VEGAS DINING NEWS: Ciao to Mr. Chow and Hogs & Heifers
Posted on: May 13, 2025, 02:46h.
Last updated on: May 13, 2025, 08:42h.
Mr. Chow, which opened at Caesars Palace in 2015, will close there after May 17. Las Vegas, the upscale Chinese chain’s seventh location, is no longer listed on its website.
Vital Vegas, which broke the story, attributes the closure to a downturn in Asian visitation following the pandemic, and to its “terrible location” on the second floor of Caesars’ Forum tower.
Mr. Chow was founded in London by British-Chinese restaurateur, artist and designer Michael Chow (real name, Zhou Yinghua) in 1968. His restaurant was celebrated for its Beijing-inspired dishes served with theatrical presentation.
Its Mr. Chow Noodles dish, for example, is handmade nightly in a live “noodle show.” The chain also features a Champagne trolley.
The brand expanded to Beverly Hills in 1974, New York City in 1979, Miami in 2009 and Saudi Arabia in 2023, with celebrity sightings a big part of its appeal. (Artist Andy Warhol was a fixture at the Manhattan location at 57th Street, while Lady Gaga and Clint Eastwood have dined at the Beverly Hills outpost — though not together!)
The 1,600 square-foot Caesars Palace location has been sampled by Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Steve Martin and Martin Short, and Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.
No announcement has been made as about what will replace Mr. Chow or whether the brand has any future Las Vegas plans. Before Mr. Chow, its Caesars Palace location had been another high-end Chinese restaurant, Empress Court, which operated from the 1970s to the early 2000s.
Last Call for Downtown Biker Bar
Hogs & Heifers Saloon will close on July 31 — another Vital Vegas scoop. The rowdy downtown biker bar opened across from the Lady Luck Casino in 2005, a year before the neglected casino closed for good.
Never famous for being quiet — its female servers playfully berate their customers with bullhorns while dancing on the bar top — Hogs & Heifers and their mostly two-wheeled clientele had their run of North 3rd Street until the Downtown Grand opened in the old Lady Luck space in 2013, purchasing the Hogs & Heifers’ building in the process.
The Downtown Grand attempted to terminate Hogs & Heifers’ lease for excessive noise, but bar owner Michelle Dell successfully sued to stop the eviction in 2021.
Now, however, the casino hotel across the street is once again being transformed, by the owners of Rolling Stone, Penske Media, reportedly into a property bearing the music magazine’s vaunted (though admittedly dated) name.
Accordingly, the entire street (including the building occupied by Hogs & Heifers) will be reborn as the downtown music hub at the center of future “Life is Beautiful” concerts. (Penske purchased a stake in the festival in 2022, then purchased the remaining portion from the Tony Hsieh estate in July 2024.)
Dell is reportedly planning to relocate Hogs & Heifers to a nearby downtown location by 2026.
Dining Ins & Outs
Istanbul Mediterranean will take over the space vacated in January by Flippin’ Good Chicken, Burgers, Beer in downtown’s Fremont East entertainment district. It will be the chain’s second Las Vegas location, following one in the Grand Bazaar Shops at Horseshoe.
Health to Pay
The Southern Nevada Health District temporarily closed Antojitos Mexicanos, at 5560 E. Lake Mead Blvd., for scoring 42 demerits during a routine inspection on May 9. Its violations included a pest infestation, lack of potable and hot water, lack of employee toilets and handwashing facilities, improper cooking temperatures, and food protected from potential cross contamination.
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