Living Local — Final Post on Vegas Dining

A few more observations and comments on dining in Las Vegas before I move on to other topics:

• Expanding on last week’s excellent post by Cory Roberts on Groupon/Living Social, a couple of readers asked about OpenTable, Yelp, and Restaurant.com. I’ve used OpenTable to make reservations at two of my favorite restaurants, Sparrow and Wolf and Lawry’s, but only because I had to. OpenTable does offer extra rewards at some restaurants (usually on specific days or times) that are probably worth investigating. Some Yelp listings also have discounts. Again, I wouldn’t make a special effort to search them out, but I do double-check if it’s a restaurant I’m going to anyway. Restaurant.com tends to offer discounts similar to Groupon.
• An additional way to save on restaurant gift cards is via warehouse clubs and many supermarkets that offer gift cards for local restaurants (usually those that are part of a chain) at either a discount or where you can earn extra rewards through the supermarket’s loyalty system. Last year, I purchased a $100 Outback card at Vons that earned me 12 reward credits, which I turned into an $18 savings. These deals show up in abundance this time of year when many people are beginning their holiday gift shopping.
• One of the best places I find good restaurant coupons: the trash can in the mail room of my apartment. While I’m not encouraging dumpster diving, you should at least read your junk mail, especially coupon collections and “Resident” or “Our Friends” mailings from nearby casinos.

And finally, my thoughts on two ongoing Las Vegas dining issues:

• Why are there far fewer casino food deals than in the Vegas of yesteryear? Advanced player tracking is much of the reason. Casinos can now target whom to send offers to, especially folks who stay and play vs. folks who just take advantage of the offer and leave. Another reason, though, is increased food labor costs. Most of the casinos in Las Vegas are under Culinary Union contracts and while the union has done an excellent job in getting their members better wages and benefits, the effect on the casino’s bottom line over the past two decades has been substantial. Fewer and fewer restaurants in Las Vegas casinos can be operated as loss leaders.
• Last weekend, I had someone over to help me with a large packing job. After we were done, we went to the SBC Sports Bar within walking distance of my home. On the way there I took a quick detour to the Porchlight Grill next door, a smoked-filled video poker bar that has a reasonable-fee ATM. I noticed that the large bar had all of two patrons. However, the SBC was absolutely packed. Sitting at the SBC bar was a brewer from the Chicago Brewing Company, a popular bar/brewery a couple of miles northwest. Apparently, they’re also feeling the loss of customers to the non-smoking sports bars and have converted their former non-smoking restaurant section to a bar that will have video poker, onsite brewed beer, and a full menu, but no smoke. I’ll have to check it out. Due to regulations put in a few years ago, many of the traditional VP bars do have non-smoking restaurant sections, so this may be the beginning of a trend, especially as the number of tobacco smokers continues to decrease.