MGM Grand lions: Resort officials announced Wednesday the property’s iconic lion habitat will close permanently Jan. 31. “That is part of an overall property-wide renovation project,” MGM Resorts spokeswoman Yvette Monet said.
Multigenerational houses — those with attached in-law suites or backyard casitas meant to accommodate grandparents, adult children or other extended family members — are being added to the valley’s landscape with increasing frequency.
New Year’s Eve is often a night of excess, and Las Vegas corners the market on indulgence. Some people might go overboard with drinks on the Strip. Others will dance the night away in clubs.
Flavor Flav — rapper, reality TV veteran and Las Vegas resident — has launched a signature vodka and says he is on track to open a fried chicken restaurant in Las Vegas in February.
KISS by Monster Mini Golf, an indoor putt-putt course themed after the iconic glam-rock band, will open March 15 at The Shoppes at Harmon Square, owners announced this week.
Agents with a television production company are casting in Las Vegas for a reality show that will follow the journeys of mothers and daughters who are pregnant at the same time.
The Cosmopolitan announced it would debut a “Pop-Up Wedding Chapel” next week where people can get married on the fly and tourists can gawk at the nuptials.
Tivoli Village is getting a second grand opening of sorts, with 11 new tenants moving in. That’s the biggest influx at the $850 million retail-office complex since it opened in April after stalling midconstruction.
Las Vegas tourists often come to the city looking for a bargain, especially as the economy continues to falter. Caesars Entertainment is counting on the boutique feel of a new hotel tower to attract customers despite its higher prices. Finishing touches are being put on Octavius Tower, Caesars Palace’s “hotel within a hotel,” in advance of its Jan. 2 opening.
Revelers heading to the Strip this New Year’s Eve will have even more opportunity to watch fireworks than last year. Las Vegas tourism officials have added an eighth pyrotechnics display to the lineup.
For some celebrities, sipping champagne and being seen at a Las Vegas club this New Year’s Eve will earn them a larger paycheck than their actual jobs headlining TV series, reality shows and concert tours.
It’s a scene that plays out thousands of times a day on the Strip: Tourists rip open hotel room soaps, pop open complimentary bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash, and use them once or twice. Then they leave, and the amenities sit half-full on a bathroom counter. Not so long ago, those soaps and shampoos were thrown away. Now, they’re being recycled to help save lives. A number of Strip resorts have partnered with the nonprofit group Clean the World to collect partially used hotel room toiletries and recycle them for use by people in need in the United States and abroad.
The owners of Pick Your Poison Bake Shop in Las Vegas, which specializes in cupcakes made with alcohol, will be featured Sunday on the Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars."
Not to be outdone by rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd or country star Toby Keith, a group of Motown moguls from the 1960s recently opened a Strip restaurant of their own. Eight celebrities co-own Catfish Alley, a soul food joint that opened last month in the Hawaiian Marketplace.
Las Vegas does everything a bit differently, and Christmas is no exception. Consider the recent Santa Run at Town Square in which 8,000 runners donned red suits and beards, or the 6-foot, 200-pound chocolate Grinch towering over guests at the Bellagio.
At a cost of about $55 million, “Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour” is neither Cirque du Soleil’s most expensive nor most elaborate production. But it’s introducing the circus troupe’s unique craft to new audiences worldwide and expanding how the French-Canadian company does business.
After several years of experimenting with leased venues and private contractors, Station Casinos is back to running most of the restaurants at its properties. The resort chain recently took over ownership and operation of several casino restaurants previously run by outside partners.
For $500, you can own copies of the documents that formalized Pete Rose’s banishment from Major League Baseball. Baseball’s all-time leader in hits has begun selling notarized copies of his walking papers at Antiquities inside the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace and on his website.
What works and what doesn't in Las Vegas' club scene
Monday, Nov. 28, 2011
This is how one business in town recently celebrated its birthday: A handful of sexy cowgirls in stars-and-stripes bikinis gyrating atop a bar, the vibration and bass of the country-rock music so strong that 100 bras, dangling from the ceiling, are quivering. This is a birthday party, Coyote Ugly-style.
For all their glitz and glamour, most of the Strip’s shopping centers will look like any other mall this Black Friday, with lights blazing as most of the city sleeps and crowds clamoring for hot deals on limited merchandise.
More than 2,300 hotel rooms in the historic Flamingo are getting a makeover, Caesars Entertainment officials announced Tuesday. Five hundred refurbished rooms will be available for guests starting Jan. 2, with plans to complete an additional 100 rooms every 11 days.
McCarran Airport is getting a specialty shopping mall in 2013. Travel retailer Hudson Group announced Monday that airport officials and the Clark County Commission approved Hudson’s plan to build six new retail stores and kiosks in the rotunda area of Concourse D.
Dos Caminos, the Palazzo’s high-end Mexican restaurant, abruptly closed its doors Monday. The eatery, which opened in February 2008, has no plans to reopen at the resort.
The 41-year-old Western Casino in downtown Las Vegas is closing. Because of decreased demand, Tamares Real Estate will be closing the Western Casino, effective Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, for an indefinite period of time. Tamares, which is renovating the Plaza Hotel and Casino, said it needs to consider redevelopment options for the Western Casino and other Tamares properties.
The Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas’ newest Strip resort, was named last week one of Fodor’s 100 best hotels in the world. The travel guide nominated it in the “new and worthy” category.
Station Casinos, which for years has waged a vicious battle with the Culinary union, announced Friday that it hired one of the labor group’s strongest advocates. Mike Sloan joins Fertitta Entertainment as a senior vice president of government relations.
Oscar Goodman is looking for a few good — as he would put it — broads. Las Vegas’ former showgirl-toting mayor is hiring half a dozen beautiful women for his new restaurant “Oscar’s.”
For believers, 11/11/11 is an auspicious day filled with luck and opportunity. For skeptics, it’s just another Friday. For Las Vegas, it’s a business boon. Wedding venues are bracing for their busiest day of the year. Hospitals expect an inordinate number of newborns.
Guns, babes and celebrities — that’s Machine Guns Vegas, in a nutshell. The new shooting range, which markets itself as the world’s first luxury gun lounge, is set to open early next year and needs to fill its ranks. The company is advertising almost 40 available jobs.
Your poker opponent pauses to think, stalls, then raises. You aren’t sure if it’s a bluff. Good luck charms sit on the table. It sounds like virtually any poker game, and it is. Except for the fact that your opponent is a computer, and you’re playing on a slot machine.
A restaurant opening before the end of the year at the Venetian is looking to hire 150 workers. Public House, scheduled to open next month in the Grand Canal Shoppes, is staging a job fair Tuesday through Thursday to interview applicants for almost a dozen jobs, including server, host, bartender, manager, supervisor, sous chef, cook, pastry chef and dishwasher. Applications will be accepted from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The nation’s largest automotive trade show rolled into Las Vegas this week, bringing with it some of the world’s most flashy cars and mind-boggling accessories.
The Venetian on Tuesday debuted an updated sports book, the first of many changes to come in a $30 million renovation of the resort’s casino floor. The multi-million dollar race and sports book, operated by Cantor Gaming, comprises 10,000 square feet and features a 100-foot-long, high-definition 4 mm black video screen, one of the largest in the world.
Two Las Vegas brick-and-mortar casino companies are racing to align themselves with poker websites in the hopes of becoming industry leaders when — and if — online gambling is legalized in the United States.
Fertitta Interactive, the online gambling company established last year by the family who owns Station Casinos, announced it has bought California online gaming company CyberArts Licensing LLC.