Restaurants once were loss leaders at Las Vegas-area casinos catering to locals, but now are profit-drivers.
Station Casinos, Boyd Gaming, and other casino operators with properties targeting Las Vegas-area locals say a combination of quality food and a good value is drawing more people into their casinos.
Many of those diners also choose to gamble before or after eating, making traditionally slow casino days more lively and profitable, and many also stick around to take in local entertainment.
Boyd Gaming Vice President David Strow says restaurants often are the first way that younger visitors experience a casino environment, and as young adults, the only way to get many to come at all.
With food and beverage drawing more people into casinos, Strow says Boyd Gaming is opening five new restaurants in its popular off-strip Orleans casino on West Tropicana.
Instead of large chain restaurants, the new ones will be smaller, more intimate, and provide more unique dining options. Strow says that gives younger adults a reason to visit the casino. It also prevents them from competing directly with the existing larger chain restaurants already serving casino clients.
Better still, Boyd Gaming is leasing out the space rather than owning the restaurants, ensuring a revenue stream for as long as the restaurant spaces are occupied.
Stations casinos, likewise, is moving away from large chain restaurants and going back to its former Grand Cafes-style dining.
Station Casinos replaced the Grand Cafes with nationally known chain restaurants in 2009, but locals did not respond well, and those restaurants mostly did not last.
Now, Station Casinos is trying to balance the appetites and budgets of repeat locals diners with the various themes of particular casino properties. That gives locals and tourists alike a good reason to visit multiple properties to experience a variety of dining options, while enabling Stations Casinos to better position each property to different patrons.
Red Rock is a more upscale property in Summerlin, and Stations Casinos Vice President Lori Nelson says what works their likely won’t go over well at a property like Boulder Station, where more visitors are more concerned with value rather than dining experience.
Many properties along the locals-friendly Fremont Street Experience also are revamping their restaurants to attract more locals and repeat visitors, while also giving younger adults a reason to step inside for the first time.
