A portion of Downtown’s boutique Thunderbird Hotel became something new over the holiday weekend, when a combination restaurant, drag brunch show, gaming lounge and gay nightclub made its September 1 debut. But all of that is only the first phase of the plans to eventually turn the property into an LGBTQ+ resort, and there’s another gay resort setting up for a fall opening in the Downtown area.
Queen Las Vegas bills itself as the first LGBTQ+ property on the Strip, but its Las Vegas Boulevard location at the retro-styled Thunderbird technically sits between the Strip and Downtown’s Fremont Street area. In addition to the recent rebranding of the restaurant and nightclub spaces, Q Group Hospitality is renovating 28 of the hotel’s 100 rooms, with plans to make them available this fall under the Queen banner.
Q Group founder Eduardo Cordova, a local gay nightlife fixture who opened popular Arts District bar the Garden in 2020 and hosts and promotes the Strip’s leading gay pool party, Temptation Sundays at Luxor, says the Thunderbird opportunity popped up in February. Working in phases, he took over the restaurant space in May and began gearing up to launch the full-scale nightclub with bottle service, DJs and new LED lighting over Labor Day weekend.
A guest room at the Bent Inn
“As far as the suites go, the hotel is currently operated and owned by Thunderbird, but we are working on a transition within the next year,” Cordova says. “The rooms we’re starting with are kind of a pilot program for what we’re trying to do to launch this new brand … and if everything goes well, we’ll start talking about converting the hotel to the Queen Las Vegas brand.”
Cordova has worked with several prominent nightlife venues on and off the Strip, including collaborating with Victor Drai on Liaison at Bally’s, the first gay nightclub in a Strip casino. He’s playing to that same demographic of locals and tourists with Queen.
“We don’t have anything like this, as far as a true Vegas nightlife experience for the gay community,” he says. “Krave provided that for many years at Planet Hollywood on the Strip before it was turned into the largest Buffalo Wild Wings in the world.
“It was always the plan to think, what could be the perfect gayborhood or gay district? For me, it’s important to be adjacent to this neighborhood where you could walk to [other venues] and have all parts of the day, besides nightlife, so it could be appealing to different demographics.”
Mark Hunter and Greg Kafka, owners of the incoming Bent Inn on North 11th Street near Ogden Avenue, also say Downtown is the ideal place for a true gay district in Las Vegas. They sold the gay resort properties they had been operating in Palm Springs, California, and moved here in 2020 after acquiring the property built as the Moonlight Motel in the 1960s.
“Downtown represents that original, nostalgic Las Vegas, which is very exciting to us and similar to the Palm Springs, minimalist vibe,” Kafka says. “We like that style; we like Fremont Street.”
The Bent Inn is scheduled to open in October as the first adults-only, LGBTQ+-focused, gay-owned resort in Las Vegas. It will have 33 rooms, a large courtyard with a pool and oversized hot tub, and a gastropub on property. And it will cater to visitors looking for a different and very welcoming, if more specific, experience, the owners say.
“The hotels in Las Vegas have done a fantastic job in creating a welcoming environment for everyone,” Hunter says. “What [guests] can’t always rely on is for their fellow guests to be just as welcoming. This is how our experience is driven. The other guests you might be sharing the pool with are also there seeking something specifically, which is what we’re promoting.”
Both resort developers say they’ve been supported by the City of Las Vegas in establishing their businesses for an LGBTQ+ audience. Combining the casinos of the Fremont Street Experience with the bars and restaurants of the Fremont East Entertainment District and the varied offerings of the 18b Arts District just across Charleston Boulevard creates a fertile Downtown area for the potential “gayborhood,” as Cordova describes it.
“I met with the Mayor [recently], and I’m meeting with City Councilwoman [Olivia] Diaz to talk about all the things we’re doing here and how we can make sure we work together on everything going on around here,” he says. “I can see [popular restaurant] Esther’s Kitchen from here. You can walk to the Arts District. The City is spending a lot of money beautifying this side of the Strip and in the Arts District to make it all more walkable and connected, and they’re luring a lot of retail and food and beverage concepts.”
Cordova says he hopes more new businesses will be gay-owned and operated. “For me, it’s the more the better, whether it’s a salon, a bakery, or another bar. It doesn’t matter.”
Like Cordova, Hunter and Kafka live very close to their resort, and they see the potential of their business and others growing an LGBTQ+ district—something Las Vegas has never really had.
“That would be phenomenal, and we are within a few minutes walk to so many different destinations,” Kafka says. “We would love to have a more centralized neighborhood, and not have everything be so dispersed across the city.”
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