Sierra Gold's menu includes, from left, pot stickers, an arugula-pear salad, chili-lime wings, a chicken pesto pizza, a bacon-cheddar guacamole burger and Asian ribs. Photo by Samantha Clemens.

In a sunny afternoon, Vintner Grill looks like nothing so much as a haven for ladies who lunch. Sunlight streams through the large windows and reflects off the white beadboard ceiling, and lamps are spaced throughout the room in case Mother Nature needs an assist. Banquettes are pastel and topped with soft, loose pillows. Outside, a courtyard offers fresh-air seating, with lights gently twinkling in a tree after dark.

Doesn't sound like a poker bar, does it?

Welcome to the new generation of poker bar, which we're loosely defining as a restaurant/lounge, usually but not always open 24/7, with slot or video-poker machines, usually in the bartop.

Only a handful of years ago, poker bars were dark, dank, smoky, noisy, claustrophobia-inducing places where there was little to look at besides a cheeky barmaid and maybe sports on a 19-inch TV, and food was relegated to greasy platters of bar classics. Many of those that have opened in the past few years are more carefully designed, more closely resembling a high-end restaurant or hotel. And they increasingly have food to match.

Roger Sachs, co-owner and director of operations for Steiner's, A Nevada-Style Pub, believes his company got the ball rolling back in 1998.

"At that time, our owners wanted to change the foundation of what the local tavern was like," Sachs said. "Not just the hole-in-the-wall, dark, dingy, no windows. They wanted to make it a friendly place, make it your neighborhood bar."

Principal owner Hank Gordon, who's president of Laurich Properties, a commercial real-estate developer, wanted a place where he could feel comfortable and where he could bring his business associates, Sachs said. The convivial neighborhood watering hole in the eponymous TV sitcom "Cheers," the place "where everybody knows your name" and are "always glad you came" was the inspiration.

"The wood is very warm, there are green tones, brick, artifacts on the walls -- turn-of-the-century Nevada newspapers and stock certificates," Sachs said. "It reminds everyone of a place back home."

When it came to food, the owners decided to hire not a cook but a chef -- Gary Leiser, who had worked in resorts in Sedona, Ariz., and San Antonio. Sachs said it was important to have high-quality products and produce high-quality food.

"Expectations continue to rise, the more Vegas has grown," he said.

"People are expecting a higher quality and consistency of food," agreed Joe Romano, executive chef for the Golden Gaming Group.

"Vegas has been spoiled," Romano said. "We have some of the top chefs in the world here. I think there are 53 master sommeliers in the world, and 14 of them are in Las Vegas."

He said at the company's Sierra Gold location in particular, "we do a tremendous amount of business with industry people. Our main swing and graveyard is filled with Strip team members. If you're working at a StripSteak or an Aureole or a Pure, there's a certain level of expectation, just by what you're surrounded by on a daily basis. You kind of expect a little of that when you go out."

Romano should know. He came to Golden Gaming from a stint as executive chef at Aureole at Mandalay Bay. Such a move might be viewed as reflective of the level of commitment poker-bar companies are giving to food.

"Being at Aureole was a great part of my career, but I realized that we only touched a very small percentage of the population," he said. "When you're dealing with a $125 check average per person, you're only touching 10 percent of the market. I wanted to have more influence on 100 percent of the market. Wealthy people eat at taverns as well."

And across the board, he said, expectations are higher.

"In Vegas in the last five, six years, they've raised the bar in food," Romano said. "It's a trickle-down effect. You've got great-quality, off-Strip restaurants. You have to compete with those kinds of places as well. I think the tavern industry has had to diversify. If you're just serving fried wings and fried food and greasy burgers, you don't appeal to a majority of people."

Technology also has played a role in the evolution of the poker bar. Today's machines can be so quiet as to be unnoticed.

"When I was taking some slot-management classes, one of the things the teacher was talking about was people want to hear that 'clank, clank,' " Sachs said. "People associated that with Vegas. You really never thought that would change."

But then we had the advent of the cash-in, ticket-out machines,

"You don't hear the coins hitting the metal tray, but you hear that simulated sound" courtesy of computer chips used in some machines in some casinos, he said. "In poker bars, people aren't really concerned with that sound. They're not digging their hand in the dirty coin tray; they're just taking in the ambience of the sports or the music that's around."

Adam Corrigan, an owner of the group that includes the Roadrunner Taverns, Kennedy Tavern, Al's Garage, Sedona and Maize, said changing economics also play a role in the development of the modern poker bar.

"One reason -- whether it's the biggest or not -- is that with the price of land, price of construction, you've gotta get the price point to come in there and pay for that," he said. "Although we're the small guys on the block (Corrigan said the properties serve close to 100,000 people a month), it's just like a Mirage. If it's a better product, better people are going to come and spend more money and have a better time.

"What comes with those prices is higher expectations, so that's the big challenge. We don't serve wings, we don't serve chicken fingers. Everything's fresh; nothing's frozen but the ice cream."

But it appears it may be possible to raise the bar too much -- at least for the time being. Bruce Becker, president of Becker Gaming, had high standards when he developed Becker's Steakhouse, which has an elegant interior that evokes Old Las Vegas, complete with live music.

"I'm single and I eat out a lot," Becker said. "Instead of going to the Strip every night, I'd love to not have to go to the Strip and deal with that. So that's why I built the steakhouse -- thinking that the upscale people who go to the steakhouse would go in and gamble and gamble more money."

Sounds logical enough. But ...

"It really hasn't happened there," Becker said. "People come in there and they spend $100 on dinner. They just don't go over and spend any money on the poker machines."

Becker said he thinks the steakhouse just might be too nice.

"I think it went off the scale. I think I went too nice for the typical player," he said. "I'm not sure the people who have a lot of money are the real gamblers. Or if they are gamblers, they might be once-a-month-on-the-Strip gamblers, and playing card games, not poker machines."

Becker Gaming -- which also owns Charlie's Bar, Cariba Charlie's, Charlie's Saloon and Charlie's Down Under -- has upgraded its Becker's Lakeside, he said.

"It does very well with gaming," he said. "It has a better-than-bar-food menu, a nice dining room and a nice outdoor patio. But it's not the level of the steakhouse."

He said he'll keep the poker machines at Becker's Steakhouse.

"They still make money," he said. "But they're like 20 percent of what our other bars make."

And he doesn't quite understand it.

"If I was a degenerate gambler, I would much rather hang out at the steakhouse bar and play poker machines, with the level of food, level of alcohol that's presented there, with the decor, the piano bar. I'm not quite understanding why the high-level gamblers aren't flocking there.

"That's not to say we aren't trying. One day we will get them."