TWO CULTURES TWO CUISINES SIDE BY SIDE

of Red Rock Resorts, parent company of Station Casinos, sounded the death knell for locals’ beloved feeding frenzies.

“Buffets generate traffic, but they definitely were loss leaders,” Fertitta said at the time. “So, we’re going to narrow it down to basically the restaurants that were the most popular.”

He was addressing initial phases of reopening, but buffets never returned to any Station casino, and in some cases, such as Red Rock Resort, their spaces have been converted to full-service restaurants. (As for other locals buffets, the ones at South Point and JW Marriott/The Resort at Summerlin are back in operation.)

But Anthony Curtis, publisher of Las Vegas Advisor, which since 1983 has been closely following gaming-industry trends including dining, thinks the coronavirus was a convenient scapegoat.

“I think for the most part, the buffets were a tough thing for the casinos to stop,” Curtis says. “I think that COVID was exactly what the casinos wanted to get out of them.”

And he’s dubious that locals buffets were simply lures to draw gamblers into casinos — something he says has been discounted over the years by “people deep inside.”

“I’m the only one who disputes that buffets are loss leaders,” he says; it’s just that “they don’t make the money they want them to make.”

Curtis has watched as a number of buffets were converted to spaces for individual, compact, quick-service restaurants. “The food court is the new buffet,” he says. “Oh, excuse me, food hall.”

Some of these conversions have occurred in the tourism corridor. David Strow, Boyd Gaming’s vice president of corporate communications, says the old buffet at the company’s Fremont Street location was converted to casino space, with a food hall opening in December in newly constructed space behind that. The restaurants there, he says, include national chains such as Steak ’n Shake and Dunkin’, and local restaurants including Craft Kitchen and Tomo Noodles.

“They’re restaurants where you can eat quickly, but they’re going to be high-quality dining experiences,” says Strow, adding the company identified that as a need Downtown. So far, the company is “extremely pleased with the buzz we’ve gotten and the results” through increased traffic, he says.

In late December, Proper Eats food hall opened in the former buffet space at MGM Resort’s International’s Aria on the Strip — a place Erdem says had not long before been updated to the tune of several million dollars.

Jason McLeod, culinary director of Proper Eats, which is operated by Clique Hospitality, says diversity was foremost when the space’s restaurants were selected.

“If there was a group of six or eight people — families or bachelor or bachelorette parties — how did we eliminate the ‘no’ vote?” he says. “That was the biggest thing we talked about in the very early stages. Overall, all of the stalls fell into place where we thought they would.”

Like Boyd’s Strow, McLeod says the response so far has been strong.

“We predicted that Temaki (Bar), Egghead, and Lola’s Burgers would be our top three,” he says. “But Laughing Buddha has really taken off.” Other options include

Wexler’s Deli, Shalom Y’all, and Pizzaoki. While Aria has been an exception to the bigger resorts maintaining and improving their buffets, Erdem notes, MGM also owns the next-door Cosmopolitan, whose Wicked Spoon is renowned.

McLeod says he’s spoken to some longtime Aria guests who were excited by “the freshness of the food hall.”

Curtis, though, says lots of Las Vegas Advisor readers have expressed dismay at the shift. “‘Very disappointed’; we get that all the time,” he says. “‘When are the buffets going to come back?’”

He says to stay tuned. “The term we’re all so sick of hearing is ‘pent-up demand,’” he says, but it’s a valid point. Because of the COVID closure and stimulus money, people have been flocking back to town — no matter what. “It’s not sustainable,” he adds. “We’re getting to the end of that. We’ll see what happens. These halcyon days, I think, are coming to an end.”

And maybe further changes are on the horizon. “Absolutely, they’ll adapt,” Curtis says, referring to casino companies. “If there’s some bottom-line pressure, then of course they will. That’s my advice to these customers: If you want to see things going back to the way they were, vote with your feet and don’t patronize what’s in its place.” ✦

The TikTok video zooms in on Keith Lee’s face as he begins his review of a burger and fries from the Southern Taste Seafood truck near Flamingo Road and Bruce Street. Lee had come across the patron-less place while riding his bike the night before, in mid-January. “I’d never seen this food truck before — the foodie in me got interested immediately,” he says.

The former MMA fighter wears a deadpan expression as he relays the story of his encounter with Gary Shanks, Southern Taste’s owner, backing up critical parts with snippets of phone video. Lee had started to decline to order from the food truck because of a shellfish allergy, but Shanks asked him to come back the next day, when he’d make something with new utensils and oil.

At this point, Shanks has no idea that Lee is a food reviewer with more than 11 million followers. As commenter @ebethisme says, “He has no clue what wave is about to hit his food truck.”

So, Lee returns the following day at noon. “Again, empty,” he says in the video. Shanks keeps his word and makes Lee a shellfish-free burger to go, which Lee ranks at 8.9 out of 10. Southern Seafood has since seen a 900 percent increase in sales.

During the video, Lee also tells how he paid Shanks $450 for the meal using fan gift donations he’d received during a previous livestream of a charity food distribution event. He plays the food truck owner’s stunned reaction to the huge payment and ends the video with, “This is why I love doing what I do.” The day after the video is posted, viewers donated $30,000 more to Shanks.

Lee started his channel in 2020, posting meals cooked for his family and reviewing takeout. Then in 2021, after losing two fights in a row, he was released from his six-figure contract fighting with Bellator MMA. Full-time content creation became the way Lee provided for his family. His appeal is understandable, and his viewers’ trust is palpable. He doesn’t seem to have anything to shill. He pays for his food and gets it to go. It’s hard to suspect grift from a man seated in his preschooler’s PAW Patrol chair.

This year, Lee has appeared on “Good Morning America,” “Inside Edition,” and the popular YouTube series “People vs Food.” This past February, during TikTok’s inaugural Visionary Voices, Lee was honored as an “industry disruptor.” (He didn’t respond to Desert Companion’s interview requests.) What does it mean to disrupt a sector that’s