Jeff Arcuri has learned to be thankful for the little things—like the fact that Wiseguys comedy club has restrooms with stall doors.
“There’s a lot of bars across the country that don’t have that in men’s rooms,” he tells the crowd. “They’re just like, ‘I need two urinals and a toilet for someone brave enough.’ You can poop in here, but you’re gonna meet somebody!”
Laughter erupts around the 300-seat venue, and the New York comic grins because he’s found his opening. With that, the punchlines come in a flurry. He’s swinging for a knockout and this room of giggling adults are against the ropes.
Thus is the sport of stand-up comedy, and Wiseguys’ second Las Vegas outpost at Town Square has some serious heavy hitters on the way.
Weeds star Kevin Nealon, Saturday Night Live’s Chris Redd and Chappelle Show’s Donnell Rawlings are some of the headliners who will pass through the club in the coming months, along with a handful of others Wiseguys owner Keith Stubbs has on speed dial.
“Ryan Hamilton is coming; he’s got a Netflix special that just absolutely kills,” says Stubbs, a stand-up vet who launched the Wiseguys brand in 2001. “T.J. Miller’s also coming for Super Bowl weekend, and he’s just a powerhouse.”
Wiseguys Town Square, like its companion club in the Arts District that opened in 2021, is quickly becoming a popular off-Strip entertainment destination. It’s a larger club, boasting an additional 100 seats, which enables Stubbs to book even bigger acts. And with the rise of TikTok and Instagram reels, it’s getting easier to discover them.
“It’s amazing how many really funny comics are out there, and maybe they were out there 15 years ago, 20 years ago, too, but you didn’t see them,” he says. “There are people having great careers in stand-up comedy because of social media.”
Wiseguys Town Square still maintains the cozy, underground feel locals loved about the first location Downtown. “There are comics that could sell out a larger venue that love the Arts District,” Stubbs adds. “Marc Maron, for example.”
Wiseguys is a staple in Utah, where Stubbs’ clubs in Salt Lake City, West Jordan and Ogden all sit within 50 miles of each other. And the comics who’ve visited them—John Mulaney, George Lopez and Fortune Feimster, to name a few—grace the walls of Wiseguys Town Square today.
It’s funny to think this all might’ve never happened for Vegas if not for Stubbs’ good friend Pauly Shore.
“[He] called me and said, ‘Hey, man, I have a building a friend of mine owns. They want me to put a place here. I don’t want to do it, but you should,’” Stubbs says. “My wife and I flew down, we met with Pauly and the owners of the building in the Arts District. I had no intention of opening down there. It was 100% Pauly.”
Introducing locals to a new comedy club during a pandemic required a “grassroots effort,” Stubbs says, but investing into the local scene is what helped Wiseguys flourish.
“We want the local comics to succeed and have opportunities,” he says, and that’s why he books them frequently. It’s also not uncommon to have a roomful of Las Vegans in the audience. This is a locals’ spot, first and foremost, Stubbs stresses.
Open mics at Wiseguys Arts District also encourage local comics to come in and work on new material, and sometimes established comedians drop by.
“What I love is seeing the progress,” he says. “The hardest thing about stand-up comedy isn’t doing it the first time, it’s continuing to do it.”
Stubbs, who grew up in a funny family and started doing stand-up in LA when he was a stock broker, can relate.
At Wiseguys Town Square, Bernie Mac, Joan Rivers and Don Rickles guard the lobby entrance in mural form like an uncensored holy trinity. Stubbs beams up at the late legends—Rivers and Mac, with whom he’s performed shows, and Rickles, a longtime favorite—and you can tell he’s planning to keep the laughs coming for a long time.
“We’re locked in,” he says. “We’re not going anywhere.”
WISEGUYS TOWN SQUARE 6593wiseguyscomedy.com. Friday & Saturday, 5:30-11:30 p.m.Las Vegas Blvd. South, 702-272-0786,
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