What follows is an amalgamated re-run of two prior QoDs (4/30/12 and 5/8/12), plus an update to bring you, well, up-to-date.
Back when it opened in 1993, the Holy Cow! was Las Vegas' first brewpub. (Now, of course, we have several, plus a bunch of pubs selling other people's craft brews and imports -- see Pubs & Microbreweries. There's a twofer offer for LVA members the local Sin City brew, plus a free draft pint at both Holsteins and Public House, at our CouponsinVegas site).
In previous incarnations, the property located at 2423 Las Vegas Blvd., had operated first as Foxy's Deli and then, from 1976-1988 as Foxy's Firehouse, a casino that boasted a half-sized crap table (as a nostalgic reader wrote in to remind us when we previously wrote about it).
Abe "Foxy" Fox opened Foxy's Restaurant, Bakery, and Delicatessen (sometimes the names are listed the other way around) at the north end of the Strip when he arrived in Las Vegas in 1955. Notable for being among the first, if not the very first desegrated restaurant in Las Vegas, Abe opened Foxy's doors to all colors and recalled delivering meals to Nat King Cole when he was performing at the Thunderbird Hotel in the '50s. Fox even hired Cole to be his spokesman when, for some reason that time and space do not permit us investigating right now, he was campaigning to have Pahrump's name changed to Palm Springs. Beloved by performers including Sinatra, Wayne Newton, Ann Margret, Liberace, Don Rickles, The Mills Brothers, and Shecky Green, Foxy's was also a hangout for the good 'ole boys and numerous deals were said to have been inked on the back of a Foxy's napkin in the '50s.
Originally born in New York City on Nov. 29, 1914, Abe Fox first moved himself and his family to Los Angeles, before later relocating to Vegas. Renowned for being one of the truly authentic New York/Jewish delis in town, we've read former patrons of Foxy's waxing lyrical about the Reuben sandwiches, the cabbage soup, the chocolate chiffon pie, and the egg creams, among other things. You can take a peek at an authentic menu, although the way that it's presented means you have to zoom in and scroll around to read it. Entrées were in the 45¢-$1.95 range, while you could order a "complete dinner" for between $2 and $3.50. The deli was open 24/7 for dine-in and take-out orders.
Abe had a reputation for being a practical joker and once presented a friend with the leaving gift of a live goldfish in a bowl, just as the friend was about to board a plane. On another occasion, when asked to cater a turkey dinner for some businessmen on Mount Charleston, Fox apparently sent a live turkey that the prospective guests were obliged to catch.
In 1975, Abe Fox sold his business, although he continued to dabble in real estate and remained active on the Las Vegas social circuit. He died in December, 2004, following a stroke he'd suffered a few days earlier while watching a football game at the Las Vegas Country Club. He was 90 years old.
Foxy's Diner went on to become Foxy's Firehouse, a slot parlor with about 100 machines and that half-sized crap table. This in turn shut down in 1988 to become the Holy Cow! casino and microbrewery, particularly notable for the 14-foot sunglass-wearing Holstein cow that sat atop the entrance. It was a popular locals hangout owned by the Big Dog's Hospitality Group and featured a long dark wood bar with a 9-tap milk-can tower that poured the five house beers, alongside Miller Lite and nitrogen-pushed Guinness. The brewhouse and fermenters for the 10bbl Century brewing system were located on the second floor. The joint served decent bar food and was featured in the popular Discovery Channel reality series "Casino Diaries," (one of the subjects of which was being filmed playing there one night when a power failure struck, "vanishing" a couple of thousand dollars-worth of credits he had in the machine live on camera, but that's another story...)
We were saddened when the Cow closed on March 22, 2002, and awaited its future fate with curiosity. Nothing happened, however, until Ivana Trump showed up with a plan to turn the site into a condo tower. Whether she was serious about the plan or simply wanted to annoy her ex-husband, who was then building his own tower down the street, history doesn't relate, but the timing coincided with the bottom beginning to fall out of that particular market and a sense that Vegas was already getting condo'd-out, so her plan came to nothing more than the installation of some garish pink awnings.
More nothingness continued to happened until 2007, when the two-acre site was bought for $47 million by Steve Johnson, an investor-developer from Scottsdale, AZ who owns a bunch of Walgreens, including the one in front of Palazzo. Johnson's plan was to raze the existing structure as soon as possible and have a new project up-and-running by late 2010. His much-vaunted dream was the somewhat bizarre-sounding concept of a casino/restaurant/tavern/pharmacy complex, complete with a facade of full-motion video wrapping. In March, 2008 a temporary "trailer station" casino operated on the site for some eight hours in order to preserve the location's casino license, but then more nothing.
It wasn't until August, 2009, that Las Vegas City Council granted approval for the casino and its 98-foot sign. The plans then released called for a 9,000-square-foot casino with restaurants and retail space, but no hotel and a sign scaled down in size from its originally proposed 500 feet. [Ed: Wow, we'd forgotten about that. It would've been one of the few constructs at comparable altitude to the new Higher Roller at the Linq, but we digress.] The expected completion of "late 2010" was repeated but, again, as with so many construction projects around the valley at that juncture, what actually happened was: nada.
Aside from that, the ongoing nothingness at the site continued until May of 2012, when we finally noted some activity, prompting us to dig deeper. We found that on March 12, 2012, the City of Las Vegas had granted to American Demolition a license to obliterate 2423 S. Las Vegas Boulevard, at which time a valuation of $49,000 was placed on the property. So, we placed a call to that company and got through to the cell phone of owner Jack Paripovich. We left a message inquiring as to what was going on, but have yet to hear back, although the building was, in due course, duly demolished.
At that time, we also placed a call to Steve Johnson Development, which was listed as having an office adjacent to the former Holy Cow!, at 2427 Las Vegas Blvd. S., but no one answered; the number we found for an Arizona office was no longer in service. Then we found a photograph, with no additional information, that was published in the LV-Sun in July, 2011, depicting a sign out front saying, "All Inquiries. Broker Participation Invited," leading us to believe that the property may well have quietly changed hands yet again.
With an ongoing silence of deafening proportions emanating from all sides, we confess we'd given little (read: zero) thought to this project ever since, what with all the real stuff that IS happening around town. However, this most recent inquiry submitted to the QoD column prompted some renewed investigation, which led us to a post by the Eater Vegas blog from last August, from which we learned the following:
"The empty lot across the street from SLS Vegas will remain vacant for some time.
"The former mini casino and microbrewery on the northeast corner of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard was demolished in April 2012 after closing a decade earlier. The casino featured a wall signed by Cubs announcer Harry Caray, known for saying 'Holy cow' for big plays.
"The corner was meant to be revitalized by bold plans to create a two-story, retro-arched, 37,100-square-foot multipurpose complex, similar in tone to the south Strip's Harmon Corner [Ed: Note that the fate of certain venues at this location could/should serve as a cautionary tale]. The first and mezzanine levels would feature retail and a separate gaming area and the second floor would be filled with restaurants.
"But Walgreen's, the principal downstairs tenant, has now delayed the estimated opening date until March 31, 2015, citing the 'current slump in the economy' [Ed: We thought that was behind us?] and put the brakes on any current construction."
So, this was a really long-winded way of saying that Holy Cow! is long gone, and nothing is likely to take its place anytime soon. (Ed: Damn, just realized we could've written only that and been at a still-functioning bar by now! But that's just not how QoD rolls.)
