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Las Vegas residents Jason Senior, left, and Charleen Maris kiss at the stroke of midnight during a New Year’s Eve party at Cherry nightclub at the Red Rock Resort & Casino Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009.
Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010 | 5:30 p.m.
The mechanical bull at Stoney's North Forty.
Two nightclubs at Station Casinos properties have closed their doors for different reasons that officials are emphasizing have nothing to do with the company’s bankruptcy filing.
Cherry, the Red Rock Resort club that opened its doors when the property debuted in April 2006, and Stoney’s North Forty, a country music club at Santa Fe Station, are making way for new attractions.
Station spokeswoman Lori Nelson said a special nightlife entertainment division of the company is evaluating what would be developed in the Cherry space. The company already has announced that it is opening Revolver, a new bar and nightclub in the Stoney’s location at Santa Fe Station.
In September, the company announced that it was bringing Southern Nevada’s second Yard House restaurant and brew pub to Red Rock at the former site of the Salt Lick Barbecue restaurant.
“The two decisions (to close the nightclubs) were made for different reasons,” Nelson said. “Cherry simply reached the end of its life cycle and for Stoney’s, it was a mutual decision to part ways.”
Rande Gerber, owner and operator of the Midnight Oil chain of bars and lounges, developed Cherry. In early 2007, Station assumed control of the nightclub and brought in promoters and consultants to create nightlife events at the club.
Nightlife industry experts say Cherry operators attempted to cater to both locals and visitors off the Strip, but as Red Rock became predominantly a locals property, it lost market share.
“We are exploring new concepts for that space that will complement our other entertainment offerings that locals enjoy,” Nelson said.
No timeline has been set for developing a new attraction, but Nelson said the company is considering nightclub, ultralounge and bar concepts.
Yard House, which opened its first Las Vegas property at Town Square in 2008, is scheduled to open at Red Rock in May or June. The restaurant is characterized by its vast menu, its large selection of draft beers and its play list of classic rock and contemporary pop music.
At Santa Fe Station, Revolver is scheduled for a soft opening in early February, Nelson said.
Stoney’s North Forty, which closed in late November, was the northwest Las Vegas equivalent of its sister property, Stoney’s Rockin’ Country, on Las Vegas Boulevard South, just north of the South Point.
The Stoney’s Web site says a new location for Stoney’s North Forty is “coming soon,” but the company has not announced where.
When we visited L.V. a couple months ago, we had heard Stoney's was the place to go. We heard numerous advertisements on Coyote Country for "Stoney's on the Strip" We had driven from Blue Diamond to Sahara and never came across it. Nobody at the strip hotel we stayed at (Luxor) knew what we were talking about. Note to Stoney's: Better try giving a better location than "on the strip" in your advertising. We eventually found out (2 days later) it was south od Blue Diamond. If we had known, we would have gone. We did end up having a great time at Toby Keith's and B.B. Kings. Next time we'll try Stoney's.
It's time to put the emphasis BACK on the CASINO and the attached ancillary free entertainment venue. If the casino hotels want to make money, it's gonna be in these areas and not in the posh ultra lounges and nightclubs which depend on college students and other wannabe monied types, who barely make the cover charge because their monthly car payments exceed their rent or mortgage payments that mommy and daddy probably cover anyway.Give Vegas back to the real money people.. the players..
Just one more thing, I have a GREAT idea for a nightclub. Make it a classic Vintage Vegas Casino with classic slots, table games, and cocktail waitresses with an attached stage music/entertainment venue. Set it up like the old vegas formula and watch the wave of tourists and gamblers come POURING IN ! Call it The Vintage Vegas Club !
As a typical tourist who comes to Vegas mainly for one specific reason, I noticed that inside of these locals casinos there's a crowd of people that apparently doesn't visit a casino for gaming but for other things. It's very remarkeable to see these people strolling through the casino floor without putting their attention to the slots or tables , with only one target destination in mind: These night clubs. I don't know if that's the real idea of the casinos, getting different kinds of customers , making money on the night club people that walk through the casino and also make money from the casino gamblers.
I also see the same "phenomenon" happen when I play on a videopoker machine during the afternoon and see people walk through the casino , heading to the cinemas. They don't even seem to "notice" that they're in the middle of a casino.
To a Vegas local this comment may look a bit strange but believe me, to a casino visitor like me this is something that's extremely unusual. European casinos have only one plan, and that's getting the gamblers into the casino and get them to play. Sure, there are a few bars and maybe one or two restaurants, but that's about it. Main objective of a casino is offer the games. In Vegas, mainly the locals casinos, gaming is only a part of the business, although, in fact, it's the main business, I guess. I am curious to see what happen when some casinos decide to remove their fancy night clubs from the casinos again. Is this the ne era of old style tradional "live music", just like it used to be at the beginning, in these little "lounges"?
Greetings from Switzerland
Boris
Not all locals like to gamble all of the time. Many times, after visiting the clubs in the local casinos, we stayed a little longer to gamble for awhile. When you have gambling and a casino just about everywhere - the gambling part of it gets old after awhile. It becomes "no big deal". And it's nice to spend your money on something that you can at least get something back for your money, like having a good time!!!
I sort of find it amusing that some of the comments here seem to be amazed that there are thousands of people living in Vegas who don't gamble, rather they use the casinos as entertainment venues...movies, bowling, restaurants etc...
not all locals gamble. i lived in vegas for about 8 years and maybe...MAYBE put $20.00 total in a slot machine that entire time.
A nice spin for eliminating jobs.
I am not trying to get the message over that it's not good having such clubs in the casino and the main idea of a casino is offering games to play. I just tried to explain the difference between typical "non Vegas style casinos" , or perhaps US casino resorts. I am also not saying that it's not good for people to walk through a casino to a night club and "pretend" as if they're not even inside of a casino, thus, totally ignoring the gaming facilities. It was rather a way of expressing my astonishment about this situation. It's kind of weired to people who don't live in a place that's full of casinos where the main source of income of a state depends on gaming and all that's around it. Fair enough that a Vegas local citizen can't impossibly go gambling every day as the consequences would be fatal ( I am sure there are many people who live in Vegas and play too much and things get out of control because of that). It's just a little weired to see this and even kids and families with little children strolling through the casino floors without actually taking notice of the slotmachines and table games, that's quite unusual to me. Could be compared to people going to eat at a shopping mall but not even watching the stores inside of that mall :) Very funny but also respect to the people who have the discipline to refraim from all gambling and still visiting the casinos regularly.
Greetings from Switzerland
I agree that an emphasis needs to be put on free entertainment. Station Casinos had a handle on that, but as of late seems to be slipping. We would go out for dinner at a Stations property, maybe squeeze in a movie and then check out a free band. Free to an extent, the drink prices are double in the clubs. Still, we could get a full evening for around $60-100. I compare this to a recent trip to the Venetian where we paid double for dinner to what we would pay at Stations (a drink alone was $15). Then we went to a club to see the same band we would see at Boulder Station for free. This time, we had to pay $200 to get a table AND you could not even see the band from where we were sat. Stations Csinos, do not lose focus on what you do well!!
I agree with DesertFlame. Stations lost a LOT of revenue when they didn't renew their contract with Zowie Bowie. They did a fabulous job in Rocks Lounge and obviously trying to get a DJ to replace them or Drzhivegas wasn't working.
The ONLY reason I set foot into Stations is to bet on sports now.
Are there still my favorite Optimum Play Videopoker banks at the Station properties?
I wasn't a fan of the customer service of Cherry. If you make locals wait in line they won't go in and you need to treat them right. Too many clubs in this town know how to treat a local and Cherry just didn't. This sounds stupid but you NEVER make 12 females wait to get in just to make a crowd. Club class 101.
Never had a problem with ever waiting in line to get into Cherry. It's just a matter of who you know in this town. If you know the hosts, you're GOLDEN.