Uh-oh. This is not good. Tamares Group is going to cease taking room bookings at the Vegas Club. In an ominous phrase, it’s “evaluating its options” for the hotel-casino, whose gambling floor and other 
amenities are but a pallid shadow of what competing properties, even Tamares’ own Plaza, have to offer. It’s basically dead without knowing it. The news comes as the Las Vegas Sun reports — or implies — that once-aggressive Siegel Group is having trouble over at the thoroughly remade Gold Spike. The latter was once a vile, indescribable dive that Siegel rescued from Tamares’ neglect. As for the Vegas Club, it’s not a good sign that Tamares is pulling in its horns still further at a time when Derek Stevens (of The D and the Golden Gate) and Terry Caudill (of Binion’s Gambling Hall & Hotel and the Four Queens) are either executing or announcing various forms of reinvestment and capital improvement. All of them, of course, are trying to keep pace with the state-of-the-art Golden Nugget and the renewed ‘classic cool’ of the El Cortez, which — having helped bring Emergency Arts to fruition — finds itself sitting at Hipster Central.
(Ever notice how the showroom at the Plaza is virtually a corpse and no one has seen fit to say anything about it in months? If, at the Plaza, at first you don’t succeed, you throw in the towel immediately. As for Siegel’s big hotel project next door to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, that’s quietly gone into mothballs. I can’t remember the last time I saw activity on the site.)
Maybe Tamares naively hopes that Tony Hsieh and Resort Gaming Group boss Andrew Donner will come to the rescue but Donner seems to have his hands full rounding up offshore money to 
finish the Downtown Grand. Besides, the duo is steadily marching eastward — away from Glitter Gulch — with their real estate purchases. The Grand aside, gambling is not these gents’ priority. Tamares’ Downtown debacle is a classic case of a novice investor — retired arms mogul Poju Zabludowicz — taking a blind leap into the casino business with a succession of shallow-pocketed partners and sock puppets. And what has its $82 million purchased it? A dead casino, the Western (sold recently for $14 million), an asset sale (the Gold Spike, sold to a flipper for $16 million), a dying casino (the Vegas Club) and a kinda-sorta remodeled flagship property — the Plaza — whose upgrade costs should push Tamares’ Vegas tab close to the $110 million mark, maybe past it.
Even if we discount that aberrant capex investment, Tamares has to somehow liquidate the Vegas Club and Plaza for over $50 million just to save face, and his bargaining position is weak. File our friend Poju Z. among the more well-heeled suckers that Vegas has fleeced and sent packing. He may have been good at blowing stuff up, once up a time, but his Sin City salvos almost never hit their target.
Hey, Derek Stevens! OK, so you finally let the worst-kept secret in Las Vegas out of the bag … your, 
new, big-gun showroom act is The Scintas, holding down the 9 p.m. time slot and continuing to work their way down the casino food chain. (Anybody remember when they were a top-billed act at The Rio? No? Just me, huh? It was several presidencies ago.) Peepshow refugee Janien Valentine helps ease the workload. Guest shots by “notable names and friends” — I’m guessing Clint Holmes and Kelly Clinton — are promised. And if you stick around afterward, you can catch Hooters castoff, Raack N Roll (what happens here eventually plays every other showroom in town). Not only was Stevens’ bombshell a total snooze, The D held off the announcement until yesterday — the very day of the premiere. Way to ramp up the excitement, Derek! At least, as PR fumbles go, it’s not as bad as Tilman Fertitta putting out a press release saying that Vic & Anthony’s was opening … two weeks after it had actually opened. Could similar, anal-retentive micromanagement be taking place at The D? For our sake and its, I certainly hope not.
In their defense, the D peeps have been tweeting the Scintas thing for a couple three weeks. Maybe they’re trying to change the trend from soft opening to flaccid opening?
As a certified, card-carrying member of the Jackie Gaughan-Mel Exber, downtown worshippers club (maybe the founder?) I have been heartbroken at the abuseful neglect heaped upon the Las Vegas Club. I love the design of the casino and ground floor, as well as the exterior (I even have a nighttime shot of it, looking from the Plaza, as my screen background on my last two iPhones). I think it is a very viable layout, with good “bones.” I fear my only hope is that someone with a similar vision and deep pockets feels the same.
I recall that Tamares bought a lot of downtown land that Gaughan had acquired through the years in their purchase that is not included in your current assessment of their return. Such as the Ambassador Hotel site, etc. and I hope they have gotten a good enough return on those that they can liquidate the Las Vegas Club, and possibly the Plaza, for an amount that works for all parties. It is my opinion that the downtown market is strong enough that a solid capital investment in it will pay off. But it requires a committed, on-site operator IMO.
Could Terry Caudill be in for the Vegas Club on the cheap? Four Queens always been a good stop and Binions seems to have something going on instead of sitting stale, as it was before Caudill came in. Plus he could market his niche from one end of the Fremont Street Experience to the other.
I think Caudill stretched as far as he can. He does little by little improvements to Binion’s because he doesn’t have (or can’t get) the money to do more to it. The hotel tower is closed, and needs renovations that are rumored to start later this year. The original coffee shop needs to be remodeled, or reworked, before it can be reopened. The second floor has great footage for retail and meeting space IIRC.
IMO Caudill has done a good job with the resources he has to bring some new energy and business to Binion’s. But he can only build so many bars and snack bars and eventually will have to make some bigger capital improvements if he is going to get to the next level.
Just got back from eight nights in Vegas. Ventured downtown and visited Binion’s, Four Queens, Golden Nugget, Fremont Street and the Mob Museum. The casinos were nice, along with Fremont Street, but it was our first visit to the Mob Museum and it was just fantastic!. We stayed at MGM, Bally’s, and Red Rock. Loved Red Rock (our second stay there). MGM was great as usual (loved the updated rooms). Bally’s staff were super nice and had a very nice stay there, the first time we spent a weekend on the Strip in years. But we won’t do it again. The loud music in the casino and the rough-looking young crowd that filled it over the weekend kinda rained on our parade. Next trip we will do the outlying casinos on the weekend. We are in our early seventies and don’t need this type of fun.
Any more news about Amazing Johnathan redesigning the Las Vegas Club? He mentioned it to me some time ago … Kats wrote about it … don’t know the status.