Friday, April 4, 9:20 p.m.
Are you texting your drink order to someone?!” Who, me? I give an incredulous look, but the goofy thumbs-up I shoot my insider (guy closer to the bar than I) to confirm that I’ve sent over my request to try Rojo Lounge’s intriguing blend of Mandarin vodka, orange juice, mint and a jalapeño gives me away. When it arrives, the pairing of orange with the vibrant just-picked green of a particularly large and vicious-looking jalapeño slice has my compatriots a little worried, and when I try to get them to try it they just cringe. “No, it’s good! Really!” I insist, but it’s no use. We change the topic.
“So I have an interesting story,” says Al Mancini, a local food writer and friend. He then launches into a rather horrific tale about being effectively bounced from a restaurant in Summerlin for his unconventional (for a food critic, anyway) appearance before he could even explain that he’d been invited.
While sad and unfortunate, his timely story only highlights a shift occurring right now in Vegas—one where undue hoity-toityness is successfully driving more and more people into the welcoming arms of more casual and accepting environs off-Strip and Downtown. As if to illustrate my point, we’re partying at a lobby lounge. It’s touted as the “reinvention” of a lobby lounge, but it’s a lobby lounge nonetheless.
Throughout the micro-lounge, with a max capacity of only 75, gorgeous and important people kick back and spill out into the Palms Place lobby, where two sunken seating areas become hubs for even more carousing. Any nightclub owner in Vegas would eat his Rolex to get this crowd in his VIP section, but here they are, relaxed and engaged in an alternative form of nightlife, maybe destined to head to an on-Strip club tonight … and maybe not. This trend grows in strength with the opening of each spiffed-up off-Strip hotel (Green Valley Ranch, Red Rock and soon, Eastside Cannery) and with the coming of venues like Yard House at Town Square, which has fast secured its place as the upscale 20-to-30-something meat market of choice.
Earlier that week, I had wandered around the blue and red sprawl of Town Square’s new maxi-lounge, the Blue Martini (located above Yard House), with Mike, a successful real-estate developer and one who’s managed over the last few years to actually put up a building or two. So I trust his opinion. “The big bangers [business moguls] that used to come out here from LA, they’re all broke!” Making our way from the Stage Bar to the VIP Bar and looping back to the Island Bar before venturing out to the patio, we observed the profound number of people partaking of Blue Martini’s generous 10-ounce martinis with shaker service and the bar menu of “large-portion appetizers.”
The local video-poker bar just isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Clean, upscale, well-run non-gaming (and even non-smoking!) venues are bringing out locals in droves. Situated just across the way from the Rave Theater and a short stroll from Brio Tuscan Grill, Blue Martini presents locals (and tourists willing to venture) a chic, affordable alternative to clubbing. With happy hour going off from 3-6 p.m. at Yard House and 4-8 p.m. at Blue Martini every day, you can’t go wrong.
Guests enter through familiar blue velvet ropes, but for once, they’re more ornamental than anything else, keeping out the skateboarding and break-dancing teens drawn to that area by the movie theater. From the cavernous entrance foyer, one can catch glimpses of all four bars and who’s seated at them. Each bar could easily stand on its own, but put together, Blue Martini dwarfs other lounges. This means that entire offices and work groups can cocktail together, and all manner of weekend celebrations can go off without the need for a VIP host, bottle minimums, tipping under the table and all the rest.
The same goes for Rojo Lounge. Sleek and ultramodern in mauve and red, the demi-bar serves up a genuinely interesting cocktail list worth exploring over girl talk. Bottle service is offered, though not required, and is—just as with Blue Martini—made affordable. No pomp is needed to sidle up to this bar, just a reason. And no doorman will try to keep you outside until he’s satisfied. Unlike at the clubs, it’s who’s inside that counts.
Xania Woodman thinks globally and parties locally. And frequently. E-mail her at [email protected] and visit thecircuitlv.com to sign up for Xania’s free weekly newsletter.