Putting the best and worst foot forward

After months of confidentiality agreements and other top-hush nonsense, it’s official: Fitzgeralds Casino Hotel in downtown Las Vegas will become the D. Now, I can’t think that — let alone type it — without recalling the Family Guy episode in which Stewie Griffin opens an ill-fated nightclub called pLACE. (“What happened?” “Andy Dick happened.”) Wannabe-hip nomenclature aside … it looks as though new owner Derek Stevens has good ideas for Fitzgeralds, the most decrepit-looking casino-hotel in Downtown. However, it’s probably not advisable to announce that you have a Web site until there’s something actually on it. Stevens is going to do a rolling renovation, much in the fashion of the Tropicana Las Vegas, so you’ll have to pardon his dust awhile.

His PR peeps promise that “the D will introduce daily live entertainment, one of Vegas’ only two-level casinos; 638 remodeled contemporary rooms and suites; and two high-energy bars – the Longbar [longest in Nevada] and the D Bar.” The street-level casino is clearly targeted to the younger set, featuring “the latest in slots and tables games manned by the D’s playful dancing dealers.” In addition to “today’s hottest songs,” the gaming product is scheduled to offer 10X odds on craps and 3:2 blackjack on all tables (not just one, single, solitary loss-leader, as at the Riviera). “Vintage,” coin-in slots and — yes! — Sigma Derby are promised for the upper level. I think I can hear reader Jeff_in_OKC booking a return flight to Vegas this very instant. It looks as though Stevens is creating something like that “Slot Machine Hall of Fame” that Jeff and I have been brainstorming for years.

An express elevator will take players directly from Fremont Street to the second floor. Either this will be a convenience for locals or a way of protecting the ground-floor douchebagerie from having to mingle with the AARP set. As for entertainment, if it ain’t broke, Stevens isn’t planning on fixing it. That means renewed contracts for tireless comedian Kevin Burke, for inexplicably long-running dinner show Marriage Can Be Murder (marriage may not be murderous, but that food sure is) and for Don B’s Steakhouse. The latter gesture is a touching hommage to previous owner Don Barden, who once had grand designs of his own.

All hotel rooms will be reworked, to bring them into line with contemporary standards. That means iPod docking stations, WiFi, flat-screen TVs and even good, old-fashioned wired Internet. (It’s kinda shocking to learn that Fitzgeralds didn’t even have that last item.) Vegas Club, this could have been you: A reliable source informs me that Stevens was in talks with Tamares Group to acquire the Club but switched course and bought Fitzgeralds instead. Either way, Downtown punters come out ahead. Completion of the face lift is scheduled for sometime this autumn.

Jersey Boys has reopened in its new digs at Paris-Las Vegas. The show, with its relatively narrow proscenium, makes an odd fit for the Paris-LV showroom: very wide and shallow. Spectators who get stuck with main-floor tickets on the far left- and right-hand sides of the auditorium will have a direct view of a blank wall. (But if Caesars Entertainment were to peddle this at, say, $10 a head, it’d be one of the hottest tickets on the Strip.) Despite the obvious mismatch of production and venue, only Michael Clark‘s Roy Lichtenstein-inspired projections really suffer in the relocation from Palazzo. However …

… with one of the Strip’s best-drawing shows now in the house, you’d think Gary Loveman and his underlings would take a little pride in that fact and spruce up accordingly. The faded lobby carpeting looks all of its 13 years and, in lieu of a program, one is given a smudgy, five-page mimeograph, in tiny print. That’s right, Gary: Why go first cabin when steerage will suffice? On a happier note, Jersey Boys has lost almost none of its magic and even a Sunday-night audience reacted as ecstatically as though Frankie Valli and the actual Four Seasons were onstage.