3 years ago
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A beloved spot is little astir the gathering radical participate than it is astir the memories they transportation with them erstwhile they leave.
El Cortez proprietor Kenny Epstein knows that his hotel-casino means thing to people. Las Vegas’ oldest continually operating hotel-casino has seen 8 decades worthy of memories, guests and players walk done its doors.
“They spot what we’ve done with it, and they admit it due to the fact that we’re doing it for them,” helium said. “If we don’t bash it for our customers, they’re gonna spell someplace else.”
On Sunday, the hotel-casino turns 80 years old, 29,220 days aft it archetypal opened its doors Nov. 7, 1941. It volition punctuate its day play with a fireworks show, a mariachi band, currency drawings and barroom and champagne connected Saturday night.
As the lone still-operating hotel-casino connected the National Register of Historic Places, El Cortez exhales history.
This is the spot wherever mobsters Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Moe Sedway, Gus Greenbaum and Meyer Lansky ushered successful mafia regularisation successful Las Vegas casinos; wherever downtown casino mogul Jackie Gaughan lived and worked; wherever radical travel to play immoderate of the lone remaining coin slots successful town.
What erstwhile was a heavy local, retirement-age clientele contiguous comprises astir arsenic galore tourists arsenic locals and an influx of young people, said El Cortez proprietor Kenny Epstein, who successful July besides turned 80. All of the hotel’s visitors who see El Cortez special, helium said, bash truthful due to the fact that of the memories they formed.
How does a spot past 80 years successful a metropolis celebrated for reinventing itself each decennary oregon so?
Continuity, according to Epstein’s daughter, El Cortez Executive Manager Alex Epstein.
Continuity of ownership, continuity of employees and continuity of customers.
“(Our) customers, they’ve been coming for generations — grandparents bringing their kids, bringing their grandkids,” the 36-year-old said. “You present person kids who are my property and younger who are coming due to the fact that their parents person talked and grandparents person talked astir it for years.”
‘Nobody similar Jackie’
The hotel-casino has had 3 ownership groups successful 79 retired of its 80 years, the objection being the mob buying El Cortez from archetypal owners John Kell “JK” Houssels and partners successful 1945 and past selling it backmost to him successful 1946.
Houssels remodeled the spot successful 1950, concisely experimented with a pirate taxable and sold El Cortez successful 1963 to the antheral who would go its longest-tenured owner, Jackie Gaughan. Gaughan lived and worked successful the edifice until helium died successful 2014.
Gaughan sold the spot to his person and partner, Kenny Epstein, successful 2008, and the Epstein household continues to ain the hotel-casino, which features a Spanish Colonial Revival architectural style.
Maintaining personable, recognizable ownership from Gaughan to Kenny Epstein has helped El Cortez support an old-school authenticity that is hard to replicate, said David Schwartz, UNLV ombudsman and gaming historian.
“I deliberation there’s a batch to beryllium said for radical who travel successful and marque changes and bash caller things, and that’s great. But it’s besides bully that you person a spot that portion they’re doing caller things — and it’s precise overmuch a 21st-century casino — it inactive has that feel,” Schwartz said.
Gaughan oversaw the 2nd edifice tower’s operation successful 1980 and astatine 1 constituent owned betwixt 25 percent and 33 percent of the onshore successful downtown Las Vegas. He carried a estimation arsenic a hands-on, disposable proprietor who’d mingle with guests and locomotion astir picking up bare brew bottles.
“There was cipher similar Jackie, and determination ne'er volition beryllium anybody similar Jackie,” Kenny Epstein said.
Much of the spot maintains the look it’s had for decades with its Spanish ranch-inspired facade, debased ceilings and neon sign. El Cortez inactive has 100 coin-operated slots and vintage array games. “They’re the nonstop aforesaid ones your grandparents played,” wide manager Adam Wiesberg said.
Siegel and institution sold El Cortez to assistance concern the Flamingo, which opened successful 1946. But Flamingo Las Vegas of contiguous looks thing similar it did adjacent 40 years ago, fto unsocial 75. It’s not the benignant of spot wherever idiosyncratic could locomotion the halls and consciousness similar they’re lasting wherever Siegel erstwhile did, dissimilar El Cortez, Schwartz said.
“Not precisely ‘George Washington slept here,’ but successful Vegas that mightiness beryllium arsenic adjacent arsenic you get,” Schwartz said.
Other casinos whitethorn get a caller exterior, colour strategy oregon a monolithic overhaul to debar looking stale. Not El Cortez, notes Mark Hall-Patton, the precocious retired Clark County Museum administrator.
“You look astatine a representation of it from 1952 oregon thing similar that, it’s like, yeah, that’s the El Cortez,” helium said. “That’s truly benignant of amazing.”
Family legacies
The mean El Cortez worker has worked determination astir 10 years, but galore person been connected unit overmuch longer — including 1 for 51 years and counting.
Slot level manager Rick Ronca has spent 33 years years astatine the company. On Wednesday, helium recalled gathering Jackie Gaughan successful 1988, “right retired successful beforehand of the cage implicit there,” helium said, gesturing astir the country from the property’s caller high-limit room.
“He said, ‘You look similar you’ll bash a bully occupation for me. Go implicit determination and archer this feline you’re a caller slot level idiosyncratic here,’ and that’s benignant of however I got hired,” Ronca said.
He said helium encouraged his brag to prosecute the pistillate whom he’d aboriginal wed and person 2 children. She inactive works determination arsenic a slot level person.
“Everything successful my beingness I tin convey this spot for, and it’s beauteous cool,” Ronca said.
Barbershop bond
Andres Dominguez, 29, has been the barber astatine a tiny store tucked distant successful the 2nd level of El Cortez for conscionable nether 3 years, but he’s connected his 2nd stint “working” there.
His grandfather, Julian Madrid, would chopped Dominguez’s hairsbreadth arsenic a lad and past wage him $2 to expanse the floors. He’d past drawback a solid vessel of Yoo-hoo from an aged refrigerator and bent retired with his grandpa until his ma was capable to travel prime him up.
Dominguez spent galore nights aft schoolhouse astatine his grandfather’s barbershop, successful concern for 31 years until it was sold to a caller proprietor successful 2005.
Dominguez tried assemblage and moving a fewer jobs aft graduating precocious school, but his bosom wasn’t successful it. He enrolled successful barber assemblage and began crafting a five-year program to unfastened his ain shop. Two years into that plan, an uncle caught upwind that the erstwhile household barbershop was up for merchantability and faced closure. Dominguez went down to the store to effort grabbing a telephone fig to telephone and inquire. No telephone fig was listed.
He called information and began a agelong bid of referrals and supervisor ladder-climbing. A question of consciousness washed implicit Dominguez arsenic helium was led up the reddish spiral staircase starring to the enforcement offices; He was dressed to spell prime up a telephone fig oregon email, not for a occupation interview.
Eventually, Dominguez — wearing Air Jordans, a achromatic T-shirt, denim jeans and a Golden Knights chapeau (he removed it to amusement respect) — sat down astatine a league array with Epstein successful 2018. The casino proprietor personally knew Madrid, arsenic did galore of the supervisors and executives Dominguez spoke with that time successful November 2018.
A mates of weeks later, El Cortez offered him the barbershop.
Dominguez tore retired the pinkish carpeting successful the waiting country and the linoleum floors helium utilized to expanse aft schoolhouse arsenic a child. He affixed a black-and-white vintage photograph of the property’s exterior to the north-facing wall, hung Edison lightbulbs, replaced the mirrors and refreshed the branding to Speakeasy Barbershop. It opened Jan. 8, 2019.
A fewer throwbacks remain. There’s the elemental “Barbershop” nameplate from his grandfather’s shop, which helium thinks was antecedently mounted successful the hallway but present hangs connected a partition wrong the studio. There’s the aged currency registry his gramps utilized to use, present sitting connected a array successful a broadside room.
Dominguez framed a $20 measure from Speakeasy’s archetypal haircut. The lawsuit was a antheral named Bruce, who told Dominguez helium was a regular astatine the archetypal barbershop.
The two-chair barbershop contiguous hardly resembles the spot successful which helium grew up. But Dominguez knows his store is special. Its determination tucked into the archetypal hotel, connected Fremont Street, the aforesaid spot wherever his gramps opened and operated his ain concern for 3 decades. Dominguez tin physique upon his family’s bequest astatine the shop, wherever men tin footwear their feet up, get a haircut and get a straight-blade shave with a blistery towel, helium says.
“Now, I’m the 1 down the chair,” Dominguez said.
Old schoolhouse place, caller schoolhouse thinking
According to Kenny Epstein, there’s conscionable 1 bully happening astir about the proverbial “good aged days” of Las Vegas, and that was truly knowing the customer.
Today, Las Vegas casinos are decently regulated and resorts connection world-class amusement and restaurants, helium said. He added that section gambling is present “legitimate,” thing it wasn’t portion nether mafia control.
Knowing the lawsuit good has paid disconnected for the El Cortez, which has been capable to broaden its appeal.
El Cortez’ lawsuit basal was erstwhile astir 80 percent locals and 80 percent 55 years oregon older, Kenny Epstein said. Today, the hotel-casino draws a astir 50-50 divided betwixt locals and tourists and a important influx of young people, helium said.
Kenny Epstein isn’t definite wherefore young radical similar the place, but “I’m gladsome they similar it.”
“People person a nostalgia for aged Las Vegas, adjacent if they didn’t unrecorded it,” Alex Epstein added.
El Cortez precocious completed a $25 cardinal renovation task that included caller carpeting, a caller talker system, a high-limit country and a revamped edifice lobby.
It’s a balancing enactment to marque the spot entreaty to arsenic galore radical arsenic imaginable portion preserving its history, Wiesberg said.
“We person to beryllium precise hands connected to marque it work, and you person to pass with customers (and) person to cognize what they want,” helium said.
On a late-October weekday, 24-year-old Sean Frazier played a slot instrumentality on the casino’s westbound wall. A reddish concoction rested connected the machine, adjacent to his near hand.
The North Las Vegas nonmigratory said helium comes down to the casino reasonably often. He and a person often halt by connected days they enactment retired together, which is astir each day. Frazier said he’ll gamble anyplace but helium likes El Cortez’s proximity to his friend’s spot and its atmosphere.
“It’s an absorbing premix of everything you want. Everything you didn’t cognize you wanted,” Frazier said.
Mary Anne and Markland Davis were connected their 2nd El Cortez enactment of the year. The Baltimore mates got a suite astatine the hotel-casino successful May to observe their 40th anniversary. A pre-pandemic Vegas travel inspired their May stay, erstwhile they saw a commercialized for El Cortez portion staying astatine Bellagio.
The advertisement boasted of looser slots astatine El Cortez than astatine properties connected the Strip, and the mates ventured downtown to cheque it out. They returned to their edifice country much than $200 up for the day, Markland Davis said.
In October, the mates got different suite astatine El Cortez and a $300 nutrient voucher, Mary Anne Davis said. She praised the spot for its affable staff, cleanliness and music.
“It’s Elvis and Frank Sinatra and each that emblematic Vegas stuff,” she said.
Contact Mike Shoro astatine mshoro@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mike_shoro connected Twitter.
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