All’s Not Grand at Vegas’ Downtown Grand
Posted on: August 12, 2025, 12:53h.
Last updated on: August 12, 2025, 01:27h.
- The Downtown Grand is suffering financial hardships
- The casino has shortened the hours for when its table games are playable and has permanently closed the Freedom Beat restaurant
- Rumors suggest the casino’s owners are looking to offload the property
Las Vegas’ Downtown Grand Vegas has scaled back its live table game hours and food offerings, doing little to dispel the rumor of impending doom first reported by Casino.org‘s own Vital Vegas on July 28.
The property’s new table game hours are as follows:
- Monday–Wednesday: 2 pm–2 am
- Thursday: 11 am – 2 am
- Friday–Saturday: 11 am – 5 am
- Sunday: 11 am – 3 am
Its previous table games were from 11 am – 3 am Monday-Thursday and 9 am Friday through 3 am Monday.
As Vital Vegas also previously reported, the property’s Freedom Beat restaurant has permanently closed. That leaves Lucky’s, the hot dog stand at the front of the casino (which now offers sandwiches) and the third-floor pool (which offers breakfast and lunch from 10 am – 5 pm) as the property’s only onsite dining options (though Pizza Rock and the Triple George are right next door).
Downturn Grand
The rumor Vital Vegas reported two weeks ago was that Downtown Grand was in so much financial trouble, its vendor invoices are going unpaid, and its private owner, CIM Group, is “ready to dump Downtown Grand for peanuts just to make the bleeding stop.”
According to that blog post, Downtown Grand “has struggled for some time, but things really went south when a deal to be acquired by Penske Media Corp. fell through.”
Penske owns Rolling Stone, and, if successful, those negotiations — which entered due diligence in March 2025 before collapsing in July — would most likely have resulted in a rebrand of the Downtown Grand to align with the aging rock music magazine.
Lady Bad Luck
The Downtown Grand last made headlines in May, when its owners refused to extend the lease with their tenant, Hogs & Heifers, due to excessive noise. The rowdy biker bar is relocating to 307-319 Main St.
Now that everything appears to be quiet at Downtown Grand — including business — that rent money sure seems like it could have come in handy.
Only a couple of days ago, the Golden Gate confirmed that it was removing all its live table games and their dealers, replacing them with electronic substitutes.
The Downtown Grand began in 1964, when the former Honest John’s newsstand and barbershop at 3rd and Ogden streets was purchased by Andy Tompkins and reopened as a casino. It was renamed Lady Luck in 1968 and operated under that name until shuttering in 2006.
The property reopened as Downtown Grand in 2013 after a major renovation.
Last Comments ( 5 )
CIMI, or who ever the owner /lender is really got taken for a ride by the management company and they rode them for years. I recently read the hard rock, excuse me, Virgin hired them to come up with a name for their players club or something like that. I guess there are con jobs at every level. Thats what it seems like to me.
So, they strong armed hogs and heifers to close, they are constantly getting security to move traffic along the street in front of them. They don't know how to bring customers in and now they are trying to offload?
With the death of Freedom Beat and McDonalds there are few low cost restaurants to draw in the budget crowd who do tend to sit on slots for hours. When you couple this with being odds being tighter than the strip it is setting up downtown to be a day destination for those who come to the strip. I'm not sure that's progress. The fact downtown was different than the strip was one of its selling points.
Downtown Grand is going to close and no one will go north of Fremont St. Pizza Rock will close and the dream of the street outside Fremont Casino will die. Unless Derek purchases it and makes it like The D.
The Downtown Grand has the potential to be a great addition to downtown Las Vegas. All it needs is the right owner and business strategy that will make people want to visit. I think that many of the struggles the DG is now experiencing stem from the fact that their business strategy was nothing more than throwing everything against the wall, then making a half-hearted effort towards implementing whatever stuck. What's the over/under on closing down or finding a buyer? Any speculation on who might take a chance on this property? Maybe Mohegan Sun would have better luck here than they did over at Virgin!!