Too many Las Vegas shows are afflicted with a lack of spontaneity (the Celine Dion/Franco Dragone snoozer A New Day was the worst offender in my experience). No such worries where Hooters Casino Hotel headliner Todd Paul is concerned. Last night, Paul cut his set short after 45 minutes. Frustrated with a small, unresponsive crowd and with gags that didn’t “play,” Paul made no effort to hide his vexation and basically walked off in mid-show when an audience member refused to join him onstage.
Wow. You don’t see that every night on the Strip. Hooters has renovated a second-story ballroom into an “Iowa” showroom. Although the discreet entrance could easily be mistaken for a broom closet, it’s a much nicer venue than Dixie’s Dam Bar. Seating is well-organized and orderly, quite a contrast to Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club. There, the seating policy was evidently dictated by King Louis XV: “After me, chaos.”
The Hooters casino floor is quite likeable and player-friendly (lots of participation games, unlike Harrah’s Entertainment casinos). What a shame that it’s shackled to a ramshackle hotel and an unsafe-looking parking garage. If ever there were a case for waiving the 200-room-hotel requirement enshrined in Nevada Revised Statutes, Hooters would be it. If you kept the casino, restaurant and entertainment but scrapped everything else, it would not only be a much more appealing property (Son of Slots-A-Fun, if you will) but probably a more commercially viable one.
The main problem with Hooter’s is that they are so overly financed. No one is going to pay $200 Million for a below average resort property, when even the run down Rio can’t get $500 Million — with more land, bigger casino, a slightly below average shopping area and a lot more hotel rooms and convention space. It’s sad but some one is going to have to take a loss.