VEGAS DINING NEWS: Luxor Closing Buffet

Posted on: March 12, 2025, 08:57h. 

Last updated on: March 13, 2025, 11:16h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.
  • Another Vegas buffet gives up the ghost
  • Ferraro’s Ristorante named one of the world’s best Italian eateries

The Buffet at Luxor will serve its last customer on March 30, according to an employee who works there.

Mummy loved this place. (Image: Las Vegas Then and Now)

It’s not like the world clamored for all the average food it could eat in the almost always empty basement of a creepy fake Egyptian pyramid. But every time a buffet dies in Vegas now, it becomes a story. Like this one (though technically, it’s only a column item).

That’s because only nine buffets remain on the Las Vegas Strip, where they were once an institution — 11 if you count the ones at the Palms and Westgate. (Should we count them? They certainly feel like the Strip … until you try walking to them, especially if you’re someone who really enjoys buffets.)

That’s fewer than half of the 20 buffets that existed before the pandemic shutdown, and fewer than a third of the approximately 35 the Strip had in 2000. (Because we can multiply.)

And if you’re talking cheap buffets, only Circus Circus’ $19.99 admission price had Luxor’s $31.99 beat.

Here are the soon-to-be final eight, listed in order of price:

  1. Circus Buffet at Circus Circus, $19.99
  2. The Buffet at Excalibur, $32.99 (no dinner)
  3. MGM Grand Buffet, $37.99 (no dinner)
  4. Wynn Buffet, ($59.99 for brunch, $79.99 for dinner)
  5. Wicked Spoon at Cosmopolitan, $62 (no dinner)
  6. The Buffet at Bellagio, $74.99
  7. Bacchanal Buffet, Caesars Palace, $84.99
  8. Signature Seafood Buffet, Genting Palace at Resorts World, $88

As awesome as the Buffet at Luxor wasn’t, it’s certainly heartbreaking whenever a restaurant closes and the dozens who relied on working very hard there to support their families have to figure out something else. We wish them all well.

No word yet on what MGM Resorts plans to replace the space with, if anything. However, buffets are starting to make less sense to casino corporations due to the millions more per year they stand to earn by converting them into food halls that high-end restaurant groups are willing to pay top dollar to lease space in.

Casino.org contacted several MGM spokespeople for comment. None returned the emails.

Ferraro’s Formula Won Again

Ferraro’s is among the world’s best Italian restaurants — and among the most pissed off at F1. (Image: Ferraro’s)

For the second year running, Ferraro’s Ristorante has been named among the world’s best Italian restaurants outside Italy.

It received the prestigious “three forks” honor for 2024 from Gambero Rosso International, the Italian multimedia company recognized as a leading authority on Italian food.

There are no four forks.

The culinary program led by executive chef Mimmo Ferraro also won the honor for 2023, when only 33 restaurants outside Italy were recognized, eight of which were in the US. (Gambero Rosso hasn’t released its complete 2024 list yet.)

This is a rare spot of good news for this restaurant, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

Lately, Ferraro’s has only made headlines for the “thousands of guests and millions of dollars” it lost due to the eight months of Las Vegas construction that cut off access to its storefront in 2023, according to the lawsuit it filed against F1 last September.