Locals casinos are changing their minds about restaurant offerings

It's just one of a legion of Las Vegas truisms: Every casino — especially if it's a locals casino — has to have a steakhouse, a Mexican restaurant and an Italian restaurant.

Except when they don't. The Orleans last week opened Ondori, a Chinese restaurant that also serves sushi, in the space formerly occupied by a Mexican restaurant, which it isn't replacing.

The steak-Italian-Mexican formula doesn't necessarily hold true anymore, said Mark LaVoie, vice president of food and beverage for Boyd Gaming.

"That was just replicated over and over," LaVoie said. "I no longer see that to be the case. What's happening with that cuisine in those spaces is they're not all that successful." He said part of the reason for that is the competition from a proliferation of mom-and-pop Mexican restaurants, and part is the trend away from full-service Mexican.

If you've been around a while and you've been paying attention, you've seen plenty of trends and changes in the restaurant offerings at locals casinos. For example, back around 2009, Station Casinos replaced most of its Grand Cafes with outlets of nationally known chains. Those didn't last.

"The decision to bring those cafes back really landed with our guests and what they preferred," said Lori Nelson, vice president of corporate communications for Station Casinos. The chains were brought in because it was thought that they would drive traffic to the casinos, Nelson said.

"At that time, it felt like the really right decision for what we needed to do for our business and what our guests wanted," she said. "We realized that wasn't really the case. Our owners were smart enough to say our guests are important to us and so is their feedback."

Nelson said a property's food-and-beverage mix is a delicate balancing act that's particularly important because of the number of repeat guests locals casinos draw. There needs to be a balance, she said, of restaurants that appeal to various tastes and budgets, and they need to be tailored to an individual property's clientele.

"What works at a Red Rock may not work at a Santa Fe Station or a Boulder Station," she said. Currently, she said, Station staples are cafes, steakhouses, oyster bars and buffets.

Yes, there's still a Mexican (if somewhat non-traditional) restaurant at Red Rock Resort, and it recently changed hands. Libre Mexican Cantina opened early this month, replacing the popular Mercadito. The difference: The restaurants are managed by different partner companies.

"Mercadito was replaced because we really wanted to grow our partnership with Clique," Nelson said, referring to Clique Hospitality, headed by Light Group co-founder Andy Masi, executive chef Brian Massie and operations chief Shane Monaco, a team who had opened such restaurants as Fix at Bellagio, Stack at the Mirage and Hearthstone at Red Rock Resort. Station had worked with Clique, Nelson said, in developing two restaurants at Green Valley Ranch Resort.

"That has been a wonderful relationship, because the Fertitta family (majority owners of Station Casinos) has always been impressed with their innovation," she said. "It was clear that they were able to bring something to the table that we didn't necessarily offer."

And that was the case, Nelson said, with two chains with outlets at Red Rock Resort — Yard House and Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que, both of which she said the company "really courted."

"They're really well-known names and for Red Rock that has been a wonderful, consistent staple," she said.

Boyd Gaming also has retained some chain restaurants, notably the TGI Friday's locations at the Orleans, Gold Coast and Sam's Town.

"The partnership with Friday's has remained very solid," LaVoie said. "They're great partners, they're drawing good lines, the business is robust. And we're happy with the fact that they're innovating and pushing their concept and staying current, so that's a good fit."

And the company is bringing Du-Par's, a Southern California institution that's had a location at the Golden Gate in downtown Las Vegas since 2010, to the Suncoast in April.

"Quite a few people who are going to the Golden Gate to visit Du-Par's live in Summerlin," he said. "Obviously, it's a huge California base of recognition. It's a high-quality product; they've been doing it for years," having been founded in 1938. "The majority of the stuff they do is still from scratch."

At the Orleans, Boyd also recently opened Alder & Birch, which LaVoie called a "more modern take on a steakhouse, concentrating on fresh products, classically presented. We're not using tweezers to move around microgreens."

And the company has more new restaurants planned — five at the Orleans alone, of more than a dozen across the valley.

It's a way for the company to present a fresh face, LeVoie said. The norm, he said, used to be "big-box restaurants. That's no longer the case. It's about the food, it's about the people who produce it. So these restaurants kind of stand on their own. It's another reason to visit the property."

"All of this," said David Strow, Boyd vice president of corporate communications, "is a reflection of where spinning patterns are going now in casino companies. Especially if you want to connect to some of these younger customers that have not been to a Boyd Gaming property before, food is a way to do that. That's kind of where we're going with this, is trying to use the food and beverage product to expand the customer base, make it relevant to more customers.

"We're not pricing this at Strip-level prices. We understand what our brand is, and our brand has always been about good value for the quality of product we have."

"It is," Nelson said, "definitely a reinvestment back into our culinary offerings. We have new offerings from time to time to give our guests a new reason to visit, but still keep our staples because those continue to perform well and be very well received by our guests.

"You could say that back in the day, restaurants were a loss leader. Food and beverage is really a star of our entertainment options."

Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at Hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Find more of her stories at www.reviewjournal.com, and follow @HKRinella on Twitter.