Here’s a Metric Ass-Ton of Las Vegas News Dumpery

By Scott Roeben, on August 03 2023
4 min read 8 comments
Las Vegas

There’s a lot happening in Las Vegas, and we are only one person, so we’re providing this hastily-slapped-together round-up of news to keep you in the loop about all the latest goings-on.

Yes, all of this news has been shared on Twitter, but you seem to have common sense, so probably don’t spend much time there. You also don’t seem to be aware Twitter isn’t even Twitter anymore, it’s X. We are not making this up.

Anyway, we are very busy hitting royal flushes on an almost daily basis, so we need to move this along. Here’s a metric ass-ton of Vegas news.

A.I. just keeps winning.

googie Durango Casino has announced it will open on Nov. 20, 2023. Durango has been built faster than any casino in recent memory, and will have the usual locals offerings of slot machines, restaurants, slot machines, a 211-room hotel, slot machines and possibly some slot machines.

googie Chef Michael Mina is opening a new restaurant, Orla, at Mandalay Bay this winter. The restaurant will go into the former Fleur space and will feature Mediterranean and Greek cuisine.

Michael Mina’s StripSteak recently reopened after a renovation.

googie F1 is extorting businesses along The Strip and threatening to block views of the race if venues don’t pony up. Read more.

googie A new Mexican restaurant has opened at Palms, La Popular CDMX. Our inside sources tell us exclusively it features Mexican food.

googie Rosa Mexicano is coming to the Miracle Mile Shops’ former PBR Rock Bar space. We understand this Mexican restaurant will serve Mexican food. Our sources are simply unrivaled.

googie A player recently won $1,286,324 at the Las Vegas airport, the second million-dollar win in a month. This win is considered miraculous, as the airport has the tightest slots in Las Vegas, if you don’t count Resorts World.

googie The Age of Chivalry Renaissance Festival is back. The nerdfest happens at at Sunset Park, Oct. 13–15, 2023. We say “nerdfest” with love. That’s because our only broken bone happened during a sword fight while wearing tights. We are not making this up.

We love falconry!

googie Kylie Minogue, who Wikipedia says is the highest-selling female Australian artist of all time, will have a residency at Venetian.

googie Tape Face is moving from Harrah’s to MGM Grand, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Tape Face is a wonderfully funny and inventive show, just don’t be surprised if the Tape Face you see isn’t the actual Tape Face. Long story.

Tape Face
Tape Face is basically a comedy-mime show. Another fun fact about us, we were once a street mime.

googie A new Tipsy Robot has opened at Venetian. Our friend @LasVegasLocally was the first to share the news, which is really annoying. It’s sort of a baby version of the Tipsy Robot at Planet Hollywood, which we enjoyed a lot.

googie We would not know a Bojangles if it landed on us, but 1) we find the name awkward, and 2) Las Vegas is getting 20 of them. The company hasn’t provided the locations yet, but some people seem very whipped up about this place. We get a strong Popeye’s vibe, so we aren’t sure what all the hoopla is about.

googie Dita Von Teese will have a residency Horseshoe’s Jubilee Theater, “Dita Las Vegas: A Jubilant Revue.” Sadly, Von Teese hired the same P.R. boneheads who used to work for Sahara, so good luck with that.

Bonus: Zero retouching. (Photo courtesy Horseshoe Las Vegas.)

googie A Hawaii favorite, Zippy’s, finally opens in Las Vegas on Oct. 10, 2023. The restaurant has suffered a number of delays. This was a go-to spot when we were growing up in Hawaii, so we’re looking to visiting once.

googie Our friends at the Las Vegas Advisor have announced their site will no longer be free. The O.G. Las Vegas Web site is moving to a fully subscription model, presumably because badass Anthony Curtis is over giving away content for free. The results of this move are predictable, and the news is bittersweet. The fee is nominal ($3 a month or $30 a year), but we all know how that’s likely to go. Ultimately, it’s a loss of a great source of insight and news. Monetization is a challenge for all content providers, online and off, unless they find a sugar daddy like we did in Casino.org.

googie Wolfgang Puck Players Locker has closed in Summerlin. First, successful restaurants don’t close. Second, dibs on the liquor they kept on-site for VIPs. One locker, specifically.

googie The reliably great drunchies mecca, American Coney, has temporarily closed at The D for a renovation. Our friend John Mehaffey shared the news on Twitter. Or X. Whatever.

googie Mehaffey also scooped everyone with news the Tuscany is bringing back table games. As with Casino Royale, we tend to skip casinos that remove their tables, so we were glad to hear Tuscany is bringing theirs back. We’ve shared that Casino Royale may not be long for this world, by the way.

A new walkway is ready to debut between Vdara and Bellagio.

Yes, it’s a lot of news. Imagine what it’s like to be us! You get to just breeze in and skim this and you probably aren’t even wearing pants right now. Neither are we, but that’s not the point. The point is we are one person trying to keep track of all this without the use of a fully-functioning brain. We used to blame our cognitive challenges on playing with mercury from broken thermometers, but a guy at a meet-up told us that kind of mercury doesn’t easily absorb through the skin. We also used to blame it on fillings. And Captain Morgan. But we’re pretty sure it’s just a case of having too much useless Las Vegas information in our head. Not to mention the fact another part of our brain is set aside for wondering if a word we made up, “dumpery,” has one “p” or two!

Anyway, thanks for letting us get some of it out. More to come, as always.