Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Rainbow Bar & Grill
5
(4480 Paradise Rd.;
%
702/898
-
3525; www.rainbow
barandgrilllv.com; 24 hr.)
brings a piece of hipster L.A. to Vegas. This place has been
a Sunset Strip legend for more than 3 decades, attracting celebrities to relax in its
comforting environs. Known for it's hot-yet-friendly staff, the Las Vegas version is
conveniently located across from the übercool Hard Rock Hotel, luring the hipper-
than-thou demographic in to drink their appletinis. The food here is also good, and
varied, for a bar (see p. 105 for a review).
Circle Bar
(in the Hard Rock Hotel, 4455 Paradise Rd.;
%
800/HRD-ROCK or
702/693
-
5000; www.hardrockhotel.com; 24 hr.)
is remarkably popular, consider-
ing it's an incredibly milquetoast bar in the middle of a casino floor (it's shaped
like a circle, hence the name, and looks down on the surrounding table game
action). If you're able to get the bartender's attention, you may want to stock up
on drinks because you never know when you'll flag him or her down again. The
Hard Rock has always carried a certain cache as a place to see and be seen, which
spills over to this otherwise uninteresting bar at the center of the casino's activity.
LOCAL BARS
The best bars in Vegas are the ones that aren't connected to chains or replicas of
cool from other cities. They're the homegrown places built by locals with locals in
mind. These are the places where you'll get a true taste of what people who live in
this offbeat, tourism-driven town are like.
Dark, dingy and dive-ish,
The Double Down
555
(4640 Paradise Rd.;
%
702/
791
-
5775; www.doubledownsaloon.com; 24 hr.; cash only)
is a Las Vegas institution.
Recently named one of the nation's top bars by
Esquire
magazine, it's splayed with
trippy murals painted by local artists, and filled with a crowd that has no interest in
eating or drinking anyplace where there's a theme or a uniform—that is, away from
the fanny packs and tourists. Touting itself as “The Happiest Place on Earth,” an
antiestablishment aura competes with cigarette smoke to fill this home-away-from-
home to many locals. There's pinball and pool in this drunken Shangri-La, where
tattoos mingle with suits, piercing is rarely used as an adjective, and “ass juice” (it's
a secret recipe) and bacon martinis (complete with their own oil slick as garnish) are
signature drinks. There's never a cover charge here, and they bring in local and
imported bands (surf, punk, rockabilly, and more) and sell “Puke Insurance” for
$20: If you buy it and you puke, they'll clean it up. Otherwise, as one of their signs
says, “You puke you clean.”
The
Freakin' Frog
55
(4700 Maryland Pkwy., #8;
%
702/597
-
9702; www.
freakinfrog.com; daily 11am to “until the freakin' fun is done”)
is the beer lover's
Tower of Babel. It takes a dossier of a menu to outline the more than 500 kinds
of beer and 300 kinds of wine. Situated across from the University of Nevada-Las
Vegas, The Freakin' Frog is owned by Adam Carmer, who's a professor at the
College of Food and Beverage, where he actually teaches classes on beer and wine.
The crowd here is a smart mix of students, professors, and beer snobs, and they
serve up some mean corn dogs and fried macaroni and cheese (that is, “Crack N
Cheese”). The atmosphere is brighter than most bars and fairly plain, save for a
piano that musicians have been known to play in exchange for their bar tab. This
is more of a place to meet and have an intellectual discussion about Lithuanian
