Quick Bites © The Vegas Eye and reprinted with permission.
An Anniversary Ménage à Trois
Food & Beverage Magazine’s 5 Year Anniversary
The Vegas Eye’s 3 Year Anniversary
Glitterati’s 1 Year Anniversary
When Mayor Oscar Goodman named June 18th, Food & Beverage Magazine Day in Las Vegas, we had no idea it would lead to a party of this magnitude. On Monday, June 18th, JET Nightclub at The Mirage will be the setting up for a blowout, no-holds barred anniversary party in honor of the 5th birthday of the nation’s best Food & Beverage trade publication, the 3rd birthday of the most impactful and popular newsletter in the history of Las Vegas and the 1st birthday of the city’s most colorful, behind-the-scenes column. “It’s going to be a great event and a fantastic way to celebrate these fantastic milestones for our media brands,” noted CEO Michael Politz before continuing, “I’d love to see each and every one of you there!” “We would like to invite not only our industry friends and family, but everyone who works in the hospitality industry in Las Vegas to come and celebrate with us,” added VP, Bryan Bass. “We have worked so hard to establish ourselves as an impactful and important independent media company, and this is a party for everyone who has helped us get where we are today.”
Please join us as we celebrate an anniversary ménage à trois celebrating the 5th anniversary of Food & Beverage Magazine, the 3rd anniversary of The Vegas Eye and the 1st anniversary of Glitterati. JET Nightclub opens at 10:30P and all guests on our guest list will receive complimentary admission. Please click here to RSVP and we look forward to seeing you next week.
Palms prince Jon Gray has slowly been trade marking his patented sneaker and suit look, seemingly the perfect fit for a property that lives in the party yet ensures things remain up-scale. This past weekend, Gray unveiled his latest pair of rocking sneakers, a custom made job from Nike that was created during the N.B.A.’s All-Star weekend. The limited edition low-top Nike’s proudly sports the property’s green and purple color scheme with Palms stitched into the side of the shoe. When asked how many pairs of the special sneaks are out there, Gray proudly smiled, “Nike only made two pairs of these; one for George [referring to Palms owner George Maloof] and one for me!”
Storied Italian eatery Raos has closed for lunch on Mondays and Tuesdays and as a result has let go several members of their service staff. Looks like the inept and out-dated PR style of Harrah’s supposed PR maven Debbie Munch isn’t working, but we told you that would happen months ago.
Japanese cuisine icon Nobu Matsuhisa has plans to open a second Las Vegas location of his global Nobu restaurant brand inside the up-coming Fontainebleau Resort project. His first Las Vegas eatery, of course, is at the Hard Rock Hotel.
Speaking of Nobu, rumors have Matsuhisa partner and investor Robert De Niro looking at the possibility of bringing another one of his restaurants to the Hard Rock Hotel. Rumors have Italian eatery Ago landing at ‘The Rock’. The Melrose Avenue hot-spot was the scene of an infamous battle between Quentin Tarantino and ‘Natural Born Killers’ producer Don Murphy.
We wanted to send special anniversary wishes to Arizona bar star Stephanie Dazzo. The beautiful and talented operator took a few days off from her busy Glendale schedule to celebrate at several pumping hot-spots including PURE Nightclub and the Palms Resort. We think you achieved your goal of “bringing trashy back” with familiar ease!
Iron Chef Mario Batali held a small get together at his restaurant over the weekend to meet the local industry movers and shakers and more apparent than ever was the changing of the guard as the old Vegas boy’s club mixed and mingled with new, Vegas style. The ‘Bad Boy of Wine’ (a.k.a. Kenny 2 Dope, a.k.a. K-Fred), Ken Frederickson hosted an international group of nearly twenty wine warriors while
Quiet Riot rocker and Vegas Eye pal Kevin Dubrow and other guests praised the food. Even actor Dennis Hopper stopped at the entrance for the ever classy “quick photo opp” to promote you-know-who’s annual Food Court Sweet 16 party. Maybe we’ll get to that story next week …
In more mayhem from the food court, apparently 7 million monthly readers are not enough for Warner Brothers who turned away the operator of popular website Flickchicks.com from a red carpet screening held in Las Vegas last week. When asked why she was not credentialed, she was informed that it was the studio’s decision and not to “contact them directly”. Who knows if this is actually true, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a PR firm has played favorites on a guest list, interests of their clients be damned. Rumors persist that several other national publications including US Weekly, as well as local gossip pitchman Norm Clarke were also denied credentials. Talk about bad form …
Speaking of Quiet Riot rocker Dubrow; the guy’s definitely still go it. Check out this picture taken of the rocker on stage at a Swedish rock festival last week.
We wanted to wish a happy birthday to one of our all-time favorite cocktail servers, Tabu Ultra Lounge’s Lovely LaGuerre. The gorgeous LaGuerre celebrated with a blow-out bash at Tryst Nightclub. Also, TAO Nightclub’s stylish VIP Host Larson Legris will be celebrating his birthday this week at TAO’s weekly Worship Thursday’s promotion. Happy birthday big guy!
While Sam Nazarian’s purchase of the Sahara Hotel is still officially pending, SBE officials are moving forward with their Las Vegas expansion, opening an office which will serve as the company’s operational base for the management and redevelopment of the property.
To clarify last week’s story, Shine On … To Stations, pioneering turntable titan, DJ Frankie Anobile is still working with the MGM Grand nightlife department via his entertainment and DJ booking company ACT1. As the proprietor of an independent company, Anobile is obviously free to work with whoever wishes to pay him for his services. Oh wait, we wrote that initially didn’t we …
Speaking of Stations Casinos, the first promotion in the post-Gerber era would appear to be Seduction Sundays at the pool deck of Cherry Nightclub. This past Sunday, numerous industry locals turned out to enjoy the toned-down and irresistibly laid back poolside scene. Look for more news to follow …
In more Stations news, Nikky Lethbridge has been hired on at Red Rock Station as Special Events Catering Manager in which she will be booking private events for Cherry and the new VIP Bowling Lanes. Lethbridge worked at Tabu, Teatro, as well as Studio 54 where she worked as a VIP host, then went into Catering, taking on all three venues for private events.
Known as one of the world’s top DJs, Tiësto will bring his Elements of Life North American Tour to Jet Nightclub at The Mirage for a special back-to-back Labor Day Weekend Main Room event on Sunday, Sept. 2nd and Monday, Sept. 3rd. Jet will open its doors Sunday evening for Tiësto and loyal followers; the following evening, Tiësto will spin another set on Monday night for Las Vegas locals and industry members recovering from the holiday weekend. Tickets are $50 pre-sale …
Chef Rick Moonen’s casual concept, r bar café, located in Mandalay Place is now open for lunch. Sushi Chef Shaun King creates salads, sushi, specialty rolls and bento boxes for dine in or take out. r bar café and restaurant rm are the culinary creations of sustainable seafood champion Chef Rick Moonen. r bar café is open daily for lunch from 1pm – 5pm and dinner from 5pm – 11pm.
With more and more DJ’s getting stuck in the requisite Top 40 format and refusing to stray, we wanted to give shout-out’s to PURE’s DJ Hollywood who dropped an inspired, old-school hip hop set on Saturday night. While few songs in his set had EVER played on a radio, the packed club ate up every last beat.
We wanted to wish a happy 5 year anniversary to the hardest working woman in the nightlife industry, Napkin Night’s very own Tracy Lee. By logging more club hours than a bottle of Ketel One vodka, Lee has pushed her up-start picture site to massive success in six cities! Congratulations Tracy, you go girl!
In the June issue of Food & Beverage Magazine, contributing writer Amy Wittle wrote a fantastic piece on the pool party that started it all, Rehab, noting how it changed the way corporate Las Vegas viewed the pool as a revenue center. We also wanted to add that the impact goes beyond profitability. When Rehab was just a locals’ pool party getting started; both Chad Saunders and Adam Nixon were young, eager and motivated members of promoter Jack Lafleur’s team. Fast forward a few years and both have grown to have major impacts on the pool party scene. Nixon remains at Rehab, now in charge of VIP Services and cabana rentals and Saunders has become the Daytime VIP Services Manager for TAO Beach. TAO’s signing of Saunders to help lead the push towards daytime partying at their newest venue is an indication of just how far he has come in a short amount of time. Keep doing your thing guys!
