Stiffs and Georges

On Nov. 15, LVA will unveil Las Vegas’ 50 finest restaurants, as chosen by the troika of John Curtas, Max Jacobson and Al Mancini. Their collective judgment will be showcased in Eating Las Vegas. As our invaluable Heidi Olson writes:
The groundbreaking dining guide will be priced at $12.95 and will feature not only a special [...]

Editor’s note: While I’m busy with other projects, S&G will be hosting a few guest bloggers. First up is Detroit_1051, who noted some discrepancies in the way MGM Resorts International handles its frequent-player program …
A friend opened her mail from MGM Grand Detroit last week and saw it was regarding M life. Her initial reaction [...]

“Stacked” casino floors are a rarity in Las Vegas, usually necessitated by a limited footprint. That’s certainly the case with the Cosmopolitan, jimmied into a narrow slot just north of CityCenter (and often mistaken for part of that complex). However, CEO John Unwin — a veteran of both Caesars Palace and Morgans Hotel Group — [...]

A lot greener than you’d think, says Las Vegas Sustainability Officer (yes, we have one) Thomas Perrigo. Among those companies getting recognition of leading the way in “green” initiatives is Harrah’s Entertainment, which has reduced its energy consumption by vast amounts in the last seven years. That’s one way to shore up the bottom line.
Actually, [...]

It may be hard to believe in retrospect, but at the time of Harrah’s Entertainment’s LBO, some analysts thought it would be partly amortized by selling off the company’s regional properties. That prompted me to write something to the effect that it would be like “saving” a tree by severing its roots. Harrah’s has not [...]

“[T]he confidence that ­property prices and stock markets would permanently defy gravity” is a phrase that perfectly encapsulates how the casino industry got itself into its present pickle. In what other mindset could an industry convince itself that it could dump CityCenter, Cosmopolitan, a grotesquely enlarged (and now deficit-ridden) Hard Rock Hotel and failsinos like [...]

A mystery illness has debilitated me off and on (more “on” than “off,” sadly) for the past seven days. Fortunately, lively reader debate in the “Comments” threads have kept things ticking over nicely in my absence. Also, I sometimes get reports from the field like what follows. It’s particularly valuable to somebody like myself, who [...]

It’s a rare day when one can report that a casino market was down year/year but did better than expected. If you were looking for serious Deepwater Horizon spillover into June’s casino numbers, you’d be surprised. Statewide, casinos were -4.5% with Baton Rouge the hardest-hit market (-6%) and New Orleans (-2%) the least. That said, [...]

Last weekend’s usual barrage of errands, veterinary appointments, etc., was interrupted long enough for Yr. Humble Blogger to guest-host another edition of The Strip Podcast. In it, I reveal my shameful ignorance of televised poker (something I literally tuned out years ago) and the new restaurant at Circus Circus. However, I do weigh in — [...]

Taking its cue from Monty Python’s interpretation of the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, management of the Riviera refuses to roll over and die. Its latest enhancement is somewhat out of the box as far as Strip watering holes go: a quasi-British pub promising “pints, footy and bangers.” The brainchild of a chef (Mark [...]

It’s no joke. The ex-veep is part of a new entertainment regime at the Atlantic City Hilton. After nearly mismanaging the property into extinction, owner Colony Capital has given President Michael Frawley $20 million, which Frawley’s plowing into a new Kerry Simon restaurant, fewer — but newer — slots, a “daylife” area and, yes, barnstorming [...]

My apologies to S&G readers for the prolonged silence whilst I was on vacation. It seems that wi-fi availability in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is even spottier than I feared (although it makes a good excuse to head down to Culver’s for a “butter burger” and the best frozen custard this side of Las [...]

While we’re on the subject of white elephants today, Harrah’s Entertainment still has a little boondoggle in Macao in the form of a $577 million golf course. Cornered by a reporter at G2E Asia, Harrah’s Asian viceroy, Michael Chen, conceded that his strategy for cracking the market consists of “patience.” What else can he or [...]

But not in the way you might think …
Harrah’s Entertainment is $557 million richer — which effectively amortizes the Planet Hollywood deal — after the swap of a 16% ownership stake to three investment firms for $1.2 billion in debt. In addition to covering his Planet Ho outlay, CEO Gary Loveman offloads more debt at [...]

Confronted with this rather desperate plea from Monte Carlo, a colleague asks, “One of the stranger press releases in a while — the best they can find to up-sell the MC is to pitch it as a way to get to CityCenter and Bellagio?”
It also makes me wonder if, MGM Mirage pronouncements to the contrary, [...]

That increasingly dubious X Train project doesn’t have first dibs on Union Pacific tracks, after all. And the on-board gambling (which S&G never took seriously) has been ixnayed. So whaddya do when you need a quick jolt of publicity? Hire a celebrity chef, what else? Rick Moonen has more “cred” with foodies than, say, Wolfgang [...]

We’ve been hearing the odd grumble or three about B.B. King’s Blues Club, but one intrepid LVA reader decided to go a bit farther than that. After posting it on our site, he forwarded his missive to various corporate powers that be. Lo and behold, what follow is the very candid response he received:
Thank you [...]

If you’d like to spend time playing casino games in solitude, you might try the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. For instance, while S&G does not condone this sort of thing, you could have fired off a blunderbuss in either the new or old casino areas last night, secure in the knowledge that you wouldn’t [...]

… would it effing kill ya to send CFO Jonathan Halkyard down to Home Depot and pick up some Sherwin-Williams to slap on the old Paris-Las Vegas balloon? (If you think she looks bad from this angle, you should see her from the West Flamingo Road side.) I was going suggest buying the paint at [...]