Downtown Las Vegas Archives - Good For Spooning

Ever since the renovation and reopening of the Downtown Grand, I have been a huge proponent of the property. I have booked blocks of rooms for parties, pub crawls and events in the downtown area. Nice rooms, decent house staff, conveniently located, gorgeous pool…and all of that has changed. I have had my final stay at that property.

Upon their reopening, the food and the beverage program needed some work, but they were on the right track. Their center bar NEVER was a draw for me because all they had was crap on tap, but the Mob Bar and the Art Bar both had a decent cocktail menu with friendly staff. Bring in Chef Todd Harington and the food game was brought to a new level. Harrington has exacting standards for his kitchens and it showed in the revved up menus and the wonderful Chinese restaurant on property. His departure saw a complete “dumbing down” of the food and beverage program. The Chinese resto is gone. The cocktail menus have been stripped. Little known fact is that Pizza Rock, Triple George, Commissary and Hogs & Heifers are all owned by The Grand, but to the best of my knowledge, only Pizza Rock solely creates their own menu. The other properties have input and oversight from the Execs at The Grand.

Let’s be candid, if you want luxury, Downtown Vegas is not for you; you should stay on The Strip. If you want clean rooms, nice staff and a good value, in close proximity to our hottest, hippest, growing scene, this is where you want to stay when you come to Vegas. You can find excellent food at value pricing compared to the Strip and you can stay in landmark hotels like the Golden Nugget, Golden Gate (all newly renovated FYI) and Four Queens.

One of the things I have always loved about Vegas is that it is the only major metropolitan area in the country where you do not have to pay for parking at your hotel. In Chicago, NYC, San Francisco, New Orleans, LA etc. you pay per day to park your car starting at $25 a day, sometimes without in and out privileges (meaning there is an additional fee to USE your car during your stay). I even paid to park at a damn Hampton Inn in Ontario, California (not even LA, mind you…). Well, either that is changing or the Downtown Grand thinks it has been transported to another city. They charged me $11 to park my car and I was a hotel guest. To add insult to injury, when we claimed the car the price listed for parking was $7!

Here’s the thing – I think paying to park is the biggest fucking racket on the planet. I was floored when I moved here and found that I need only tip the valet and I could use valet parking. And I LOVE that. I understand wanting to charge for event parking (I don’t LIKE it, but I understand it). I even understand charging tourists who are USED TO PAYING for parking, but when you charge the locals for something they can get free at other and better hotels, be prepared for the back lash. FYI – the Four Queens also charges you to valet if you are NOT a hotel guest, and I even get that thought process.

So let’s take a look:

Stripped cocktail program
Stripped menu options and closure of the best resto on property
Broken A/C in the room (another story entirely)
Rude front desk staff when addressing the parking charge AND the A/C
Having to pay for parking

I guess I will stay elsewhere when I am downtown. The Downtown Grand is NOT the only game in town and while they were the best for a little while, they aren’t even the best game in downtown any more. I’ve yet to stay in The D, The Four Queens or the Golden Gate and the Las Vegas Club is undergoing renovations to the entire property, so we’ll wait to see what they bring to the game.

The feature Image is from USA Today online.

I have been trying to write this piece for a few weeks now. The problem is that generally I try to be more positive than negative and my Triple 7 Restaurant and Brewery experience was more of the latter and less of the former. I have also decided that July may, in fact, be “Month of the Bitch”. Maybe it’s because it is very hot, maybe I am just cranky, but I think I will set aside my good girl side for this month and tell it like it really is. Here you go…

I met the head brewer, Kenjiro Tomita, at the Brews & Blues event at the Springs Preserve at the end of May. He had one of the most interesting locally produced beers there. It was a Sour IPA – so take everything you love about sours and hop it up to an IPA and there you have it (it was everything that John loves and everything I love in one beer). After talking with him and telling him what I do, I was invited to come and sample some food & bev for a piece for LVFB (Moment of Truth – I couldn’t write this piece for LVFB because I didn’t have enough nice things to say). He assured me that the upper management and PR knew and approved the visit – neither management staff nor PR came to speak with me.

Ken sat with us, made suggestions on what to try from the menu and told us a great deal about himself, the set-up, the beer and the resto. I wanted to talk about how the beer has changed and how the chef is incorporating the brews into the menu. FYI the chef isn’t working with the brewer to do anything special on the menu. Only the batter for the fish & chips and one of the BBQ sauces feature any beer at all and it’s only mentioned on the fish. What I have to say about Triple 7 is this – don’t bother eating there. The food isn’t that good. The beer is clearly the star of the show. The main problem could be that there is too much corporate interference from the hotel/casino to make this a real contender in the Brewery Resto world of Las Vegas.

We had the Korean Short Ribs (inedible – greasy, and less meat than fat and gristle) and the Smothered Potato Chips to start. DO get the Chips – they were actually pretty good. In house made chips dressed up like potato skins and the last one was as crispy and crunchy as the first one. Then we had a burger and the fish & chips. The burger was “meh” but the fish of the fish & chips was pretty good as well. It’s not the best I have ever had, but certainly not the worst (I really need to write a piece on just that dish…it’s one of my faves).

Korean Short RIbs

Smothered Potato Chips

Fish & Chips

I would suggest going there for happy hour because the beer is really cheap! At $2.50 per pint for the house made brews, it’s a steal. No great bargains on the food, just $1 off the regular menu pricing, but that means you can get those smothered potato chips and save a buck. If you are thinking about getting a growler to go, know this: you have to buy the growler itself in the GIFT SHOP near the registration desk of the hotel and then bring it BACK to the bar to be filled and pay the tap fee there. A major pain in the ass, and unless you are really motivated, it’s a damper on the sale. The other important thing to know about Triple 7 in my eyes is that they have a “Variable IPA” tap. I am a hop head of the nth degree. IPA’s are my favorite style, so this appeals to me. Their IPA tap changes all the time and you never know what’s going to be on tap. The lovely Sour IPA is just one of the variants that Ken makes.

If you are downtown, go, eat the potato chips, have a beer and leave. That’s the best I can tell you.