Plans to build a replica of New York City's East Village on 44 acres near McCarran Airport are apparently continuing on schedule. Of course, it's not as though Las Vegas doesn't have enough tributes to the Big Apple already. We have a New York casino, New York delis, New York stores and the New York Café—which used to be known as the Capri Bar—and of all the aforementioned establishments, perhaps most deserves the NYC title. (Although the "café" designation is misleading; it is very not "café.") And, having spent the better part of my life in Manhattan, I consider myself to be a qualified judge.
The New York Café is more reminiscent of the archetypical East Village than anything else we've got in Vegas—for that matter, almost anything else they've got in the present East Village, either. It looks and feels like any of several bars along 11th Street or Avenue B or St. Mark's Place back when the first Bush was giving way to the first half of Clinton: A big, cool room with strangely warm bathrooms, blue-tinted walls, bottles reflected in the mirror behind the bar, and the neighbor's neon sign peeking through dusty blinds. No matter what the hour, it always feels like past midnight and you can always find a seat. The crowd may come off a little surly at first—things skew male, but not in a frat-party way; it's mostly guys discussing the quality of amps and the perfidy of women—but between people buying each other rounds of whiskey shots and the periodic delivery of chili fries, cheeseburgers or quesadillas, a certain feeling of camaraderie hovers in the room.
It's not just the name that's changed—the bar has doubled in size after annexing the adjacent pizzeria and tearing down the partition. The extra room creates space for bands to play, as well as adding an extra bathroom, this one New! And Improved! With Toilet Paper!
There's also a row of comfy new booths, upholstered in black-and-white checks reminiscent of a racetrack flag or one of Beetlejuice's suits.
A well-stocked jukebox adds to the atmosphere—coincidentally or not, New York City artists are well-represented, from the Ramones to A Tribe Called Quest to the Blues Explosion. The pool table is adequate, but the video-poker machines are a bit kinder than most. Of course, not all the equipment works so well: The cigarette machine only takes singles and the smokes are frequently stale and occasionally mislabeled. If you need to re-up on the nicotine, you're best off getting off your ass and going next door.
The New York offers a rather informal series of events, on a schedule that's rather like knowing what time one of the regulars gets off work—not posted, but you can pretty much count on it. Late-night Tuesdays and Thursdays feature better bands than you'll usually find for free on a weeknight, including one of the seemingly innumerable Blue Man Group side projects. On Sundays, Mark the bartender makes a fine Bloody Mary, with a medicinal level of spiciness but not so much that you can't taste the vodka. But the activities remain low-key and the bar remains the same—I recently brought a visiting NYC friend in and she remarked how it was the first place she'd been in Las Vegas where she "didn't feel crowded." Because crowds may be an out-of-towner's urban ideal, but those of us who live in the city appreciate being able to get away, if only for a beer or two.
New York Café, 4080 Paradise Road, 796-0589.
Lissa Townsend Rodgers learned to make a martini at age 6. E-mail her at
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