Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
4
Eating Better
for Less
A new Vegas emphasis on meals as a profit cen-
ter calls for smart tactics on your part
T
IME WAS WHEN THE CASINOS DELIBERATELY CHARGED VERY LITTLE FOR
their meals as a method of luring you to their gaming tables.
Time was when the casinos even gave free restaurant meals to the casual, small-
bet gambler.
For the most part, those days are over. See that couple at the table next to you?
If you're paying full price for your own meal and you're at a casino restaurant, you
may well be buying them dinner. That's the way it works nowadays in Sin City,
as anyone who's experienced the rising costs of food here knows. The big fish,
those $25-dollar-a-hand-and-more gamblers, are still being feted and petted and
plied with free filet mignon and scotch. But that largesse is no longer being
extended to penny-slot players, beyond an occasional trip to the buffet; instead,
the Strip casinos are focusing on the pay-off that comes from high restaurant bills.
Last year, Harrah's and MGM MIRAGE and all of the other big Strip casino
chains raked in 12%
more
on food and lodging than they did on gambling. So
while the freebies aren't gone, casinos are paying for them in a different way—
they're passing that tab on to you.
This shift in focus from gaming revenue to restaurants and on-site money-
makers is just gearing up. In the summer of 2006, Wynn Las Vegas announced
that it would be creating a new type of “loyalty club,” one that gives points not
for gambling, but for cash spent at its spas, restaurants, and shops. It hasn't yet
happened, but just the idea of it is one whopping paradigm shift. It's as if the
entire town woke up in the mid-'90s to the realization that food didn't have to
be given away; that people would pay big sums just to fill their bellies . . . if the
casinos and restaurateurs could make that prospect enticing enough.
So they started to import. Wolfgang Puck was the first to be lured to Vegas,
but he turned out just to be the start of the parade. Today there's a death match
for billboard space, with Puck being challenged by the likes of such celeb chefs as
Daniel Boulud, Bobby Flay, and Bradley Ogden. And while you'll get very differ-
ent cuisine at each restaurant, they each have the same signature at the end of the
meal: a bill that could take a hefty chunk out of your monthly mortgage payment.
Eat at Joel Robuchon at the Mansion in the MGM Grand and a tasting menu
could run you $350 per person! That's before the tip.
