Of the three, the most recent victim was the Tillerman. According to its Facebook page, it quietly expired on Feb. 16, 2011. "A greedy landlord" was blamed. The Tillerman had hung tough for 31 years and used to boast quite a cachet. Local food critic John Curtas told the Las Vegas Sun, "At one time, it was one of the top five most popular restaurants in town. It was a power broker place."
The first incarnation of the Tillerman was on Maryland Parkway and lasted two years before succumbing to fire. Undaunted, owner Thomas Kapp pulled up stakes and relocated to Flamingo Road. There, "it flourished with a heavy wood and brass décor that equaled opulence before wine towers and Strip-side terraces. Siegfried and Roy were devotees, the aging Rat Packers all popped in at some point, and conventioneers on expense accounts would spend big on steak, lobster and wine," wrote Steve Friess.
However, in time, ownership changed, standards slipped – as did the neighborhood, blighted with dingy office parks. Landlord Jack Spitz was able to parlay the struggling Tillerman into the hands of restaurateur Karen Pollick for $15,000 a month. Despite a heavy capital investment, the Tillerman’s slide couldn’t be reversed. "By the end, we were giving away our food," Pollick lamented to Friess. When closure came, it was probably a mercy.
Last August, Vegas Eater.com announced that the Tillerman was to be reincarnated as La Jolla. Spitz had been unable to secure any buyers for the property, so he was leasing it out at an undisclosed price. "An existing tavern license dangled the possibility of installing 15 gambling machines," noted website Eater. As of the present writing, no information can be found on the mooted La Jolla, though, and the Tillerman remains untouched and showing increasing signs of cosmetic dilapidation (we drove by the other day and happened to notice that some of the lettering in its signage had gone AWOL).
The Port Tack was not fondly received when the Los Angeles Times reviewed it in 1986. The newspaper characterized it as, "a casual, limp-in-from-the-slot-machines, fish, steak and ribs place with a sailing theme, which may soothe … The help, although cordial, was s-l-o-w and the outside entry looked like the one I imagine at Alcatraz." It was another 10 years before the Port Tack made local headlines, this time for not being in Americans with Disabilities Act compliance.
Even for a town as ephemeral as Vegas, the Port Tack and Rafters have fallen into hyper-obscurity. LVA’s Anthony Curtis recalls Rafters as being on Tropicana Avenue, near the eastern Crown & Anchor "but I never went there." When we probed the person who submitted this QoD for a little more detail, they responded, very intriguingly, "It was a free-standing restaurant in the early eighties, out on Tropicana Blvd. (over a mile to the east); it was another restaurant after Rafters and I had heard that Natalie Cole may have had something to do with its demise!"
Of what Ms Cole may or may not have had to do with this story, sadly history doesn’t seem to relate, a circumstance which turned out to apply when attempting to find out anything else about this place, aside from the tracking down its actual address/ This revealed that it wasn’t close to the Crown & Anchor -- it was on the exact same spot, at 1350 E. Tropicana Avenue -- most likely in the same building, since the C&A's premises give the impression of being old by Vegas standards. If anyone out there has any personal recollections, further insights, or the dirt on Natalie Cole, then do please drop us a line.
Returning to Anthony Curtis, however, "I went to Port Tack all the time," he recalls. "It was popular as a restaurant, but the bar scene was the big thing there. A lot of old-timers used to hang out and there was a lot going on there, not all legal. There was also a Starboard Tack on the east side. I don’t know why they closed, but the Port Tack location (3190 W. Sahara Ave.) has had several other bar/restaurant incarnations, none of which ever really took, and it's been shuttered for some years now."
