Gordon Ramsay which has held 3 Michelin stars for over 20 years.

For more information, please visit https://www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com.

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Chef Gordon Ramsay, Matthew Anfinson, CEO Great Canadian Entertainment and Canadian soccer legend Christine Sinclair at the Grand Opening of Gordon Ramsay Steak at River Rock Casino Resort on February 21, 2025 (Photo: Business Wire)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)