Porchlight Hospitality CEO and veteran stock car racer Chris Lowden has one of those only-in-Vegas backgrounds. He’s the son of a bandleader/casino operator and a state senator/TV news anchor, so it’s safe to say his family has left an impact on the city.
And Lowden is following suit. He and his company have operated Stoney’s Rockin’ Country for the past 16 years, establishing the bar, music hall and dance spot as a West Coast institution that has helped propel countless country artists to the next level. This summer, its offshoot, Stoney’s North Forty, will reopen at Santa Fe Station casino resort in northwest Las Vegas, where it first welcomed guests nearly 15 years ago. And Porchlight recently debuted a new and different venue, Vic’s in Downtown’s Symphony Park, a music-first take on a jazz supper club.
Are you still racing stock cars? I am. I’m driving part-time this year, and I have one driver who will drive the ARCA West and East Series and another who will be racing in the West. I’ve been racing since I was in my 20s, but ARCA is relatively new; it’s not Saturday-night racing at the local track. It’s a little more serious and a little more expensive. It’s a big deal, and I feel like we have a good shot at the championship this year. But for me, I drive for fun. I love racing.
There seem to be some common threads between running a racing team and running a country music bar. Stoney’s is all about country music, but it’s America, it’s NASCAR; all those things intertwine. I have a picture of [driving legend] Martin Truex Jr. holding my 1999 Winston Cup helmet in my office, and he was there at Stoney’s because he was friends with one of the artists [performing there]. There’s that kind of tie-in.
Did you go into the music and bar biz because it was sort of in your blood? We grew up in the casino business. That’s just what we did. I learned a lot from my parents about how to operate, and one of the main things was how to treat an artist. That’s a philosophy that is strong here at Stoney’s, and it’s given us a reputation that apparently a majority of venues don’t believe in, which is taking up-and-coming artists that work hard, travel hard and are living a hard life, and treat them like they’re somebody. Look at our history—Cody Johnson, Whiskey Myers, Gretchen Wilson, Montgomery Gentry. We’ve had so many artists growing up here. Kane Brown, this is the first place he played west of the Mississippi.
How does it feel to be bringing Stoney’s North Forty back to Santa Fe Station this summer? It’s weird, because [our family] built and operated that place until 2000, when we sold it to Station Casinos. But putting Stoney’s back in makes a lot of sense. It’s far enough into the northwest market that there’s a lot of customers that don’t come down from there anymore. And we really like that market.
How will it differ from the location at Town Square? The place at Santa Fe is a little hipper, a little nicer, but with the same kind of programming. There are more TVs and a giant 3,000-square-foot covered patio. But at the end of the day, it’s all about the dancing. People come to dance, and it’s still country music, but country is a melting pot of genres now—pop-country, Southern rock; now there’s something called hick hop and a new term called punktry. But [the two venues] are probably more similar than different.
Vic’s is obviously a very different kind of place. Did you create that spot more for locals? Surprisingly, with the exception of NFR and PBR weeks, Stoney’s is primarily local. But with Vic’s, we really like the location, and one reason we decided to make it a straight jazz venue is because it’s across from the Smith Center. I think it’s primarily a locals’ place and it’s like Stoney’s in that our sound is second to none. It’s really meant to be a musician’s place to go. If you are a top-notch jazz player, you’re gonna want to play at Vic’s, and we’re starting to see that. Jeff Hamilton is arguably one of the best drummers in the world. Chuck Redd is one of the best vibes [vibraphone] players in the world. We’re getting those calls.
It feels like Vic’s and the new Stoney’s are part of a trend of music and entertainment venues developing off the Strip, which is especially nice to see after all the pandemic stuff. The Strip is its own animal, but it’s expensive to go down there and park and do something. To find a venue or a restaurant that is quality, to get something you had gone to the Strip for before, I think that’s what’s helping that [trend]. You want the experience, but you don’t want the expense. And Vic’s is about that; it’s what I think a supper club should be. You go there at night, have dinner and watch live jazz, every night, and we don’t charge a fee for that. You just make a dinner reservation.
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