Craziness is the order of the day in Atlantic City. Late last week, police conducted a search of the home, cars and person of Mayor Marty Small (D). The constabulary’s five-warrant raid followed hard upon charges against Atlantic City High School Principal Constance Days-Chapman (“Aunty Mandy” to the Small family) for alleged official misconduct, hindering apprehension of another, obstruction of justice and failure to report child abuse. It is therefore worth noting that Mrs. Small is one La’Quetta Small, the superintendent of schools for Atlantic City. Nepotism much? Days-Chapman was also campaign manager for Mr. Small, so we’re dealing with a very cozy circle of cronyism.
Bonnie and I sometimes travel to Harrah’s Cherokee, which is in the Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina.
Although there are many reasons we go there, one is that we have casino friends, “Jack” and “Jill,” who also play there. I email Jack when Bonnie and I are going to be traveling east, and sometimes they make a trip there at the same time. And when that happens, we share at least one meal at Brio, the Italian restaurant at the casino.
Rather than split the cost of the meal, we each pick up the entire check every other time we do this. All four of us play at the Seven Stars level, so, among other things, each gets five $100 food vouchers a year. Often one of those vouchers is redeemed during our meals together.
This time it was Jack’s turn to pick up the check. I asked him how much of the meal his host was picking up, and Jack said he never asked a host to buy his food.
“You’re leaving money on the table,” I told him. “You and Jill each play $50,000 coin-in per day you’re there and annually you each earn Seven Stars status primarily from your play at this casino. Hosts will consider you valuable to the casino and will be willing to give you something.”
He told me between them they earn $100 worth of Reward Credits a day, sometimes more if there’s a multiplier, and that’s enough to cover much of what they spend on food.
“Okay,” I continued. “I don’t know what kind of benefits your play entitles you to, but let’s say the host is willing to pick up $250 in food for your four-day trip that usually you pay for with Reward Credits. That many Reward Credits can be turned into $125 free play — which essentially means cash. Are you so rich you can’t find a use for another $125?”
The answer was obvious. I had given Jack the name of our host previously. He had spoken to the host over the phone, but never met her and she didn’t know they were at the casino now.
“You’re going to be here tomorrow, and she’ll get in at noon. Why don’t you give her a call and see if she has five minutes to chat. Once she puts faces to names, she can look up your play and figure out what she can do — if anything. It’s possible, I suppose, that she can’t do anything, but I very much doubt that. Even if that turns out to be the case, it will only cost you five minutes to find out. The odds are very good that she’ll be able to do something.”
Jill commented she would rather get free facials and manicures than free food. Jack thought a bottle of Scotch Whisky would satisfy him more.
“Let your host know that. Your host’s job is to take care of valuable customers. She has guidelines she must follow, but also, she has a lot of flexibility. It doesn’t hurt to ask.
“And sometimes you play at Harrah’s New Orleans too. If you don’t have a host there, get one. Let them know when you’re coming and see if they can offer you anything.”
If the fiscal impact of Formula One was debatable (its deleterious quality-of-life impact was inarguable), the SuperBowl‘s was not. Casino takings in February on the Las Vegas Strip leapt 12.5% to $801 million, while locals casinos were up 4% to $242 million. Compared to 2019 it was even more of a surge: +35% on the Strip and +30% off it. Table games held 14.5% and baccarat 17.5%. Even without baccarat, table game winnings were up 8% on 29% larger wagering. Baccarat win skyrocketed 82% (to $181 million) on 50% more play. Slot coin-in was up 4% but luck was with gamblers, as win dipped 2%, to $381 million.
The popular Texas-based Whataburger fast-food chain opened in Corpus Christi in 1950 and now has upwards of 1,000 locations in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and the South. It opened its first outpost in Nevada, its 15th state, in early February on the Strip in front of the Waldorf Astoria at City Center in the space formerly occupied by Bobby’s Burger Palace, though the two-story building is new.
Actually, several Whataburgers opened around Las Vegas starting in the 1970s, but slowly disappeared and were completely gone by the early ’90s.
The two-story restaurant also houses Parry’s Pizzeria & Taphouse. Parry’s is a chain that launched in 2007 in Colorado and now boasts 23 locations in the Southwest. It serves NY-style slices from 14 pies, 10 styles of never-frozen wings cooked to order, strombolis, and “Italian nachos,” along with cocktails and more than 100 beers on tap, with several local breweries represented.
This is the ultimate late-night play; both outlets are open 24 hours, 365 days a year.
You walk into the big ground floor of the standalone building and order from both the Whataburger and Parry’s Pizza menus at the same counter, unique in our fast-food experience.
Two huge screens are above the ordering-serving wall, probably 25 feet across and eight feet high. Ten more screens fill the walls around the room, all broadcasting sporting events.
Directly across from the order counter is Parry’s downstairs bar, with its triple-digit taps.
On the second floor is another bar, also Parry’s — a little more subdued and, dare we say, classy. You can take your food upstairs or the bartenders will order for you if you’re drinking; it’s delivered by food runners.
The whole front wall and part of the north-side wall on the second floor are sliding-glass doors. Two regular in-swinging doors on either end of the two walls open up to the outside and there’s an L-shaped deck with tables and couches. The view directly across the Strip is of BLVD, the new shopping and entertainment complex replacing the Hawaiian Marketplace and Cable Shops. You really get a feel for how massive this place will be: three stories, with 700 feet of Strip frontage, 400,000 square feet of shopping, and a 110,000-square-foot dining and event rooftop. No opening date has been announced, but it’s making major progress and we suspect the developers are shooting for November 2024 in time for the second-annual F1 race.
Even if the sliders are closed (primarily when it’s windy), you can go out on the deck, sit on the couches, and have a bird’s-eye view of center Strip.
We were trying Whataburger for the first time (a first try of Parry’s pizza will have to wait for another visit). We were frankly surprised by the number of people eating and waiting in line to order.
Then we saw the menu: breakfast served 11 p.m. to 11 a.m. with 30 items, from a breakfast burger and pancakes to a honey-butter chicken biscuit and taquito with cheese ($1.99-$7.99); then all-day burgers, patty melts, chicken strips and sandwiches, three salads, fries and onion rings, even a “secret menu” (veggie burger, grilled cheese, breakfast ranchero breakfast), all in the $1.79-$13.90 price range; and a dozen condiments (buffalo, honey bbq, jalapeno, spicy ketchup). All in all, the burger menu is much more extensive than other chains and with the Parry’s partnership, this place has something for everyone.
We weren’t particularly impressed with the burger and the fries were mealy and limp. Oh well. We were there more to check out the building, bars, balconies, and the bustling scene. And we will be back for the pizza, beer, and BLVD view.
We revisited Durango to take a closer look at the Eat Your Heart Out food hall.
EYHO is, actually, a hybrid space comprising both fast-food counters with common-area seating and sit-down restaurants with fairly expensive menus. The restaurants justify, we suppose, the description of the 25,000-square-foot food hall as “elevated,” the latest buzzword indicating fancier and more sophisticated than usual.
The fast food includes Irv’s Burgers, Uncle Paulie’s, Prince Street Pizza, Nielsen’s Frozen Custard, Vesta Coffee (with its own 10-seat counter), and the center bar, Drink. You order and pick up at the counters, like any fast fooderies, then sit in the common area or outside on the patio (it can be windy out there; we almost got blown away both times we visited in March).
The sit-down restaurants are Ai Pono Café for Hawaiian street food, Shang Artisan Noodle, Yu-or-Mi Sushi, and Fiorello Italian (which has a take-out window); the Oyster Bar is at an 18-seat counter (and is open 24/7).
We tried a burger from Irv’s and a sub from Uncle Paulie’s.
Irv’s traces its history back to 1946 when it opened in West Hollywood on Route 66, as Queen’s Burgers, one of the first roadside burger stands in the U.S. It was renamed Irv’s himself when Irv bought it in 1970; it was sold a couple times since then, though the name hasn’t changed, and the chain now has four locations in southern California and this one in Vegas.
Irv’s serves breakfast starting at 7 (till 11 a.m.) and continues with the burger menu till midnight, 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. The least expensive burger is the Just for You; at $4.50, it’s also the cheapest prepared food you can buy at Durango. Great L.A. reputation notwithstanding, you get what you pay for. It’s a sesame-seed bun, a patty, and a slice of American cheese; that’s it, folks. To us, the best thing about it were the sesame seeds.
To be fair, you’re supposed to build your ultimate burger from the Just for You and the add-ons: lettuce, tomato, pickle, raw or grilled onions, and/or hot honey mustard (.50 each), egg or hatch chile ($2), chili ($3), bacon ($3.50), even pastrami ($5), along with a choice of sauces (.50 to $4). But we wanted to go as cheaply as we could at upscale Durango.
The fries ($4), on the other hand, were the quality of In N Out and the quantity of Five Guys, making them perhaps the only bargain in a joint that proudly proclaims there are no bargains. With tax and tip, we were outta there for a bit more than $10. Next time, we’d probably try the Original Roadside Burger with lettuce, tomato, pickle, and Irv’s sauce for $8. That said, there’s an In N Out only a couple of miles away and we’d go there any day instead.
Uncle Paulie’s is another southern California brand with three outlets and this one at Durango. They call it a “deli,” but even an Italian deli is a stretch. It’s really a sub shop.
We got the cold Italian sub with unnamed cold cuts, provolone, roasted red peppers, lettuce, and vinegarn to compare it to the sandwiches at All’Antico right across the street. At $16, it was a buck or two less than All’Antico’s average price and it was a big sub, no arguing there, but that’s where the similarities end. It’s like the difference between Boticelli’s Primavera fresco in Florence and a velvet Elvis at the Bonanza gift shop. Why buy generic American at a casino when you can get celebrated Italian with just an eight-minute walk across Durango?
We didn’t try any Prince Street Pizza; frankly, it didn’t look like anything special. If we find ourselves at Durango sometime in the future, we’ll sample some Nielsen’s Frozen Custard, but don’t hold your breath for a review.
As part of its retrofitting with coin- and token-operated slots and $5 blackjack tables, Slots A Fun is giving the Stage Door a run for its bargain money by serving $2 Heinekens, hot dogs, and shrimp cocktails, all at the bar.
You can never go wrong with $2 Heinies in bottles or cans, we like to say.
And the $2 shrimp cocktail isn’t too shabby either. It comes in a two-cup setup, with the tartar sauce at the bottom of the big cup and six medium shrimp and a bed of lettuce in the smaller top cup.
Initially, we were a little unimpressed, counting only five shrimp, 40¢ apiece. But one was hiding under the lettuce, bringing the price down to 33¢ and putting this deal over the top as a new Top Tenner.
Included in the decision are: 1) Slots A Fun is easy to get to if you come in the back way on Sammy Davis Jr. Drive, parking in the Circus Circus lot or garages; 2) parking is absolutely free; 3) the previous Top Ten shrimp at the Fremont dropped out after another price raise; and 4) it’s a two-minute walk across the street to Fontainebleau, which is a must-see if it’s your first time. (By walking through Slots A Fun, perhaps playing a few quarters or tokens, and getting a shrimp cocktail at the bar, you’ve done your duty for parking gratis at Circus.) And 4) the soundtrack of quarters and dollar tokens crashing down into the metal hoppers of the old-time slot machines hasn’t been heard around here for a long time and if you’re at all nostalgic for Las Vegas the way it used to be, this is the place to experience it.
Circus Circus – Circus Buffet: This week is dinner during the weekdays only so far. Mon-Thurs, 5 p.m. 9 p.m. at $24.95.
Cosmopolitan – Wicked Spoon: Breakfast and lunch menus are separated by time now. Weekday breakfast is Mon-Fri, 8 a.m.-11 a.m. Weekday Lunch is Mon-Fri, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Both priced at $47.
South Point – Garden Buffet: Lunch went up from $20.95 to $22.95. Prime Rib & Champagne Brunch went up from $29.95 to $30.95. And Prime Rib Dinner ft. Peel & Eat Shrimp went up from $29.95 to $30.95.
With 10 games to go in the regular season, the VGK are in a hard-fought battle to secure a place in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Trying to chase down the the Los Angeles Kings and Nashville Predators and being chased by St Louis and Minnesota, the Knights need to step it up if they want the chance to defend the hardest trophy to win in major sports.
Lindsey, Chris, and Eddie take a deep dive into the VGK’s recent play and what it’ll take to get them into the ost-season.
The “Controversy in the Crease” is finally over as, Logan Thompson has seized the net for the stretch run.
The crew also checks in on the trade-deadline acquisitions of Noah Hanifin and Anthony Mantha and predicts who’s staying and who might be just a rental.
No episode is complete without predictions. How will the VGK’s last 10 games play out? Lindsey and the boys make their predictions.
How do you, our loyal viewers, think the stretch run will play out? Comment below!
At long last, Slots A Fun on the north Strip next to (and owned by) Circus Circus has been modernized with new carpet, $2 blast-from-the-past offerings from the bar, a new table-game pit, and most noticeable of all, 75 vintage coin- (quarter) and token-($1)operated slots in 25¢ and $1 denominations.
As for the small pit, four blackjack tables have $5 minimums with $500 max bets. Roulette is played with $1 tokens, but requires a $10 minimum bet. And the electronic crap table has a live dealer.
All the old coin machines from Circus Circus were relocated to Slots A Fun and a few dozen more were bought from Vegas vendors to fill out the floor. As you walk in from Circus, you’re greeted by the dulcet sounds of coins dropping into hoppers from two back-to-back banks of Magnificent 7s (the sign boasts a 97.4% payback). When we were there on a Saturday around noon, the 20 machines were jammed with players loading them up with tokens.
Six more Magnificent 7s are near front door, along with Triple Stars, Triple Strike, Triple Double, Double Gold, and the good old Double Diamonds and Red White and Blue machines. Of course, the joint sports the big new slots (Buffalo and the like) and Wheel of Fortune.
You won’t find any change booths or roving change ladies, but you can change you bills into $1 tokens and quarters at the equally vintage machines. And the old-time change buckets are readily available.
One thing that hasn’t changed is that the whole front of the casino still opens right out onto the Strip sidewalk. The coin-clanging soundtrack definitely draws the older nostalgic passersby right in.
The gift shop on the north wall and the bar on the south are also basically the same, though there’s a self-serve drink, snack, souvenir, and sundry selection next to the bar where the food court used to be.
At the bar, you can get $2 Heinekens, hot dogs, popcorn, and shrimp cocktails. We tried the shrimp, of course, and you can read thatreview here.
Parking is free in the surface lot and parking structures behind Circus Circus; you just have to walk through the madhouse to get to Slots A Fun.
