I’ve seen a lot of sports bars over the course of writing this column—so many that the very sight of SportsCenter now induces a kind of Pavlovian salivation for beer. So as I walk through the metal detector into Jay-Z’s new 40/40 Club at the Palazzo, I’m doing my very best to not drown in my own spit.
With 85 HDTVs scattered around the premises, including one enormous theater-size screen, the place looks like some sort of ESPN command center. It’s a sports bar on steroids, except the usual team jerseys you’d find the patrons wearing have been replaced by expensive club attire. The jerseys are still around—they’re just hanging on the walls in glass cases, signed by the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Brett Favre and even Barry Bonds (who I’m told never signs jerseys). The architecture is sleek and shiny, and the bars are filled with shelf upon shelf of golden bottles of Armand De Brignac Champagne. It’s hip-hop opulence meets Monday Night Football—the sort of room a professional athlete keeps in his mansion for when he wants to kick back and watch a game. I feel like I’m on an episode of Cribs.
As I make my way through the crowded, jersey-filled corridors circling the club’s perimeter, it’s hard to picture the place functioning as a casual hangout for your typical beer-swilling, hot-wings-chomping sports fan. That’s because right now the place is doing what it will do come 11 p.m. every night: moonlighting as a nightclub. As soon as the last major game ends on any given evening, the DJ takes over, and patrons move in and out of the five bars, five swanky VIP lounges and three skyboxes, which have names like the Bombay Sapphire Room, the A-Rod Room, the Jay-Z Room, etc. Some have pool tables, and most of them look out onto the veranda outside, where there are more pool tables.
I proceed to the center of the room, where the giant screen can be viewed from a massive multitiered VIP section that pretty much functions as bleachers—albeit the most comfortable bleachers the world has ever seen. Each row-long couch has every square inch buried in pillows, which are removed to make room for anyone who wants to sit down. Employees squeeze past me, struggling to manage unruly stacks of seven or eight pillows at a time. Hmm. They may want to rethink the whole excessive-pillow thing.
A crowd begins to swarm around the entrance to the fancy bleachers, which is typically an indication that an entourage-shrouded celebrity is about to arrive, and I head down to the lower bar to avoid the bedlam. I have yet to see a celebrity. The club does an excellent job of whisking them away to the secluded areas where starstruck onlookers like myself can’t gawk.
“We came in tonight right behind Lebron James,” a friend of mine says.
“Awesome,” I say. “That’s an athlete, right? I’ll have to keep an eye out for his jersey, unless he’s here to pick it up.”
So I’m not a big sports fan, but I am a fan of sports bars. I like the atmosphere. I like the camaraderie. But this star-studded event makes me wonder if 40/40 can actually make the transition into casual sports bar during its daylight hours. Then I’m handed a cocktail by none other than bartender Steve from Downtown Cocktail Room. This is a guy I’ve chatted with over many a cocktail, and now he’s breaking in a new bar.
Suddenly, I can see it—that personal touch. A down-to-earth guy like Steve makes this a casual sports bar to experience rather than just a gawdy celebrity haven to watch. Some people prefer to be drawn to the midnight spectacle, but I’d rather hang out with friends who crane their necks to watch the big game on the giant screen. And this place can pull off both.
Now if I can just get them to let me hook up my Xbox 360 to the main screen. That’s the kind of Cribs-style spectacle I can get into.
40/40 Club
The Palazzo at the
Venetian Hotel & Casino
638-4040