Columnist Kate Maddox: Y2K Experience to have some extra fizz

Kate Maddox

Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1999 | 9:46 a.m.

Kate Maddox's column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, only in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach her at kmaddox@vegas.com.

Still looking for something to do in Las Vegas for Y2K eve -- without shelling out the big bucks for Streisand, Turner, Midler and Stewart? The Fremont Street Experience is about to announce an addition to its New Year's lineup which might be worth checking out.

For the bargain price of $100, patrons will be treated to the usual thrills of the video canopy, plus food, drinks and bands -- and now they will also be privy to a dazzling 3-D light show.

The show, which will begin minutes before the countdown to midnight, is rumored to have cost the folks at the Experience somewhere in the mid-six figures, and the buzz is that the show will definitely be worth the hefty price tag.

Production of the light show, which was created using the latest in software technology and which will be broadcast on the canopy, has been in the works for months now, and the team behind the show is said to be extremely pleased with the outcome.

About 35,000 people are expected to participate in the New Year's Eve Experience under the canopy. And don't worry about digging up your old 3-D glasses, the kind folks at Fremont Street will supply them to all of the Y2K revelers.

Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn spent some time taking in the sights at one of the Strip's luxury hotels on Saturday night -- one that he doesn't own.

Wynn and his pal, singer Paul Anka, strolled through Mandalay Bay hotel-casino, checking out the hot restaurant/nightclub, rumjungle. The enormous club usually packs in the Vegas night owl crowd at around 10:30 p.m. -- after the restaurant stops serving dinner.

Wynn and Anka were apparently not into dancing the night away, however. After a quick tour of the club, the two headed next door to Red Square for a couple of quick drinks and then it was off into the night.

Perhaps Wynn and Anka were checking out Red Square's newest addition -- its vodka locker.

The Russian-inspired restaurant will soon affix the brass nameplates to the individual lockers in its 26-foot-tall, temperature-regulated vodka freezer.

Renters of the new lockers, which are used to house one's personal vodka selection, pay $1500 for a yearlong rental of the space, which includes the use of either a Russian fur coat and cap or an authentic Russian army jacket upon entry to the 10 degree-below-zero temp inside the freezer. The folks at Red Square want their customers to be comfortable when they pay a visit to their chilled private stock.

Along the same lines of the personal humidor craze that swept through celebrity and filthy-rich circles in the past couple of years (Dennis Rodman, Smokey Robinson and Motley Crue's Vince Neil are among those who house their personal cigar collections in humidors at Cuba Libre in the Hard Rock Hotel,) the private vodka lockers idea originated at the Red Square restaurant in Miami Beach.

"Rocky" himself, Sylvester Stallone, has a locker there and rumor has it that he will branch out to another locker at the Mandalay Bay location. That way he'll be covered on either end of the country -- just in case the vodka urge strikes.

Perhaps the locker rental would make that perfect holiday gift for the person who already has "everything." Better hurry, though. The price of the locker shoots up to $2,000 after the new year.

Boston's famous Pizzeria Regina's pizza is coming to Las Vegas' newly expanded Fiesta hotel-casino -- and it's a personal favorite of Fiesta President George Maloof.

A number of years ago, Maloof was a student at Phillip's Andover -- an exclusive prep school in Massachusetts -- and during weekend visits to Boston, Maloof and his buddies would never pass up the chance to dine on the pizza at Regina's.

Apparently Maloof's personal choice was never far from his thoughts throughout the years, and when the opportunity to open some new restaurants at the renovated Fiesta presented itself, Maloof was on the case.

He approached the pizza joint, which is considered Boston's Best Pizza, about coming to Las Vegas to be the official pizza of Roxy's Pipe Organ Pizza. Maloof sweetened the deal by agreeing to add special $35,000 pizza ovens made especially for the restaurant.

Everyone can try Regina's famous pies at its first Western franchise at Roxy's when the restaurant officially opens for business tonight.