Rebuilding the Lady Luck

Really?

I went to the Lady Luck once. After a having a good time on Fremont Street, I'm a bit hazy on the fine points, but mostly I remember the place was smoky. 

One of the sites I check pretty regularly is Vegaschatter.  It's a great site.  Today there was an article about the old Lady Luck, which was recently rebranded the Downtown Grand.  Personally, I think Lady Luck is a way better name, but so it goes.  The article talks about how the place is being refurbished, and offers some speculation as to when it might open up again.

I'm sorry, but I just don't believe it. 

The Lady Luck closed for renovations in 2006.  It hasn't opened the doors since.  Anyone who has been downtown has seen it, it's big, white, and takes up a whole lot of space between the Fremont Street Experience and the new Mob Museum.  Whenever I'm downtown, I walk by the place just to see what's happening.  I've never seen much.  While work has certainly taken place on Third Street in front of the old hotel, I've never seen any real action at the hotel itself.  I haven't been there in a year, of course, so my observations are dated, but if the owners really are gearing up for an opening, they are certainly taking their own sweet time.

Maybe this wouldn't bother me so much if the owners didn't keep saying they were working on it.  People understand why the Echelon and the Fontainebleau were mothballed, people get that the money doesn't add up to reopen the place.  But these guys just keep throwing out plans, artists renditions, and pretend re-opening dates (vegaschatter sites five different dates).  Ex-Mayor Oscar Goodman has called the place a "blight", a "rotting corpse", a "disaster" and a "carcass"  Through it all, the owners, Third Street Gaming,  have kept talking about renovations, reopenings, rebrandings, and all the great things that were coming.

And yet the place still sits. Empty.  Hulking.  Just plane ugly. 

I hope I'm wrong.  When I go in July, I'll again walk down to the old Lady Luck.  I'll look for trucks, cranes, some signs of life.  Then maybe I'll believe.

Maybe.

When Binion's was the Horseshoe

From the archives - an old picture I have of Binion's back when it was the Horseshoe.

The worst casino in Vegas just got a little worse

Many years ago, I used to like the Las Vegas Club.  I liked the gambling, I liked the sports memorabilia, I liked the Great Moments restaurant upstairs, and the friendly staff.  I liked the bar with cheap drinks and good bartenders, where you could sit for a while and watch the crowd on Fremont Street.  Later I liked the R & B singers in the back lounge.

Alas, all those things are gone now.  Every time I visit, one more piece has disappeared.  The bar is still there, but nothing else, and the staff generally seems like they would rather be somewhere else. 

I just found out that Tinoco's Restaurant is closed.  It was a very good place, crammed into the back of a very bad casino.  The room was bright and pleasant, the portions were big, and the price was good.  I'm not saying the food was the best in town, but you could tell that the people at Tinoco's cared about their product, their restaurant and their customers.  Everything the Vegas Club seems to have lost interest in.  And now Tinoco's is gone.

The Vegas Club is owned by the same people who own the recently remade Plaza across the street and the recently closed Western Casino on the far end of downtown Las Vegas.  The Vegaschatter website has speculated a bit that the Vegas Club might be in line for a makeover as well.  They also noted that the hotel portion mostly seems to be closed.  All the activity by the owners on the three properties makes me think that the owners maybe actually have a plan.  Maybe.

As of right now, the Vegas Club casino has one thing going for it: location.  It's on the corner of Fremont and Main, surrounded by the newly remodeled Plaza, the expanding Golden Gate, and the never-ending luau that is the California.  Maybe they will sell the place, although I can't imagine who would buy it as it is. 

The sad fact is that the place is falling down, and no one seems to give a crap.  Not too long ago, the same could have been said about the Plaza and the Western.  The owners fixed the Plaza and closed the Western, so I'm guessing some kind of change is coming soon for the Vegas Club. 

Maybe.