Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Sometimes, you need to escape to a place where everybody knows your name.

Any late-night worker can tell you, if you make enough 2 a.m. visits to a Village Pub or PT's Gold, the graveyard bartender will start to remember the way you order your tuna sandwich, and soon enough you'll feel just as welcome as the anyone on Cheers. For many, locals bar are often the only staple of sanity in Vegas' otherwise vapid nightlife scene.

Capturing this atmosphere inside a Strip casino may be impossible, but the Monte Carlo's Brew Pub came about as close to it as anywhere. It wasn't glamorous, guarded by men in suits and earpieces or a celebrity-studded hangout, but it was there, and if they didn't know your name at least they had your beer of choice on tap.

The Monte Carlo Brew Pub

When the Pub closed early this summer, few seemed upset. After all, it was never really a place to new find lifelong friends or dispense therapy by the pint. Besides, the casino promised a newer, better bar would soon be revealed.

Earlier this month, the space formerly known as the Brew Pub reopened as The Pub. With its short and snappy name, adorable whale icon named Gus spraying fire from his blowhole and bright new entrance, The Pub is hipper and younger than it's former self.

But on a nondescript Thursday night, you can't really tell. When you walk through the Pub's entrance, the first sounds you hear are from the blaring televisions, which are broadcasting baseball. The spacious Pub is mostly empty, save for a handful of people sitting at the bar with their beers, watching the game.

To my right a middle-aged couple asks for a bottle of wine. The bartender first isn't sure if they sell wine by the bottle. When he figures out they don't, the couple asks for two glasses of Chardonnay. Then, they sit and talk to each other rather than engage the bartender or anyone around them. No lifelong friend material there.

To my left is a lone male, who orders a glass of beer and drinks it slowly. Boring, I think. He must agree, as he finishes and asks the bartender directions to Diablo's Cantina, which I've never been to but know must be more happening than this.

As the Brew Pub, the venue was unassuming. If it was empty, it was empty because, hey, that happens. In its new reincarnation, you expect a bit more. The gift shop boasting T-shirts of Gus suggest a memorable place, even if you ignore the "Food You'll Never Forget, Drinks You Won't Remember" motto. But inside, there's nothing all that special. Some pretty decor, the same lofty ceiling, some televisions and -- sorry, Gus -- food that isn't quite as memorable as advertised. The only thing really worth bragging about is the beer list, 88-long, to be exact.

I return the following night, a Friday, hoping the addition of very blond musical duo Zowie Bowie will liven things up. The blaring music, which you can hear far before you can see the Pub itself, seems to suggest so. However, too similar to the night before, expectations sink a little upon entering.

Zowie Bowies Marley Taylor performs during the gala premiere of Vintage Vegas at the Lance Burton Theater at the Monte Carlo on Sunday night. Photo by: Justin M. Bowen

Granted, Zowie Bowie's energetic live performance is entertaining. Perhaps it's Marley's Taylor's youthful attitude and bouncy persona. Or perhaps it's the half-dress she's wearing, her more than ample chest and a strategically placed wind fan. Either way, the female half of Zowie Bowie is a bit mesmerizing to watch. If you like Top 40 hip-hop sung by white people, the live act is just your style. However, you'd better like dancing to it in a nearly empty room.

Save for two large groups at reserved tables in front of the stage (a bachelor party from Arizona and a group of females - a winning combination if ever one existed), the dance floor is pretty lonely. Sitting on the outskirts of the stage area are a scattering of tables with other groups, but if this bar was built for 20-somethings, most of the people in Friday's batch are on the tail end of that demographic.

All of it feels a bit stale. Could be the space: There's simply too much of it. Complaints of bars and nightclubs being too crowded are a dime a dozen, but there's an argument to be made that the reverse is worse. You can't lose yourself at the Pub, not as a quasi-locals' bar where everyone might know your name and not as a bustling nightclub where you're just another drop in a sex-crazed, sweaty sea of dancing people.

On stage, Zowie Bowie transitions their hip-hop melody into "Getting Jiggy With It." When I see that the people busting out Big Willie's signature dance move aren't doing so ironically, I realize it's time to go.