Hmm. We admit you have us a little stumped with this one; the description almost sounds like a hybrid of more than one venue.
It's taken years for downtown Las Vegas to get it right and find a new identity for itself. For a long time, it was just a rundown and seedy area blighted by tawdry stands selling tacky tourist crap (those are still there, of course), and rife with hookers and crackheads. (The current writer recalls having a tire blowout outside a particularly unsalubrious bail bond business back in 2002, and being assisted by a helpful young man carrying a shotgun, which he asked me to look after while he changed my tire!)
Repeated efforts to "impose" fabricated modernity, like Neonopolis and Jillian's, met with failure after failure, and it was all pretty depressing for a while.
However, in recent years, we've seen downtown come on leaps and bounds, with lots of very visible improvements. The Neon Museum placed a number of restored vintage signs around Fremont Street and its environs, while the Fremont East Entertainment District is lit up with some fun modern neon signage in a retro vein, including a giant gin martini in honor of Bombay Sapphire-swilling Mayor Oscar Goodman.
One after another, cool bars started to move into the neighborhood, including Triple George, Hogs 'n Heifers, and the Sidebar on Third Street (which has valet parking), plus Hennessy's and the Brass Lounge on Fremont Street. As a recent article headline in the R-J put it, "East of the [Fremont Street] Experience, signs of progress."
The dividing line between Fremont Street and Fremont East is Las Vegas Blvd., at the intersection of which is a cool bar with an entrance we can never quite figure out, in spite of repeated visits. The downtown cocktail room [sic.] feels more like a New York/East Berlin bar than a Vegas one -- the aesthetic is dark urban cool, where stark concrete meets opulent red velvet. We're not sure what it is about the entrance that confuses us, but it's definitely non-intuitive and we've almost walked into a wall thinking that was the door on more than one occasion, or else we try to open the door the wrong way. Once you do find your way inside, this place is famous for its cocktails and in fact made the (very short) list of recommended venues for cocktails in our upcoming Eating Las Vegas guide. Try the Bloody Mary, which is particularly famous.
Still, much as we'd agree that the entrance here is a little quirky, the downtown cocktail room is definitely not a '70s bar by any stretch of the imagination.
If you head east on Fremont East, the next cool bar you'll come across is The Griffin, which has a big green neon griffin sign outside (the City Council offers grants for façade improvement and encourages classic Vegas neon) but is also not remotely '70s-themed, or at least not 1970s -- 1570s, maybe! Inside, it has a cozy European feel, with vaulted brick ceiling, fire pits, plush seating, and it's always packed. In fact, on a recent visit during the WSOP, an impressed fellow Brit., who was here covering the event for the English edition of Card Player, asked the current writer if this was "the coolest bar in Vegas?" We had to admit it's definitely up there among our favorites.
A few doors further east you'll hit the Vegas branch of the Beauty Bar, which now also has venues in New York (the original), San Diego, Houston, L.A., and Austin, and we wonder if this is another part of the hybrid? It's more '50s than '70s-themed, however -- the concept started with transforming a real '50s beauty salon into a bar, maintaining as many of the fixtures and fittings as possible, and the others have kept to the theme, even if they had to recreate a salon where there wasn't one before, as was the case with the Vegas location. We've never had any problem finding the entrance, which features velvet ropes and a bouncer; there's a back alley that you can exit by, but you're not meant to come in that way, as there's pretty much always a cover charge.
We love the Beauty Bar, where ladies can get a martini and manicure on Thursday nights, but we have to admit that it's hit and miss, depending on which night you go. Head there on First Friday for "The Getback," featuring soul, funk, oldskool hip hop, and reggae, and you're in for a treat. The backyard area comes into its own, where you'll find a hip young locals crowd getting down to the beats and chilling on the mismatched furniture. The party doesn't stop till 4 a.m. or later. On the other hand, you can go mid-week or on an off weekend night and there might be a handful of strange people listening to an obscure and untalented punk band. Still, it's a friendly joint and the décor's '50s cool.
Next door to the Beauty Bar is Don't Tell Mama, a piano bar that also has an older sibling in New York City, and which we can also recommend as something a little different. The female singer and pianist we heard when we visited were talented and amusing (not for the easily offended or homophobic, however) and it's a fun but mellow vibe.
Until recently, all the Fremont East action was on the south side of the street, but now developments are spreading across to the other side. A former medical building at the corner with Sixth Street has been converted into Emergency Arts, a conglomeration of small businesses, including a cafe and the Burlesque Hall of Fame. Today, a new bar called the Vanguard is due to open across from the Beauty Bar, the dream of a couple who wanted to help build this neighborhood into a cool bar-crawling area like San Diego's Gaslamp District. The Maharaja Hookah Cafe is due to open soon and, lacking a liquor license, hopes to appeal to the underage crowd, while the owners of Kabob Korner on Fremont East are due to open another new nightspot with live music, called Azul Tequila.
So, there's our roundup of the downtown bar scene and, while none of the venues we're aware of quite fits your description, we'd recommend trying out all of the above. Since one of the joys of Fremont East is its walkability, you can check them all out in one night. We've never had trouble finding a parking meter or, if you don't want to drive, you can take the Deuce Bus downtown from the Strip.
