The video is jarring. Jon Basso watches it intently in his closet-sized office behind the working end of his restaurant, downtown’s Heart Attack Grill. In it, he talks to a Bloomberg reporter about his eatery.
A new eatery on Las Vegas Boulevard downtown will open Friday, but those close to the operation got a firsthand taste of the place Wednesday after a ribbon cutting by Mayor Carolyn Goodman.
Sometimes, it’s only the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Put another way, the biggest big mouth gets attention. That’s not a criticism. It’s rare praise in a society where most people confine their complaints or passions to the quietude of social media, which grants the barrier of distance and the safety of communicating with like-minded “friends.” Josh Ellis and Angie Morelli are two downtown exceptions to that rule.
It used to be that a restaurant opening downtown was big news. The area was seen as a wasteland for so long that the debut of any new businesses or venture was seen as almost miraculous. Not anymore.
Joining people in 52 countries and hundreds of cities worldwide, residents concerned about genetically modified foods will hold a protest march Saturday morning in downtown Las Vegas.
n the past few months, police have tried several tactics — some that made people feel Fremont Street was turning into a "police state" — to curb underage drinking. And while sources had said in June that a fence would not be part of First Friday celebrations, a fence will be erected at the Fremont Street Experience and barricades will return to East Fremont Street tonight, allowing security to check identification.
As someone who had read scripts with the goal of finding good ones for Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company, Franklin Leonard hadn’t found a good script in so long, he began to doubt his own script filter.
The Las Vegas City Council’s vote Wednesday to enact a stricter curfew for teens downtown is fairly easy to understand on its own. Simply put, nobody under 18 is allowed in a specific area of downtown from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. without a parent or guardian.
Nearly 500 jobs, 440 new parking spaces, a job fair, a new nachos joint and Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning — all were on the menu of the monthly rapid-fire roundup of Downtown Project plans, activities and businesses Monday night.
Life is beautiful when you have a paying job, and that’s what organizers of a two-day event with that same name — Life is Beautiful — want to give to an estimated 150 bartenders.
In February, Nicole Phillips moved from her apartment on the outskirts of the city to downtown Las Vegas in February for one reason: She wanted to be part of what’s happening down here. On Saturday morning, she proved it with a brush and some white paint.
The general rule when drinking downtown (or anywhere) is don’t be a sloppy, loud-mouthed drunk. But beyond that, there remains much confusion as to where you can walk on Fremont Street with an alcoholic beverage in your hand.
A large downtown mural by famed San Francisco muralist Zio Ziegler, painted over 19 hours in June for the Life is Beautiful festival, has disappeared. The Downtown Project, which is a Life is Beautiful partner, tore down the building the mural was painted on at the festival’s request.
It’s been said Nevada is an insular place where individuality is prized, where people do little for their own and even less for outsiders. You’d have a hard time convincing Josh Ellis of that today. With about 16 hours left to a 30-day deadline to raise $10,000 via indiegogo.com, 180 contributors did it.
Downtown’s Fremont East District is where much of the economy activity is happening in Las Vegas right now, and two people at the center of it are Kent Johns and Chris Curtis.
For the past few years, Shuffle Zone at First Friday has served as a haven for breakdancers, “pop and lock-ers,” DJs and anyone who just wants to dance for a few hours on a Friday night. Starting Oct. 4, it will also be home to something of a “Star Search” for young singers, dancers, beat-boxers and other talented young people.
If you want a Pinches taco, you might have to call it something else. Depending on your source, “pinches” can be translated as "persistent" or as a curse word. A fight is brewing over the name of the restaurant that's slated to become part of the downtown Container Park.
Music, art, food and now the Life Is Beautiful festival is adding another component to its two-day lineup: learning. Fest organizers released a list of speakers from organizations as diverse as the UFC to a futurist from semiconductor chip maker Intel.
Fremont Street joined the international community today with a handful of parking spots being turned into daylong parks as part of the second annual worldwide Park(ing) Day.
It takes corners so tightly and quickly, it looks magnetized to the road. It drives as quiet as a whisper. And it gets 60 miles per charge. It's the Twizy, and it could soon be a regular site on Las Vegas streets.
Everyone has heard of Tony Hsieh, chances are you’ve never heard of Leah Ballard. On today’s broadcast of the “Joe Downtown Show,” I talk to both about their views of Las Vegas.
Walking the few blocks of Fremont Street between 6th and 9th streets can be scary, downtown Las Vegans say. It's a virtual no-man’s land, drastically different from the bustle of the bars and restaurants just a few blocks away.
A downtown lounge that found success by going with a concept few had considered is now partnering with The Center to help the agency’s efforts on behalf of the LGBTQ community downtown.
Beers, new fall drinks and a temporary speakeasy top this week’s Downtown Drinking News. Take a look at what's going on at the Velveteen Rabbit, Atomic lounge and Downtown Brew Festival. For one event, you'll even need a password.
Naked City in downtown Las Vegas, an area roughly west/northwest of the Stratosphere, is one of those zones you have to make an effort to visit. And it’s a place that, once there, you might wish the effort had never been made.
Residents and business owners will get credentials and vehicle tags so they can get into and out of the perimeter of the Life is Beautiful festival this October.
Hydrant Club will focus on canine safety — and will be marked by a gigantic fire hydrant
Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2013
The appropriately named Hydrant Club, a membership-based “canine clubhouse,” is a few weeks from breaking ground downtown. When opened, the facility won’t be easy to miss, thanks to a nearly 14-foot-tall fire hydrant on the corner.
"Martial law." "A police state." That's how downtown regulars described the police presence Friday night on East Fremont Street. Metro Police blocked off traffic to the bar-filled block and made people walking outside dump their drinks.
Almost 1,600 people, the majority of them Zappos employees, streamed into their new headquarters in downtown Las Vegas today, many of them seeing the rehabbed former City Hall for the first time.
Zappos employees will take six weeks to completely move into the company’s new downtown headquarters, the former City Hall the company has spent millions of dollars renovating. Some 200 employees who already worked downtown, in a building at 3rd Street and Bridger Avenue, moved in over the weekend, said Zach Ware of Zappos. The remaining 1,300 or so will fill the building over the next six weeks.
A state official said downtown Las Vegas’ Krave Massive nightclub, which vowed a year ago to become the largest gay nightclub in the country, was closed a week ago because it did not possess a sales tax permit.
Greg Baine’s road to Las Vegas is one of those less traveled — the Los Angeles writer’s strike killed a lot of acting jobs in L.A. To make money, he took a job at the Beverly Hills hotel, where he met one of Tony Hsieh’s friends, and that led to him being the first hire about two years ago by Hsieh’s Downtown Project. But when he took leave months ago to care for his ailing grandmother, Baine came to grips with the realization that the job was diverting him from his real passion, acting.
Josh Ellis, a coding maven and longtime Las Vegas resident who recently blasted downtown’s heap of app/website founders for creating stuff people don’t need, wants to see how they do it in Africa.
Details were not immediately available, but the City Council on Wednesday is set to consider an item to extend a temporary tavern license for a change of ownership from Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon to Krave Massive.
Downtown’s hip quotient — or some might refer to it as cultural growth — is almost to the point where people will stop being surprised by events such as the upcoming “Everything & Nothing,” a silent film festival/fundraiser.
Zappos’ new headquarters in old Las Vegas City Hall will open in a few weeks, welcoming 1,500 employees to a renovated building and introducing many of them to downtown. But few Zappos workers appear to be looking for homes downtown.
Businesspeople welcome such a rule: 'Really nothing for kids to do down here anyway'
Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013
With another Friday night of drunken revelry coming soon to east Fremont Street, Mayor Carolyn Goodman is introducing a new law creating a curfew downtown on weekends that might aid Metro Police efforts to control an area growing in popularity by the week.
For months, the Gold Spike has served as the unofficial headquarters of the Downtown Project. But in just a few weeks, Zappos employees will move into the rehabbed City Hall, and more than 100 Downtown Project employees will move into their former office space on Carson Avenue space in November.
Closed since July 1, the Bunkhouse Saloon will reopen in November, not in 60 days as originally planned. Downtown Project sources, however, say that when it reopens, the longtime live music venue/dive bar will have retained much of the vibe that locals grew accustomed to over the years.
One of the truisms about redevelopment is that urban zones forgotten and left for dead only turn around when perceptions do. For decades, east Fremont Street was no-man’s land to most residents. But redevelopment has changed perceptions of the area.
The courthouse that saw the likes of defendants Sandra Murphy and Rick Tabish in the “trial of the century” surrounding the death of Lonnie “Ted” Binion may be heading to auction.
An off-duty Metro Police officer only shot a California man Sunday night after the man refused several orders to get out of the officer's family vehicle at the Excalibur, Undersheriff Jim Dixon said in giving a moment-by-moment account of what led to the unusual shooting.
Getting your idea on television isn’t as easy as those reality and funny-video shows make it seem. So there’s no guarantee Sara Gabriella will get her weekly show on the tube.
On what is normally a sleepy night, thousands of people from around the world will descend upon Fremont East on Sunday for the Zappos annual vendor appreciation party.
Eager to strip and resell the recyclable copper from the innards of industrial-sized air conditioning units, burglars have stolen 18 or so units from various offices downtown over the last few weeks.