One of the Valley’s oldest restaurants has found new life.
Hush Puppy, a rare Southern eatery in Las Vegas, has been serving up all-you-can-eat fried catfish, scratch-made gumbo, fried green tomatoes and more at its original West Charleston Boulevard location since 1975, operated by the same family from Arkansas until a few years ago when it was purchased by Magdy Amer.
“The original owner passed away and they weren’t going to be able to keep it going, so I bought it and we kept the same menus, the same food, and did some improvements to the building,” Amer says. “My original education, I’m an archaeologist. I don’t like old things to be torn down. In Vegas, we tear down lots of stuff. So at least I saved one.”
Magdy Amer, owner of Hush Puppy
Not only did he keep the Hush Puppy going, he’s expanded it. A second location at Fremont Street’s Neonopolis complex opened just before Thanksgiving, a collaboration with Neonopolis owner Rohit Joshi, who says he was excited to add a unique cuisine to the dining mix there. “It’s something we didn’t have,” he says. “It’s been a year of hard work to get all the approvals and construction done, and it’s finally here.”
Both businessmen think this soulful fare will appeal to Vegas visitors roaming the Fremont Street Experience and Neonopolis. And the new Hush Puppy is adding some new twists—the original restaurant has separate menus for dine-in or drive-thru, and the Downtown restaurant combines the offerings into one. So you can get a two-piece catfish box ($20) with hush puppies, fries and tartar sauce, or go for heartier dishes like jambalaya ($22) and crab legs.
New to the menu is a Cajun burger ($22), highly seasoned and topped with fried green tomatoes on a potato bun.
“We took a picture of the old location, blew it up and wrapped it around the glass of the new location so when you come in and sit down, you can see the history,” Amer says. “We’re doing some new things but the recipes are the same.”
Those classic flavors are still bringing in longtime regulars at the original Hush Puppy, he says, where customers who first came in as children are now bringing their own kids—or sometimes grandkids. Amer is hoping locals will head Downtown for a new Hush Puppy experience.
“We’re doing local discounts and we always want to cater to locals, even though of course most of the clientele on Fremont is tourists,” he says. “We’ve already had some great workers at the neighboring [businesses] come in to try it, and some of them knew Hush Puppy already. So we hope some more locals will come.”
HUSH PUPPY Neonopolis, 450 Fremont St. #135, 702-385-4288, thehushpuppylv.com. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-midnight; Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-2 a.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m-1 a.m.
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