Desert Companion - August 2023

MAKE ROOM FOR ALL OF YOU

TONY

PERSONAL BEST

In our ongoing quest to take everything apart and figure out how it works, your new(ish) DC leadership and contributors gave Best of the City a long, hard look. A wonderful thing about the way we’ve always done this feature is the authoritative curation by the city’s top writers, true connoisseurs in their fields. One thing that we felt was missing? An even distribution of options around the city. When we asked ourselves how we would actually use this thing, we agreed that it would most often be to visit the gems in our own neighborhoods — with the occasional adventure outside our zip code.

Thus was born this year’s concept: a hyperlocal Best of the City, organized into a loosely defined set of 10 neighborhoods. You’ll still find expertly curated picks (rather than easy-to-rig voted “winners”) in the familiar categories of arts and culture, family and recreation, food and drink, and shops and services. But this year, we formalized the intention of covering the whole city. And since this is for you, consider it the start of the conversation, not the final word. Did we miss something you love in your area? Tell us about it on social media or by sending an email to editor@desertcompanion.com.

While we’re on the subject of neighborhood gems, our writers also came through with a variety of complementary stories, from Eric Duran-Valle’s clever guide to neighborhood casinos (p. 22), to Heidi Knapp Rinella’s assessment of Henderson’s new, improving Water Street (p. 20) and Lourdes Trimidal’s boba tea culture primer — including her picks for best shops (p. 34).

And speaking of bests, the Top Doctors supplement accompanying this issue, feedback about our last healthcare-focused issue, and a timely tip all coincided to inspire a solid piece of enterprise journalism, “Counting Backward,” to kick off All Things (p. 11). While Assistant Editor Anne Davis was reporting on Southern Nevada’s seeming shortage of anesthesiologists, the Washington Post published its own investigative report on a similar situation in Colorado. You know you’re on the right track when you’re chasing the same leads as the country’s 65-time Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper of record. (Jeff, hmu if you want to invest in Desert Companion!)

All my best, Heidi

CONTRIBUTORS

Journalist and essayist

Sarah Rose Cadorette has won awards from Sonora Review, The Southampton Review, and Blood Orange Review, among other publications. She currently lives in Oakland, where she is working on a book of essays about obsessions and possessions.

DW McKinney is a writer and editor based in Nevada. A 2023 Periplus Fellow, her work has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Ecotone, The Normal School, and TriQuarterly, among others. She is also a comics reviewer for Publishers Weekly, and a nonfiction editor for Shenandoah

Award-winning journalist

Heidi Knapp Rinella retired after 45 years editing and writing for newspapers in Ohio, Florida, and Nevada, spending the last 22 years as a food and restaurant writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The Henderson-based mother of two is also the author of seven books.

Editor’s Note

PRESIDENT & CEO Mark Vogelzang

COO Favian Perez

EDITOR Heidi Kyser

ART DIRECTOR Scott Lien

ASSISTANT EDITOR Anne Davis

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Ryan Vellinga

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Allison Hall, Markus Van’t Hul, Britt Quintana

REVENUE SYSTEMS SPECIALIST  Marlies Vaitiekus

WEB COORDINATOR Stanley Kan

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Nicholas Barnette, Jennifer Battisti, Josh Bell, Isabelle Bellinghausen, Meg Bernhard, Paul Boger, Richard Boland, Sarah Bun, Sarah Rose Cadorette, Shirley Cohen-Matthew, Kristen DeSilva, Scott Dickensheets, Eric Duran-Valle, Jason Harris, Brent Holmes, Briana Joseph, DW McKinney, Lorraine Blanco Moss, Reannon Muth, Mike Prevatt, Heidi Knapp Rinella, Gabriela Rodriguez, Lissa Townsend Rodgers, Paul Szydelko, Lourdes Trimidal, Mike Weatherford, T.R. Witcher

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Gregg Carnes, Brent Holdmes, Olga Minkevich, Jeff Scheid

CONTACT

EDITORIAL: Heidi Kyser (702) 259-7855

heidi@desertcompanion.com

ART: Scott Lien (702) 258-9895

scott@desertcompanion.com

ADVERTISING: Favian Perez (702) 259-7813 favian@desertcompanion.com

SUBSCRIPTIONS: Marlies Vaitiekus (702) 259-7822 marlies@desertcompanion.com

WEBSITE: www.desertcompanion.com

Desert Companion is published bimonthly by Nevada Public Radio, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89146. It is available by subscription at desertcompanion.vegas, or as part of Nevada Public Radio membership. It is also distributed free at select locations in the Las Vegas Valley. All photos,

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS OFFICERS

DON HAMRICK CHAIR

Chapman Automotive Group

RICHARD I. DREITZER, ESQ. VICECHAIR Fennemore

ROBERT C. GLASER

TREASURER

BNY Mellon Wealth Management

MARK VOGELZANG

SECRETARY

Nevada Public Radio

DIRECTORS

NEHME E. ABOUZEID

Madison Square Garden Entertainment

STEPHANIE CAPELLAS Carma/Connected

CYNTHIA A. DREIBELBIS

Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck

WILLIAM GROUNDS

Burraneer Capital Advisors

GAVIN ISAACS Consultant

FRED J. KEETON

Keeton Iconoclast Consulting, LLC

EDWIN C. KINGSLEY, MD

Comprehensive Cancer Centers

AMANDA MOORE-SAUNDERS Live Nation

DERIONNE POLLARD

Nevada State College

ERNEST STOVALL

Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino

DIRECTORS EMERITI

CYNTHIA ALEXANDER

Dickinson, Wright, PLLC

DAVE CABRAL

Business Finance Corp.

LOUIS CASTLE

Amazon Games Seattle

PATRICK N. CHAPIN, ESQ. Patrick N. Chapin, Ltd.

ELIZABETH FRETWELL

C4WARD Strategies

JOHN R. KLAI II

Klai Juba Wald Architects

CHRIS MURRAY

Avissa Corporation

JERRY NADAL

WILLIAM J. “BILL” NOONAN

KATHLEEN M. NYLEN Retired

ANTHONY J. PEARL

MARK RICCIARDI, ESQ. Fisher & Phillips, LLP

MICKEY ROEMER

Roemer Gaming

TIM WONG Arcata Associates

LAMAR MARCHESE PRESIDENTEMERITUS

USELESS GRASS IS ILLEGAL

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ALL THINGS

Counting Backward

The local medical community says there’s an anesthesiologist shortage. What’s the solution?

BY Anne Davis

Imagine this: You need to get your deviated septum surgically corrected, so you have all your presurgery bloodwork done, arrange transportation for the day of the procedure, and make sure you have plenty of aftercare supplies. You might even have childcare or pet sitting squared away. Two nights before the surgery, your surgeon’s office calls, telling you the procedure has been cancelled and you’ll need to reschedule. The reason you’re given? There’s no anesthesiologist available. This isn’t a hypothetical — it’s occurring with increasing frequency, healthcare professionals say — and it’s frustrating them as much as their patients. “I got a call on Thursday that I had to cancel my cases that I was operating on Sunday,” says Steven Leibowitz, a UCLA professor with two private oculo-facial surgery practices in Las Vegas, “because, they say, ‘There’s no anesthesia.’”

It turns out “no anesthesia” is one symptom of a larger illness in Nevada’s healthcare industry. “Nevada, and by extension Las Vegas as its largest city, are really short in all physician specialties across the board,” says Marc Kahn, dean of UNLV’s Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine. “If you look at the number of physicians per capita, in every specialty and subspecialty, we’re below the 50th percentile … (including) anesthesia.”

For anesthesia in particular, experts offer varying opinions as to why the shortage is so pronounced. Some believe that a big part of the problem has to do with the increase of private equity firms opening anesthesia practices and imposing restrictive covenants (also known as noncompetes) on their physicians. “You’re hiring a new employee, and as part of the

IDEAS, CULTURE, FOOD, AND OTHER WAYS TO USE THIS CITY

agreement, if they choose to leave, there’s a period where they can’t be practicing in the same geographic area,” explains David Orentlicher, the director of UNLV’s Health Law Program. In a competitive field, such as anesthesiology, restrictive covenants give firms that use them an advantage.

The largest anesthesia provider in Vegas, US Anesthesia Partners (USAP) is one such private equity group, listing Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe; Berkshire Partners; and GIC on its website among its investors. Local anesthesiologist and USAP spokesperson Dean Polce says in a statement, “because USAP is physician-owned, physician-led and locally governed, USAP’s local practices establish their own noncompete agreements, based on applicable regulation or laws. In Nevada, USAP’s local physicians established a noncompete agreement that expires after two years.” He adds, “Noncompete agreements are commonplace in health care (and many other industries) and provide a benefit to patients and the local healthcare system by promoting stability and consistency of care.”

Leibowitz has his doubts about the benefits of noncompetes in the operating room. “A restrictive covenant for an anesthesiologist is absurd, because what intellectual property are they possibly taking?” he says. “And it’s not like you’ve built up their reputation or that they’re taking your patients. They’ve operated on the patients, and they’re done.”

Leibowitz says he’s witnessed anesthesiologists leaving the state altogether to practice elsewhere after realizing that the agreements they signed were not as lucrative as they expected — as many as two dozen quit one practice, he says, to avoid the legal headache of getting a less restrictive contract somewhere else local. USAP’s Polce disputes this: “There are many hospitals, surgery centers, and other sites of care in Nevada where USAP does not provide services, including many in the Las Vegas area,” he says. “This provides a former USAP physician

with numerous opportunities to continue practicing in a variety of local Nevada settings.”

Yet elsewhere, the cost to continue practicing has proven to be prohibitive. The Washington Post’s Peter Whoriskey reported in June that USAP’s locations in other states have seen similar physician turnover, with former employees in Denver saying they were forced to pay damages of more than $200,000 for breaking noncompete contracts so they could remain in the area.

Savera Sandhu, an attorney specializing in business and healthcare law, and who’s now with UNLV Health, confirms a similar experience with her own Vegas clients. “It gets to the point where it feels like litigation is going to happen, and because the courts are so backed up, I’ve been seeing more physicians leaving the state.”

Restrictive covenants themselves are nothing new, but Sandhu notes their recent impact on Nevada’s healthcare industry could be related to its growing professionalization. “You’re seeing a lot more formality in contractual relationships or employee-employer or -independent contractor relationships,” Sandhu says. “And so maybe that makes it more prevalent. Coming here 15 years ago, it wasn’t as formal of a system — a lot of things were done on a handshake, so there were a lot of spoken agreements. But now the jurisdiction is becoming more viable.”

Viability is a concern for noncompetes, which are legal in the state of Nevada, provided they align with the fundamental requirements laid out in NRS 613.195. This statute requires that noncompetes not overburden employees. If they do, Sandhu says, “courts are generally going to say, ‘No,’ and they’re going to carve out this noncompete to make it less limited or less restrictive.”

The shortage of active anesthesiologists also likely stems from the lack of advanced education programs in the Silver State. Nevada has no schools or programs for certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNA), which UMC CEO Mason Van Houweling believes are

critical to mitigating the shortage of anesthesiologists. The state’s sole anesthesiology residency training program is at Las Vegas’ MountainView Hospital, which accepts only eight applicants per year. “For medical students trying to get into residencies,” Van Houweling says, “46 percent of the applicants didn’t match. So, they wanted to go into anesthesia, but they could not find a matching slot throughout the country.”

For some, numbers like this are evidence that restrictive covenants aren’t the problem and scrapping them isn’t the solution to the anesthesiologist shortage. “(Eliminating noncompetes) doesn’t solve your shortage problem — they just change the distribution,” UNLV’s Kahn says. “They determine who gets a slice of the pie. But we need to make the whole pie bigger.”

One way to do this is by increasing residencies beyond eight positions. Kahn says that he and Dean Paul Hauptman at UNR’s School of Medicine petitioned the Nevada Legislature to pass SB350, which Governor Joe Lombardo signed into law on June 12 granting more state funding for residency programs. “There’s going to be about $8.5 million in that bill for residency expansion,” Kahn says.

UNLV has also been working with UMC to increase residency positions at the hospital, which has started UMC Anesthesia, a collection of UMC-employed anesthesiologists and CRNAs, in the hope of reducing the hospital’s need for outside anesthesia providers from firms such as USAP. “We were very, very dependent on them,” Van Houweling says, “so we’ve broken away from that dependency on the contractor providers and really built our own in-house services.”

Starting in October, UMC Anesthesia took three months to fully ramp up. With 45 anesthesiologists and CRNAs currently employed under the program, Van Houweling says, the hospital does not encourage its providers to sign restrictive covenants. “We don’t want to limit anybody’s ability to practice but also care for their families,” he says.

Progress is incremental, and physicians worry that, in the meantime, patients (especially those from already marginalized groups) will suffer.

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Whatever the cause of the state’s anesthesiologist shortage, the effects are tangible. “There’s no surgeon in Nevada who hasn’t had cases canceled or postponed because of the anesthesia crisis,” Leibowitz says. Testifying in favor of AB270, which authorizes licensure of certified anesthesiologist assistants (CAAs) to provide care in Nevada, during this year’s legislative session, CAA Stephanie Zunini told how her own mother, a labor and delivery nurse of 35 years, lost her Reno-based job in November “because the entire unit shut down — largely due to an anesthesia provider shortage.” The anesthesiology crisis has also impacted other members of Zunini’s family: “My brother-in-law, a Nevada anesthesiologist, often works 70- to 80-hour weeks, not by choice. My nieces and nephews call me and say, ‘Guess what, Aunty Stephie? Our dad’s actually going to be home tomorrow, can you believe it!’ Because being at work, serving the community all hours of the day and night has become the norm for him.” AB270 was signed into law by the Governor three days before SB350.

Yet progress is incremental, and physicians worry that, in the meantime, patients (especially those from already marginalized groups) will suffer. “Since there’s such a shortage of (anesthesia providers), they don’t want to do low-paying cases,” Leibowitz says. “Unfortunately, all government-sponsored cases like Medicare, Medicaid, the VA — all those pay anesthesiologists a lot less than they make from private insurance. They make about three times more doing a private case than doing a Medicare case. And in ophthalmology, a lot of our cases are Medicare.”

Kahn is similarly concerned. “I think that our disparities in care are going to get worse,” he says. “Time to get appointments is going to be extended, and we’re not going to be able to provide the level of care that this community needs and deserves.”

POLICY Dem Bones

State legislature tackles reproductive rights, gender affirming care, and other healthcare issues

BY Paul Boger

Nevada’s healthcare system has a lot of issues. There are too few doctors, for starters. The state also has the highest percentage of one-star acute-care hospitals of any state in the country. That’s the lowest rating the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services gives.

Reproductive Rights Amendment (SJR7) This resolution, passed along party lines, would add reproductive freedom to the Nevada Constitution and cover a wide range of treatments. Lawmakers must approve the measure again in 2025 before voters see it on the 2026 ballot.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

Rural Provider Loan Repayment (AB45)

Sponsored by the State Treasurer’s Office, this law creates a student loan repayment program giving healthcare providers up to $120,000 to work in rural communities for five years.

So, it should be no surprise that Nevada’s lawmakers spend much of their time in Carson City looking for ways to improve that system. Here’s a notable handful of the dozens of healthcare-related bills that made it to the governor’s desk and into law this year.

HEALTHCARE PROTECTIONS Required

Coverage

HEAR MORE of Paul’s reporting on the 2023 state legislative session here.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Abortion Protections Extended (SB131)

Sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, a Democrat from Clark County, the law guarantees protections for anyone who comes to Nevada seeking a legal abortion, regardless of where they live. Providers have reported seeing as much as a 200-percent increase in patients since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade

for

Gender-Affirming Care (SB163) Insurance companies now must pay for medically necessary gender-affirming care. The law also eliminates exclusions that allow insurers to reclassify some procedures as “cosmetic.” Though Democrats passed the law on a party-line vote, Republican Governor Joe Lombardo made headlines when he bucked national trends and signed the bill into law.

Bill of Rights for People with Disabilities (SB315)

The law requires that people with disabilities — including students and older adults — be treated with dignity and respect and have the right to bodily autonomy. Supporters say the statute is needed to ensure that all individuals have the right to make their own decisions about finance or where they should live. It also fast-tracks the development of home and community-based care plans.

Healthcare Stipends for Long-term Substitute Teachers (AB282) Nevada suffers from a teacher shortage that has forced districts to rely increasingly on long-term substitutes. This measure, which passed with bipartisan support, provides a $450 healthcare stipend for substitute teachers who work more than 30 days in a row.

MEDICAID

Raising Medicaid Rates

(SB435) Passed unanimously, this law allows privately run hospitals to levy a state-assessed “Provider Tax” of no more than six percent. Those tax collections are then earmarked for Medicaid payments and matched by the federal government, meaning more cash for doctors and behavioral health specialists who accept Medicaid.

Postpartum Care Extension (SB232)

Medicaid covers more than half of the children born in Nevada. Under the new law, the state’s Medicaid program will extend postpartum coverage beyond the 60 days required by the federal government to one year after giving birth, an essential step to improving the health of both mothers and children, proponents say.

Believing in Pink

A fit a day gives this doctor her sway

BY Anne Davis

Intermountain Health

Internist Audrey Cruz draws inspiration from the women in her family — her grandmother was a designer and seamstress — and her namesake Audrey Hepburn. She’s honed a personal look that’s so polished, Mattel based one of its Barbie Role Models on her, recognizing her work and advocacy during the pandemic. Yet, Cruz says, she only recently discovered self-expression through fashion. “As a student, I was basically limited to scrubs in a certain color,” Cruz says. “So, once I finished residency, I really started to explore more about what it is that I truly enjoyed,” which, as a young physician on the go, turned out to be equal parts classic, chic, and comfortable. Here’s more of Cruz’s style, in her own words.

EARRINGS (gift — $500 estimated from comparable items) from Macy’s These are really meaningful to me because my mom got them for me on my 25th birthday, when I first entered medical school. So, I wear them everywhere, and I feel like I’m carrying my mom’s self-care.

STETHOSCOPE ($200) by Littmann

In the past I’ve had like a black stethoscope and a blue one. When I finally finished my training, I was like You know what, I want something that’s a little bit more me and I feel like this really reflects my personality. And it helps my patients really know who I am.

BLAZER ($150) by Express

When you add a blazer to a dress, it really adds that professional touch to it. Also, it gives a feminine look to the whole outfit.

BRACELET AND NECKLACE (gifts — $900 estimated) by Valentino

Like the earrings, they have emotional significance.

… It’s a great motivator, since they’re (from) the people that help inspire and motivate me.

DRESS ($397) by Cinq à Sept It’s very versatile and can be worn in both a professional as well as social setting.

PUMPS ($1,200) by Christian Louboutin I personally really love comfortable shoes, and I just want something I can walk in — which these are. They’re also very versatile.

DESIGN

Pretty Face

The Plaza’s renovation, open to the public since June, maintains the hotel’s downtown charm

BY T.R. Witcher

The old black and white photos of Fremont Street remind us that Glitter

Gulch’s visual power came from its forest of vivid, vertical neon signs. They were signs that punched the sky. The Fremont Street Experience canopy turned the sky itself into a sign, uncorking Downtown’s inner id but erasing most of those old vertical neon signs, along with the architecture of the casinos themselves.

Except, that is, for the Plaza, which has been chilling, just beyond the canopy’s grasp, at the corner of Fremont and Main since 1971 — rather like that sly, card-playing wolf man, whose mural (courtesy of Brooklyn collective FAILE) adorns one side of the hotel. Designed by mid-century modern architecture firm Zick & Sharp, the Plaza creates a finely patinaed silhouette on the skyline, as well as terminating the view down the Fremont Street Experience.

Over the years the Plaza changed hands and names, but it remains the proper downtown cocktail — equal parts louche and sexy. Fortunately, the resort’s latest renovation, dubbed the Main Street Reimagination, has maintained the hotel’s charm.

What accounts for the Plaza’s enduring appeal? In part it’s the trio of massive murals; in part it’s the so-kitschy-they’re-cool burnished gold cubes adorning the facade of the erstwhile Greyhound Bus ter-

minal. But the secret sauce of the Plaza’s design is its second-story “dome,” a jewel box cradled between the wings of the hotel’s Y-shaped layout, its bottom side covered in twinkling lights evoking a champagne nightcap.

The upgrades include a smokefree gaming space designed for social media selfies and a rooftop patio adjacent to Oscar’s Steakhouse. Among the marquee changes is a splashy entrance for a new Pinkbox Doughnut shop, featuring a glittering 12-foot 3D pink donut. The renovation’s centerpiece is the 2,500-square-foot Carousel Bar — an outdoor, ground-level, circular bar underneath the dome that sports carousel horses and a 14-foot neon showgirl.

Such renovations may draw you into the Plaza, but smartly, they don’t upstage that dome, which exudes a tossed off, faded glamour that channels the Plaza — Vegas itself, really — at its best.

Water Street Wise

Henderson’s downtown is finally bustling after a few key investments

BY Heidi Knapp Rinella

The early adopters of the latest redevelopment plan for Henderson’s Water Street district had one thing in common, it seems: the number of people who questioned their sanity.

“A lot,” Windom Kimsey says. “First, my wife thought I was crazy.”

“It was really sleepy, and we were told more than once that we were crazy,” Tom Wucherer says.

“What I heard about Water Street was, ‘That’s where businesses go to die,’” Juan Vazquez says.

Ah, but that was then, and this is now. Kimsey now lives on Water Street, moved his architectural firm there, and opened Public Works Coffee Bar in 2017 and the bustling Azzurra Cucina Italiana this year.

Wucherer is partnering with Jeff Cruden and Andy Belmonti to develop The Watermark, a mixed-use project from their Strada Development Group. The Watermark is nearing completion, and they have plans to break ground early next year on an even bigger project, the luxury Waterfalls.

And Vazquez’s only regret is that his Water Street restaurant, Juan’s Flaming Fajitas and Cantina, isn’t bigger.

NONE OF THIS happened overnight.

“Everyone wants it to be instant. This is an organic process and takes time,” says Kimsey, a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who came to Southern Nevada from Chicago 30 years ago.

He was living in Anthem Country Club, and his architectural office was elsewhere in Henderson when he began to see Water Street’s potential. Kimsey had been contracted to design a space and science center that never took flight, but his frequent meetings at City Hall familiarized

him with downtown. Something about it reminded him of the urban energy of Chicago, which he missed.

The city had established its redevelopment agency in 1995. Water Street was the home of City Hall and the Justice Court, but the Henderson City Council at the time “saw signs of urban decline and distress,” redevelopment manager Anthony Molloy says.

“It was sad,” Kimsey recalls. Vacant storefronts were so abundant it sometimes seemed that tumbleweeds could blow down what had been Henderson’s primary retail street unfettered.

Tim Brooks was one of the earliest visionaries. He and his twin brother, Mike, were veteran casino operators in Northern Nevada and elsewhere in Henderson. “I absolutely saw the potential in downtown Henderson when no one else did,” Tim Brooks says. “This had been the focal point of Henderson and could be again.” They bought the Pot O’ Gold in 2001 and, after refurbishing, opened it as the Emerald Island Casino in 2003. (They acquired the nearby Rainbow Club in 2020.)

Kimsey and Wurcherer say the city’s support in those early days helped them make the leap of faith. “They put their own money into this,” Wucherer says. “Not just talking the talk, but actually doing stuff.”

Plus, land costs were reasonable. “I thought, ‘Let’s go for it and see what happens,’” Kimsey remembers.

The project really started bearing fruit about the middle of the next decade. “Construction of the Pinnacle and the Meridian buildings at Water Street and Atlantic Avenue showed investors’ interest in the development of the downtown area,” Molloy says. Public investment followed private, with the Downtown Complete Streets Project bringing improved sidewalk areas and seating.

“We saw a lot of interest,” Molloy recalls. “There were a lot of projects planned — and then the Great Recession hit.” During the slowdown, the city sought more input on people’s vision for the area. “Across the board, they loved the Main Street feeling,” Molloy says. “‘This is like my hometown.’ That’s what makes us unique.”

THE TURNING POINT, though, was a decade away. The city’s tired convention center was razed to make way for Lifeguard Arena, the 120,000-square foot indoor hockey facility recently renamed America First Center. Opened in 2020, it was on this refrigerated two-sheet venue that the Henderson Silver Knights would practice, desert kids would learn to ice skate, and numerous events would be staged.

“You never know what’s going on at the arena,” Kimsey says. “It’s been good for downtown. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a 150-unit apartment building across the street.”

City senior public information officer Madeleine Skains says the city is invested in presenting events in the area to create

community interest: “They get to see the tradition, fun, and excitement of Water Street.”

Now, construction signs, literal and figurative, are popping up all over the street. “Fifteen years ago, we had a lot of store vacancies; a lot of focus was on trying to keep those places occupied,” Molloy says. “Now, there’s nothing (vacant); there just isn’t enough space to meet the demand.”

Wucherer notes that he and his partners were in sync with the city’s idea that retail alone wouldn’t be enough to give the area new life. “You’ve got to have people in order to have a district like this,” he says.

Hence the group’s seven-story building, The Watermark, which has 151 studio and live/work spaces, including one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. Businesses on the first floor include a PKWY Tavern and Pacific Diner, and a pool and lounge occupy the roof. Wucherer says the first floor is 95 percent leased, and the apartments will be occupied beginning in late July. “We’ve had so many inquiries it’s been crazy,” he says. “So many people want to live in this environment.”

And there are plenty of places for them to dine, with restaurants popping up all along the street. One of the newest is Azzura, which, with the chef and general manager from the extremely popular but now-closed Bratalian on Eastern Avenue, has customers lining up outside before its opening each day.

“We didn’t start from zero,” Kimsey says of the restaurant. “The menu is 90 percent the same as Bratalian. I’m most proud of the food. We need more places like this.”

Except for the week it opened, Juan’s Henderson location has outsold his original spot on West Tropicana Avenue, Vazquez says. It’s another place where customers cluster outside the door in anticipation of the restaurant’s Mexican food, including fajitas served over live grills.

“We believed in it,” he said. “We’re definitely blessed.”

TODAY, THE WATER Street District appears to be a uniquely tight community. Brooks says he encouraged friend Joe DeSimone to buy the old Eldorado from Boyd Gaming in 2020. It’s now The Pass, and a 90-room Atwell Suites-branded hotel is being constructed over its ground-level parking lot.

“We’re looking forward to the other projects to get completed,” Wucherer says. “We’re bullish on what the city is trying to do, and hopefully others will continue to follow.”

Eric Duran-Valle

RURAL S

Postcard from McGill

BY Jeff Whittington

In a tiny town on a lonely stretch of Nevada highway, a glowing neon drugstore sign beckons as cars and loaded semitrucks thunder past. You’re among the few travelers who stop — maybe intrigued by the vintage soda fountain visible through the window. Then you see that the store, and everything in it, is almost exactly as it was on the day it closed — more than four decades ago.

As you pass beneath the restored Rexall sign and push open the door of the McGill Drugstore Museum, volunteer and caretaker Keith Gibson is there to greet you. “It’s kinda like a trip back through time,” he says. “Everything in here except me is from 1980 … or before. Well, I could qualify there, too.”

The magazine rack — complete with vintage comics books — is to the right. A two-sided display of greeting cards is just in front of you, still stocked with happy birthdays and anniversary wishes. The soda fountain gleams on your left with vinyl-topped swivel stools. You catch your reflection in the mirror behind it and see the look of wonder on your face.

“Now that the copper smelter is gone, all we have here is our history,” Keith Gibson says.

“It was a meeting place for the people

in town,” Gibson says. “The soda fountain here was kind of a place to come and gossip and have a Coke during the day and take a break. Us kids used to come in and read the comic books until Elsa would get after us — ‘They’re to be sold and bought, not read here!’ You know, Gerry the druggist was always kinda like a second doctor to us. They just took care of the town.”

Elsa and Gerry Culbert came to McGill, Nevada, in the 1930s and bought the drugstore in 1945. The company town, built to house the workers at the Kennecott Copper smelter, was prospering. “They took enough gold and silver out here, they said, to pay for the operation,” Gibson says. “So, the copper actually was pretty much free.”

While Gibson talks about the town and the smelter, which closed in the early 1980s, your eyes drift around the store. It’s fully stocked with old medicines, hair care products, Kodak cameras, band uniforms, school supplies, candy, and tobacco — anything anyone could have needed.

“We have a camera collection here that goes back to original (Kodak) Brownies, and we have probably one of the biggest

collections of flashbulbs,” he says. “We have … Dippity-do. Young people like to open it, and the first thing they say is, ‘That smells like my grandmother.’”

The Culberts ran the store until shortly after Gerry’s death in 1979. And they saved everything.

“We have every prescription from 1920 to 1979,” Gibson says.

Behind the druggist counter in the back of the store, Gibson pulls a thick stack of papers off a shelf. “These are the prescriptions,” he says. “I found one for myself in December of 1935 — my first one.”

And he’s uncovering new things all the time. “I found these pink prescriptions. These are prescriptions that they would get in prohibition,” he explains. “So, the doctor could write you a prescription for a bottle of whiskey. There’s thousands and thousands of documents. So, I’m scanning all that.”

To date, Gibson has scanned about a quarter of the nearly 70,000 documents he estimates are in the store. His goal? To create a searchable archive for historians of the future and pay lasting tribute to the town and the Culberts.

“Gerry and Elsa, before they died, said that they had a good life here and they loved the people and they wanted to leave something for them — because now that the copper smelter is gone, all we have here is our history,” Gibson says. “That’s why I got so interested in preserving this place. If that’s our history, we’ve got to have it.”

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

HEAR MORE about the museum from the Mountain West News Bureau here:

THE RURALS

JEFF WHITTINGTON

The Library District is Your FREE

Teacher Tutors are available at the following locations:

Start the school year off right! Teachers from the Clark County School District are available for FREE homework help and tutoring at these listed library branches during the 2023-2024 school year. This drop-in service is available to help students complete their homework or provide some extra instruction in a variety of subjects.

Tutoring is available September 5, 2023 – May 2, 2024 Monday through Thursday 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.

No appointment needed

For more information, please visit TheLibraryDistrict.org/HomeworkHelp

Centennial Hills Library

702.507.6114

East Las Vegas Library

702.507.3517

Enterprise Library

702.507.3764

Rainbow Library

702.507.3712

Spring Valley Library

702.507.3823

Sunrise Library

702.507.3905

West Las Vegas Library

702.507.3983

Whitney Library

702.507.4015

Windmill Library

702.507.6041

Hidden Treasures

Can we learn from Thacker Pass a better way to extract lithium, as developers eye more sacred land?

BY Richard Boland

One feature of living in the desert is that most of its treasures remain hidden from untrained eyes. Take the Amargosa River, for example. For most of its 185-mile course, it travels underground, only surfacing during periods of heavy rainfall. The Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge lies within the river’s watershed. It received refuge status in 1984 to protect its rare habitat. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ash Meadows is the largest remaining oasis in the Mojave Desert. It has the highest concentration of endemic species in the U.S., with four endangered fish species and seven threatened or endangered plant species.

For the Newe (Western Shoshone) and Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute), Ash Meadows is the intersection of their ancestral homelands and is therefore important to both groups. I am reminded of its cultural significance every time I shuttle between Las Vegas and Death Valley National Park. As soon as I descend the Funeral Mountains, a landmark for my tribe, the Timbisha Shoshone, comes into view. It plays a role in the Amargosa Valley’s creation story and is like a sentinel reminding me I’m leaving our homelands. On the return trip, especially on a clear day, nearly all the river’s upper course is visible. It’s an incredible vista that includes a peek at the section of Death Valley National Park within Nevada’s borders. As I begin the climb back over the Funeral Mountains, another of my tribe’s landmarks greets me — one that appears in a story about our four-legged relatives who live in the area. It’s my reminder that I am home.

In April, Canadian mining company Rover Metals announced that it had received an exploration drill permit for 6,000 acres of land in Ash Meadows. What indirectly lured them here is U.S. political leaders’ inability to adequately respond to climate

change. Our leaders’ lack of timely action has created a crisis mentality conducive to legislative and policy decisions that incentivize the extraction of what the Secretary of Interior deems “critical” minerals. In the case of Ash Meadows, Rover Metals is searching for lithium. The Center for Biological Diversity, which is suing the Bureau of Land Management over the agency’s approval of the Ash Meadows drilling permit, has identified 78 sites targeted for lithium exploration or development in Nevada alone. The Ash Meadows plan shows how recent and proposed legislative action have emboldened the extractive industry.

To get an idea of what to expect should Ash Meadows be mined for lithium, we need only look at Thacker Pass, in Northern Nevada. Thacker Pass is located on Numu (Northern Paiute) ancestral homelands. The area is important to tribes with cultural ties, particularly those whose ancestors were massacred there in the 19th century. A coalition of tribes, local ranchers, and environmental groups has banded together to stop the mine. So far, their legal challenges have not succeeded. As I write this, heavy machinery is clearing land after water protectors were pushed out of their prayer camps. The tribes’ main point of contention is that the Bureau of Land Management failed to properly consult them

during the permitting process. Their fight focuses attention on federal land managers’ competency and the laws governing mineral extraction on public lands.

Researchers who study the country’s transition to renewable energy do not dispute that we are in a climate crisis. They do, however, disagree on the amount of minerals needed to facilitate the transition to renewable energy, and on how those determinations were made. A 2023 report prepared for the Climate and Community Project, a progressive think tank, found “that the United States can achieve zero-emissions transportation while limiting the amount of lithium mining necessary by reducing the car dependence of the transportation system, decreasing the size of EV batteries, and maximizing lithium recycling.”

Researchers produced the results of four models for lithium requirements that demonstrated demand for lithium could be lowered between 18 and 66 percent. Our metropolitan areas play a critical role in ensuring a fair transition to clean energy that does not overburden rural and Indigenous communities.

One thing is clear about our country’s effort to create a domestic supply chain for renewable energy: It is threatening to onshore and heighten the human rights violations and environmental destruction that went mostly ignored when the U.S.

AP PHOTO/RICK BOWMER

obtained its minerals from less-developed countries. Over a 12-year period, the Business and Human Rights Centre tracked 93 companies that extract critical minerals and recorded 510 allegations of human rights violations. Tribal governments have reason to look at these statistics with alarm. As finance company MSCI warned in its blog, “Many of the remaining untapped deposits of the metals critically needed for U.S. energy transition from fossil fuels are located either near or within areas of cultural and environmental importance to Native Americans.” Among U.S. reserves of these key energy-transition metals, a high majority of nickel, copper, lithium, and cobalt are located within 35 miles of Native American reservations.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. The green economy is in its early stages. Our fate is not yet determined. The question is, will we replicate the path set by the fossil-fuel industry? Or will we create new systems that achieve our sustainability goals and fulfill our environmental and social obligations?

Editor’s note: Shortly before press time, the BLM said it had paused Rover’s drilling permit pending further review. Follow developments at knpr.org.

GROWING HOPE

Cheyenne Kyle harvests tomatoes at Obodo Collective, an urban farm in the heart of Las Vegas’ Historic Westside community.

More Than Raised Beds

A new crop of community gardeners shifts the paradigm to raising empowerment, reconnection

BY Isabelle Bellinghausen

When most people think of community gardens, they picture rented plots in a park where neighbors grow beans and squash. But a new wave of cultivators has a different vision: community resources, complete with kitchens and pantries, that are catalysts of societal change. Their goal is to connect people with their roots through the land and the nutrients it can provide.

Part of this evolution is rethinking “food deserts,” which the USDA defines as low-income residential areas with at least 500 people or 33 percent of the population living more than 1 mile (10 miles for rural areas) from the nearest grocery store. Cheyenne Kyle, food programs coordinator for Obodo Collective, says, “‘Food desert’ implies that this is natural. But this is something people did. Something people made … I’m not assigning blame to one person or collective. We all have to put in the effort to change the world.”

Local writer and professor Erica Vital-Lazare and Brian Dice of McSweeney’s cofounded Obodo Collective in 2020, taking the name from the Nigerian Igbo people, an egalitarian society based on communal cultivation of the land. Obodo provides tools and knowledge, as well as a community farm with 26 12-foot beds in the Historic Westside, for the benefit of those facing low-income situations.

Kyle greets everyone who comes to the farm from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. (hot weather hours). She can tell you Barbie’s middle name (Millicent) and takes the time to pray, twerk, and do yoga with her “plant babies.”

“Poverty is not just a state of being,” she says, “it’s a mindset. I come out here and I get to love on plant babies. I get to work as a Black woman. But I also refuse to do all the work on my own. This place is healing for me. I express my love and frustration here, and the earth gives me flowers back. The neighborhood protects this space.”

On Las Vegas’ Eastside, Victoria Flores runs the Solidarity Fridge, a garden and pantry focused on community-building. Flores grows lemongrass, tobacco, chayote, and medicinal and culturally appropriate foods that heal the land. She uses the entire plant when cooking.

“It’s about empowering people to take their power back,” she says. “Food pantries are great — pantries are how I ate. … But we wanted to go a step further and provide cooking workshops and open an adobe kitchen to cook traditional foods.”

Flores also works with Fifth Sun Project, an Indigenous-focused art and activism collective, and Las Vegas Liberation Foundation to deliver 60 meals a week to people experiencing homelessness.

Flores’ approach resonated with Eztli Amaya, who started Fifth Sun Project in 2016 with sisters Estefania and Giovana Rangel. Eztli traces her ancestry to northern Native roots, while the Rangel sisters trace their Indigenous roots to the Mechica and Aztec Peoples.

Known for tackling colonialism from Indigenous perspectives, Fifth Sun received a $17,000 grant through Planned Parenthood’s Raíz program. Working with Solidarity Fridge, they’ll use the funds for programming and outreach.

“This is bigger than us,” Amaya says. “It has to have a collective of people to take over. We have these governments that are supposed to create these programs, but they’re not doing a good job if we have thousands of people on the street.”

PHOTOGRAPHY Brent Holmes

HEAR MORE about Obodo Collective on “KNPR’s State of Nevada.”

FOOD+DRINK

Guy Fieri’s got a new Vegas gig … and so does Jolene Mannina. A waffle that tastes like upscale carnival fare? Yes, please! And there’s way more — culture and options — to the boba craze than you think.

PHOTOGRAPHY Gregg Carnes

Three Questions: Guy Fieri

BY Lissa Townsend Rodgers

CHEF GUY FIERI has 18 restaurants and several hit TV shows, but there’s always room for more projects. His latest, Flavortown Sports Kitchen, just opened at the Horseshoe. With two championship pro teams now in Las Vegas, it’s perfect timing.

Is your distinctive image something you developed, or has it always been your vibe?

This (necklace) is from the Mr. T starter kit — I’ve always been a big ring, big jewelry guy. One of the first tattoos I got is the culinary gangster. That became the logo of everything I did. My company is called Knuckle Sandwich … Everything I do, I want to go full throttle.

When you were going to UNLV, where did you hang out?

I loved going to Rebel games … Maybe I hung out at the Stake Out Bar & Grill, across from UNLV ... Maybe I hung out at the T-Bird Lounge & Restaurant, which is gone, unfortunately. There may be a picture of me in the fountain at Caesars Palace, but I can’t confirm or deny that.

How has Las Vegas changed since then?

I remember when I was selling meat (for Schulman Meats on Valley View), it was all buffets … And what’s so awesome about Vegas now is, you’re going to get some of the best food in the world.

For a longer version of this interview, visit desertcompanion.com

EAT THIS NOW CHURRO WAFFLE AT MAKERS & FINDERS

YOU KNOW WHEN there are two independently good foods, and you put those two foods together to make a better dish? That better dish is the churro waffle at Makers & Finders, which marries the fun of carnival food with the decadence of weekend brunch.

Each made-to-order waffle starts by combining tres leches and traditional waffle batters. It’s then fried for texture and dusted with churro seasoning. The sweetness is heightened by the finishing elements: cajeta — think Spanish caramel — and house-made chocolate coconut whipped cream, along with fresh blueberries and mint.

It’s a treat by itself, but owner Josh Molina hints that the churro waffle (chaffle?) might soon find other iterations on a secret menu. Whether it’s a lazy Sunday meal or a bite at the state fair, we’re ready for whatever’s next.

— Jason Harris

PHOTOGRAPHY Brent Holmes

Testing, Testing …

Jolene Mannina and J Dapper’s latest concept picks up where VTK left off

BY Lorraine Blanco Moss

Paladares pepper the Cuban landscape today, but until the 1990s, these small, family-owned restaurants operated as underground hotspots that only people in the know could find. So, it makes sense for hospitality maven Jolene Mannina to name her new chef incubator Paladare. Mannina is known for her ability to create FOMO — from her SecretBurger. com pop-ups to her revolving restaurant concepts at the former Vegas Test Kitchen on East Fremont.

The new 2,200-square-foot space in the Huntridge community in downtown Las Vegas will rent out four independent spaces, each with its own commercial kitchen and 24-hour private access. “Whatever I can do to promote chefs, help chefs move forward, give them tools — I guess it’s the main thing in my wheelhouse,” Mannina says. “I love everything from front-of-house to backof-house. I understand how chefs work. I understand their needs.”

Mannina prided herself on helping chefs through her first chef incubator, Vegas Test Kitchen, where they gained the ability to test ideas and hone offerings before committing to their own restaurants. VTK, as regulars called it, hosted about 70 chefs in its two and a half years before closing in June. Mannina says she had a five-year agreement funded by the Downtown Project, but it ended earlier than she wanted.

“The Test Kitchen definitely was not failing. We were surrounded by properties owned by Downtown Project, and they had no vision for those properties,” she says. “If I wanted to take over the entire space by myself outside of the agreement we had, I wanted to see the growth plan for the neighborhood, and they couldn’t do that. It’s unfortunate, but I just didn’t feel good in the situation.”

Downtown Project did not respond to Desert Companion’s request for comment by press time.

Mannina’s new partner, J Dapper, is eager to pick up where he thinks Vegas Test Kitchen left off. “I always wanted to do something with Jolene,” says Dapper, who helped Yukon Pizza, a two-year VTK resident, open its first restaurant recently in the Huntridge Shopping Center. “So many people in the culinary world need a place like this.”

The main difference between VTK and Paladare is that the new place won’t have a communal dining space for food lovers yet. Instead, it will start as a private commissary and/or ghost kitchen. The four concepts will have the option to operate a take-out service as well, if they like.

Stowe Shoemaker, dean of UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, says although there will always be a need for traditional restaurants, this kind of shared space will be a big part of the city’s food future. “We have a lot of talented chefs in this town. This is great because it allows the chef to be an entrepreneur without going broke doing it,” Shoemaker says.

“The timing is perfect … post pandemic and with Uber Eats and such … Chefs can be in the restaurant biz without being in the restaurant biz.”

Both Mannina and Dapper are already talking about how Paladare could evolve. It might lead to multiple chef incubators across the valley. It may include a location with a restaurant, such as Vegas Test Kitchen had, but somewhere else. Mannina says she’s excited to fill the new space with four distinct concepts creating a unique chef community, where they can interact and still have their own private area. Whatever happens, she believes, what’s ahead will include two of her favorite things in life: “Food and booze. It makes us all happy, right? For me, it’s super fun. It’s rewarding. It’s challenging. It’s chaotic. And I love to coordinate things,” Mannina says. “I can’t imagine ever not being in a field that does not involve food and chefs.”

Mannina hopes to open Paladare in late fall in the Mahoney’s building at 608 S. Maryland Parkway.

Bubbling Up

There’s more to boba tea than you think. Here’s a primer

BY Lourdes Trimidal

It might not be as ubiquitous as coffee, but a beverage hailing from Asia has been an American mainstay among youth and other communities for decades. Known by many names — boba tea on the West Coast, bubble tea on the East, or pearl tea— this classic Taiwanese drink was invented in the 1980s and brought to the U.S. in the ’90s. It’s a mixture of tea and milk with assorted additions, most significantly boba, the chewy balls made from tapioca or cassava starch.

The sensation first bubbled up in the Taiwanese immigrant communities of California, giving rise to cafés that became social hotspots, especially for Asian American youth. As of 2023, according to IBISWorld’s Industry Report, the U.S. has some 3,600 boba shops, ranging from popular chains such as Kung Fu Tea and Tiger Sugar, to family-owned shops.

Most of Las Vegas’ dozens of shops are nestled in the Chinatown area, where the heart of local boba tea culture began to beat 25 years ago. They now stretch all over the city, from Henderson to North Las Vegas. Here are five of our favorites.

FUN FACT: The term “boba” can refer to the whole drink or just the tapioca balls. Many shops give out stamp cards to gain loyal customers.

PINK CACTUS TEA ( 4850 W. Flamingo Road Ste. 46)

A highly Instagrammable spot with pink and neon walls, Pink Cactus Tea provides a trendy, youthful atmosphere that’s as hot as its teas. Born during the pandemic, the shop overcame its struggle to gain customers with the wide menu options, generating hype in both Asian and non-Asian communities. It’s a modern shop, but the Asian inspiration can still be found in classic Taiwanese ingredients.

TOP PICKS: Dirty brown sugar milk tea, Earl Grey milk tea

ALSO TRY: Cactus sunrise drink; popcorn chicken

LAPOSTTÉ

(5410 W. Spring Mountain Road Ste. 102)

A hidden gem in a quiet quarter of Chinatown, LaPostté emanates nostalgia. The shop’s highlight is a wall displaying hundreds of postcards, which customers can buy and send to themselves or loved ones, so-called “Mail to the Future.” A postman picks up the cards daily, and mother-daughter owners Hannah and Zoey Ma send them out on Sundays and holidays. Zoey, whose love for traveling and writing brought the idea to fruition, describes LaPostté as “a slow-paced, family-like environment.” Her mom spends most days there, chatting with customers.

TOP PICK: House boba milk tea

BEST DESSERTS: Black sesame and honey croffle (a croissant pressed on a waffle maker) or strawberry crêpe cake

TK’S BOBA & CREAMERY (500 E. Windmill Lane Ste. 170) A tea bar-ice cream shop fusion, TK’s offers a plethora of beverage and dessert choices. If milk tea isn’t one’s cup of tea, they can enjoy a cup of rolled ice cream in countless flavor combinations. Opened in 2019 as Level Up Nitro Creamery & Boba, it also included a video game lounge. The shop hosts Pokémon card and video game competitions, and is bustling in the evening, when groups of friends flock there to hang out.

TOP PICKS: Cocoa sugar; Hokkaido milk tea

ALSO TRY: Taro slush; rolled s’mores ice cream

NO. 1 BOBA TEA (13 locations, no1bobatea.us)

Acclaimed as Las Vegas’ first boba shop (then under a different name), No. 1 Boba Tea’s original owner brought the business to Chinatown with 18 drinks in 1998. Current owner Amy Zhang Warthan bought it in 2005 to continue its legacy. Over time, 12 more locations cropped up, putting milk tea and boba in unfamiliar communities. Adhering to their slogan, “Using fresh fruits is our tradition since 1998,” Zhang and her partner, Kevin Warthan, source the freshest possible ingredients, and are currently cultivating tea from their own farm.

TOP PICK: No. 1 Boba milk tea

BEST SNACKS: Chicken pot sticker (gyoza) and spam musubi (Water Street Social location only)

What’s in the cup? TOP

Ice: less, regular, or more

Topping: cheese pudding, sea salt cream, crème brûlée, etc.

MIDDLE

Sugar: from 0% to 100% sweetness

Milk: whole or dairy-free

BOTTOM

Base: jasmine, green, black tea; taro, etc.

Additions: boba, crystal pearls, mango pearls, etc.

BREW TEA BAR

(Three grab-and-go locations, thebrewteabar.com)

Brew Tea Bar started during the boba craze of 2015, when a band of passionate California friends gambled on business success in the desert. They discovered their own identity by focusing on the tea through months of trial and error, creating a menu that paved the way for more quality boba. “Tea is part of our Asian culture. I think a lot of people identify boba (drink) as the black boba balls, but tea is the actual beverage. I want to educate people about tea because there’s so much culture to it that can be shared,” says Sou Ngo, one of the shop’s three owners.

TOP PICKS: Taro; brown sugar; Hokkaido milk tea

CULTURE The Guide

Local artists, galleries, and troupes light the summer on fire!

BY Anne Davis

MUSEUM EXHIBIT Liberace: Real and Beyond THROUGH DEC 31

>>> The late Liberace once said, “I don’t give concerts, I put on a show.” Well, that’s certainly true of his eponymous exhibit at the Nevada State Museum, which puts items from the singer’s glamorous life on display. Religious effects (Liberace was raised Catholic), dining sets, his iconic candelabras, and rarely seen costumes are among the many items (and items photographed) comprising the exhibit, which aims to tell the story of the showman’s life both on and off the bedazzled stage. Hopefully “I’ll Be Seeing You” there.

Thursday-Monday 9a-4p, $5-19, Nevada State Museum, lasvegasnvmuseum.org

THEATER Treasure Island

THROUGH AUG 19

>>> Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is a classic for a reason: It’s an actionpacked fantasy-fueled story about treachery on the high seas. Since its publication in 1883, it’s inspired multiple stage productions, a few movie adaptations, and our beloved hotel and casino of the same name. The only thing the story was missing is girl power, which Majestic Rep’s new production remedies with its all-female cast. Director Troy Heard promises a show full of comedy, drama, and stage combat (so, no scallywags under 10 years old, please).

Thursday-Friday 7-8:30p, Saturday 7-8:30p and 3-4:30p, $20-30, Majestic Repertory Theatre, majesticrepertory.com

LECTURE

Las Vegas Stories: Las Vegas on Film

AUG 3

>>> Vegas has never needed a film industry tax credit to convince directors to make or set their movies in Sin City — the city’s glitzy reputation does a good enough job of that. So good, actually, that the moviemaking industry here goes back to the silent film era, says author and historian Lynn Zook. She’s hosting the latest installment of the Las Vegas Stories lecture series: "Las Vegas on Film." It’s an

CONVERSATION AND BOOK SIGNING Wonder Boy

AUG 10

>>> Wonder Boy, changemaker, CEO, visionary — all fitting titles for a man who helped to revitalize Downtown Las Vegas and bring an employee-first ethos into the mainstream. Yet tales of professional success invariably have their dark sides, and Tony Hsieh’s story is no exception. Wall Street Journal reporter

Angel Au-Yeung and Forbes investigative journalist David Jeans chronical the tech entrepreneur’s dark sides in their book Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley. Through deep reporting, the authors paint a vivid picture of a man whose meteoric rise became plagued with sycophants, substance issues, and mental health struggles. It’s a fascinating (and heart-rending) look at the price of success in corporate America, and how happiness can’t be bought. 7-8p, free, The Writer’s Block, thewritersblock.org

opportunity to see the city through a new lens and expand your watchlist beyond the cult classics we all know were made here (Viva Las Vegas, Oceans Eleven, Casino — you get the gist). 7-8:30p, free, Clark County Library, 702-507-3459

R&B CONCERT Soul Fusion

AUG 14

>>> Barry Manilow, Christopher Cross, and Pitbull in the same setlist? Hell yeah, says Steph Payne, an Emmy Award-winning R&B vocalist playing at Myron’s this August. Payne’s voice, smooth and blended with elements of her gospel background, will no doubt do her soul tunes justice. 7p, $29-39, Myron’s at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

ART EXHIBIT

Double Pendulum

THROUGH SEPT 9

>>> The human tendency to ignore what we’ve seen countless times is strong — plastic, fabric, slivers of light. If it’s a typical part of the human environment, it can be all too easy to forget. Yet, don’t these materials deserve as much attention as their more illustrious counterparts? Siri Stensberg thinks so Her Double Pendulum exhibit at the College of Southern Nevada’s Fine Arts Gallery combines the aforementioned materials and others, shaping and transforming them into amalgams worthy of contemplation. It’s a fresh take on the old saw about beauty and its beholder.

Monday-Friday 9a-6p, Saturday 10a-4p, free, Fine Arts Gallery at the CSN North Las Vegas campus, csn.edu/ artgallery

ART EXHIBIT

Michael Dodson

AUG 15-OCT 14

>>> If you’ve ever looked at our local desert and thought, “This could be art,” then you’re not alone — Michael Dodson has, too. His newest exhibit at Left of Center Gallery draws inspiration from cacti, drought-tolerant flowers, and other features of our arid environment to create vibrant patterns on canvas. His work looks like it was lifted directly from a biology textbook then given a splash of psychedelic whimsy — a unique commentary on the fundamentals of life in the desert. Wednesday-Friday 12-4p, Saturday 10a-3p, free, Left of Center Gallery, leftofcenterart.org

CLASSICAL CONCERT An Afternoon at the Movies

AUG 20

>>> Few self-care habits put me more at ease than an afternoon at the orchestra. Settling into a theater seat after getting dressed and brunching with friends is a transportive experience. That, combined with music from my favorite movies — I’m one seriously happy gal! This August, the Nevada Chamber Orchestra brings the works of John Williams, Nino Rota, and Bernard Herrmann together in one show.

I’ll be listening for Rota’s “Love Theme” from 1968’s Romeo and Juliet, but keep your ears perked for scores from Star Wars, The Godfather, and all things Hitchcock. If you have as much fun as I plan to, then check out Gershwin, by

George, also presented by the Nevada Chamber Orchestra — same venue and time, only a month later, on September 10, and offering free admission — playing through the songbooks of famous Jewish American composers such as the Gershwin brothers, Aaron Copland, and Irving Berlin. 3-4:30p, $10-15, Summerlin Library, 702-243-8222

LECTURE  Saving Nevada’s Cultural Heritage on Public Lands

AUG 28

>>> We all know conservation is important, but it can be depressing to hear about the overwhelming work required to safeguard our natural spaces. Where do we as individuals even start? This lecture, presented by Nevadans for Cultural Preservation, will attempt to strike a balance: It offers helpful suggestions and actionable steps to empower ordinary desert dwellers to take better care of our environment, while not

shying away from talking about the gravity of the conservation crisis facing us.

6-7:30p, free, Clark County Library, 702-507-3458

FOLK CONCERT Heredero’s

SEPT 9

>>> Mariachi music hasn’t endured for hundreds of years for no reason. It’s tonally versatile, making it the perfect vehicle for both happy and sad melodies, while also being culturally and historically rich (it’s thought to have originated among 18th-century Mexican ranchers). And you can’t ask for a more authentic Mariachi concert than one by Mariachi Herencia de México. With their newest act, "Heredero’s" (Spanish for “Heirs”), the group is carrying the torch of its performance predecessors, making the ability to enjoy traditional music everyone’s inheritance.

7:30p, $39-89, Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

ALTERNATIVE ROCK CONCERT  Matt Maeson

SEPT 26

>>> Matt Maeson is a musical enigma: His songs “Cringe” and “Hallucigenics” were Billboard Alternative Chart toppers in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Yet, his music doesn’t sound like it’d qualify for a Billboard number one song: It’s experimental, raw, and far from stereotypical. Good on the radio, but even better in person, especially at a venue like Brooklyn Bowl, where you’re free to groove to your heart’s content, sans chairs. While I’ll be listening for his hit, "Tread on Me,” his That’s My Cue Tour setlist will offer plenty of other bops from his sevenyear-long discography. 7:30p, $30, Brooklyn Bowl, brooklynbowl.com/las-vegas

Baklava in support of a local charity ($200 donation required to participate). Friday 3-11p, Saturday 12-11p, Sunday 12-10p, St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, lvgff.org

FOOD FESTIVAL

Las Vegas Greek Festival

SEPT 15-17

>>> Go for the spanakopita and gyros, stay for the Theotokos icons and music by Synthesi. Yep, it’s time for the annual Las Vegas Greek Festival, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Theophiles looking to learn more about the religion of Greece can join one of the tours of the gorgeous St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church, offered during the Festival weekend. Athletic types can join the 26.2-mile torch relay and run off all that

MUSIC FESTIVAL Life is Beautiful

SEPT 22-24

MARKET Fall Plant Sale

SEPT 23

>>> There are two kinds of people: those who are good with plants, and those who desperately want to be good with plants. (I see you, group No. 2.) Both frequent greenhouses and plant sales, and the mother of them all is the Springs Preserve’s Fall Plant Sale. A step up from the usual plant supply markets, this one features an abundance of desert-adapted and hard-to-find plants, as well as actual experts on hand to educate you on keeping your new little friend happy and thriving. It’ll be a perfect souvenir from a day at the

>>> It seems like the first Life is Beautiful was just yesterday, yet this year is the festival’s 10th anniversary. That’s not to say it’s gotten stale; each year’s musical lineup offers plenty to get excited about. For me, this year, it’s Khalid and Dayglow. Other headliners include The 1975 (a must-see for Switfties), Reneé Rapp, Bebe Rexha, Raye and — drumroll please — Kendrick Lamar!?! It’s a solid, diverse group … and we haven’t even started talking about the food, lectures, and visual arts yet. 3:30p-1a, $150-3,350, Downtown Las Vegas, lifeisbeautiful.com

Springs Preserve, since every time you water (or, in my case, forget to water) your plant, you’ll remember your favorite desert oasis. 9a-3p, free with admission, Springs Preserve, springspreserve.org

FOOD FESTIVAL Würst Festival

SEPT 30

>>> Getting your hands on delicious (hot) dogs isn’t the only reason to make a day of Boulder City’s annual Würst Festival — there’s also alcohol on tap, an antique show, the Würst

Dam Car Show (which, contrary to what the name suggests, is the Best Dam Car Show in Boulder City), and live auctions and entertainment. In other words, plenty to do at this food festival, for carnivores and vegans alike. 10a-8p, free, Bicentennial Park, visitbouldercity.com

If you'd like to browse other events, or submit your own for future editions of The Guide, please visit knpr.org/ desert-companion/ the-guide

Two for the Show

Awakening is back, in a tradition of reinvention that’s unique to Vegas

BY Mike Weatherford

You know Las Vegas is a city of second chances when even a show can get one. After opening to mostly empty seats in November, Awakening at Wynn Las Vegas is the latest attempt to salvage a big investment — $120 million in this case — with a makeover. Shutting down

for more than two months allowed the creative team to “walk away and come back and look at it with fresh eyes,” producer Baz Halpin says.

Paying customers will decide whether it was worth the effort, but the improvement is significant. “It was a tough nut to crack,” Halpin admits, referring to adding songs and choreography, aerialists, more comedy (“It wasn’t that fun”), and that elusive element known as heart. The quest fantasy now stands to lure Marvel-movie families to the Strip’s first story-driven spectacle since Cirque du Soleil’s KÀ.

Datus Puryear, one of the show’s stars, says the challenge was weaving narrative into the cutting-edge stagecraft that’s the genre’s calling card. They did it “in a way that I don’t think any stage has seen before,” Puryear says. The video mapping, revolving stage, colossal puppets by Michael Curry (The Lion King), and even the magic tricks are now in service of the story. Even some of Anthony Hopkins’ recorded narration bit the dust in favor of Puryear speaking live to the audience (gasp), and later singing

a Broadway-style “character song” as the pop star of an undersea kingdom.

All progress comes with the added challenge of, “Never mind what you’ve heard.” Las Vegas was never big on formal previews, which social media has undermined on Broadway. But Broadway shows are usually “locked” after opening night, while Las Vegas can just keep tinkering. Sometimes it works: From Le Rêve in the same circular theater where Awakening is now, to Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity and Criss Angel Believe — which basically trimmed all of Cirque’s input for the most extreme makeover of them all. And sometimes it doesn’t work: Zarkana was a Cirque show about another magician, but Cirque made his character disappear in a reboot. And when that didn’t work, Aria vanished both the show and the theater.

HEAR MORE: Review-Journal columnist John Katsilometes talks about Strip entertainment on "KNPR’s State of Nevada."

BOOKS

‘This Ends Tonight’

New comics from Jae Lee show his connection to Sin City

BY Josh Bell

Although he’s a longtime Las Vegas resident, award-winning comic book creator Jae Lee had never drawn a Vegas-set series until launching Seven Sons from Image Comics in 2022. Over the past 30-plus years, Lee has worked on iconic Marvel and DC superheroes, drawing issues of series such as Batman/Superman, Captain America, and Fantastic Four.

Canaan, repurposing the glittering lights of hotel-casinos to celebrate supposed spiritual saviors. Of course, Nicolaus’ motives are not entirely pure, and the seven may not be as divinely ordained as they appear.

Lee draws Vegas with the eye of someone who knows every corner of the town, shifting familiar landmarks into new forms that represent the city’s transformation into a religious stronghold. Rather than tone down Vegas’ glamour, Nicolaus and the seven sons embrace it as a way to glorify their alleged gifts to humanity.

POETRY

Justine Chan’s poetry collection catalogs the placelessness of her twentysomething life

BY NICHOLAS BARNETTE

Justine Chan’s debut poetry collection, Should You Lose All Reason(s), plumbs placelessness — the anxieties that well up when work distances you from friends, when families leave behind homelands, and when white supremacy lords over once-sacred lands. Chan launches this lyric exploration from the starting point of a Southern Paiute folktale, which she told nightly as part of her work as a Zion National Park ranger. In this tale, the origin story for the coyote, a transfigured human father, is doomed to wander the earth while his family looks on from the heavens. The poet addresses the complexity of founding the book on a tale from a culture outside her own, never landing on a concrete answer to the weighty questions involved. But the collection is most compelling when it steps out of the past and disregards its self-imposed framework. “What was your life like when you were twenty-eight (or twenty-nine)? What did you worry about?” Chan asks. The poet shows us what twentysomething living looks like in the collection’s strongest passages that meticulously — yet fluidly — catalog the people, cities, meals, and songs that populate her geographically vast world.

Should You Lose All Reason(s), by Justine Chan 108 pages, $19.95

Chin Music Press

Written by

Robert Windom

and Kelvin Mao, Seven Sons is also Lee’s first creator-owned series since the acclaimed Hellshock in the 1990s. Like Hellshock, the new seven-issue series is a mix of science fiction and metaphysics, set in a world that has been transformed by the miraculous birth of seven divine children.

Led by a self-styled prophet named Nicolaus Balaak, the seven young men turn Las Vegas into a spiritual haven, renamed New

Following March’s release of the Seven Sons collected edition, Lee keeps his Vegas streak going with the new three-issue Image series This Ends Tonight , co-written by Windom, Mao, and Gerry Duggan. Each issue features “a story of violence and mayhem set in Las Vegas,” publicity materials promise, beginning with two sisters battling adversaries across town. From spirituality to street crime, Lee has embraced Vegas in his comics work, bringing the dark beauty and graceful energy of his previous high-profile efforts to the city he calls home.

Seven Sons, by Jae Lee, Kelvin Mao, and Robert Windom 232 Pages, $18.22 Image Comics

Devil Inside

BY Josh Bell

In Sympathy for the Devil (now available on VOD), a pair of unnamed characters played by Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman spend almost the entire movie driving around Las Vegas, from the Strip to Downtown to desolate areas between Henderson and Boulder City. Whenever the characters are in the car, though, they’re actually just at a single place in town: Vū Las Vegas, the virtual production studio that opened in April 2022.

Vū is home to an LED Volume stage, the same technology used on big-budget sci-fi and fantasy series such as The Mandalorian and House of the Dragon. It’s a high-resolution screen that allows actors to be filmed in front of real-time backgrounds representing any location the production might want to depict. That gave Sympathy for the Devil director Yuval Adler the freedom to take his characters anywhere in town, with much greater flexibility than shooting on location.

“Shooting in the LED Volume, we can control everything,” says Vū CEO Tim Moore, who’s also an executive producer

on the movie. “There’s no turning around the cars, there’s no waiting for weather.”

“If you’re doing a five-minute driving sequence in a film, it’s one thing, but this was like 35 minutes in the car,” Adler says. “So we definitely knew that we wanted to do it in this technology and not with a green screen, which looks like Seinfeld driving.” The rest of the film was shot on location in Vegas, Henderson, and Boulder City, thanks to Cage’s encouragement.

The script, in which Kinnaman’s hapless father-to-be is carjacked at gunpoint by Cage’s gleeful maniac, was originally set in New York City and was moved to New Orleans for tax-incentive purposes before arriving in Vegas. “Once we were able to show them the facilities and the options here in town, and we did get some help from the state of Nevada on some tax incentives, it ended up being a really good deal,” Moore says. “It became Vegas because of Nic,” Adler adds.

Adler, who’s based in New York City but grew up in Israel, felt an affinity for the Vegas setting. “Something about Vegas is great for this film,” he says, “the desert aspect

of it — that they can get out of a big city and suddenly be alone in weird places.” He was adamant about avoiding Vegas clichés. “I actually don’t like it when you go to Vegas and you’re shooting the Strip. You don’t shoot Taxi Driver in New York and shoot the Statue of Liberty. Who cares?”

Adler did include some brief Strip images in the movie’s opening, but most of Sympathy for the Devil is set in out-ofthe-way places with which only locals would be familiar. “You’re shooting a film in Vegas, and everybody thinks you’re on the Strip, but no, I’m in some industrial shithole in Henderson all night,” Adler laughs.

That commitment to authenticity extended to working with the LED Volume, making sure that every background image matched the places the characters would really drive to. Adler explains, “The challenge — and I was pretty fanatical about it — is actually to map the drive in the real world and then also shoot plates on exactly the same drive, and then project them at Vū, and then go with a second unit to exactly the same places and shoot it outside, and then have it all match.”

Those results paid off, creating a tense, darkly funny thriller that allows Cage to give one of his signature larger-than-life performances. “I embraced the Cage,” Adler says. “He was starting to do crazy shit and funny shit, and I would just laugh behind the monitor and egg him on.” Two of the movie’s highlights came directly from Cage, who suggested that his character sing and dance along to Alicia Bridges’ 1978 hit “I Love the Nightlife (Disco ’Round)” and personally wrote a bizarre, mesmerizing monologue about something his character calls the “mucus man.”

Sympathy for the Devil is Cage’s sixth movie set at least partially in Vegas, and he’s long been a valuable booster for the town. Sympathy for the Devil was the first major feature film to shoot at Vū, which has since hosted productions from Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg, another local resident. After his Vegas experience, Adler is looking to return: “I’m actually writing something now that I want to do in Vegas. Forget the Strip and whatever. Living in the desert outside, there’s something cool about it.”

COLORING OUTSIDE THE LINES

Hive of Artivity

A new breed of studio is giving artists a safe space to push boundaries and build community

BY Scott Dickensheets

Jim White needed a place to crash. A former Las Vegas artist now based in Tucson, White returned in June to oversee a 10-day exhibit of his collages at the Available Space Art Projects (ASAP) gallery. His travel budget: sub-shoestring. His plan: couch-surfing, possibly with friends of friends of friends. Not ideal for a man in his early 50s with pressing medical concerns.

He was saved from that uncomfortable fate when he connected with Lulu. Lulu is, technically, a funky pink house in a neighborhood near the airport — but functionally it’s much more, for which the term “art house” doesn’t quite suffice. Not exactly a gallery, not really a cultural center, it’s an informal hive of creative activity: studio spaces, display area, monthly dinners, room for its growing community to connect. And a place happy to put up an itinerant artist.

“Lulu is a haven,” White says, “a place to just breathe and be with your art.” Someone from Lulu even picked him up from the airport.

Lulu is one of a number of newish grassroots creative spaces that foreground a strong ethos of community engagement,

inclusiveness, healing energy, and, frequently, a spirit of socially conscious art often called “artivism” — while largely abstaining from the transactional pressures of the gallery scene. Indeed, these spaces resemble mutual-aid projects — such as Solidarity Fridge, a DIY food pantry, and Obodo Collective, an urban farming group (see p. 28) — as much as art galleries. Others include Cloud House, the Nuwu Art Gallery + Community Center, and the Indigenous-run Fifth Sun Project. Modest and approachable, they exist far from the madding rents of the Arts District, and in their way constitute an alternative arts district, one united not by geography but by purpose.

“It’s a community space first,” says artist Brooke Feder, a Lulu principal. “I just think our artists happen to be superheroes of community.” Or, as artist Fawn Douglas put it in 2021, as she and partner A.B. Wilkinson were laboriously wrestling a set of dilapidated buildings on Maryland Parkway into Nuwu Art: “We’re looking for community-ass people, people who are active and want change.”

The fashion and conceptual artist Hue (a 2022 Desert Companion “One to Watch”)

Alisha Kerlin is a Lulu principal and the executive director of UNLV's Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art.

calls Cloud House “a resource hub and maker space in the heart of the suburban Las Vegas landscape.” They started it after finding the gentrifying Arts District inaccessible. People who have a creative idea but lack the means to realize it can come to Cloud House — actually Hue’s garage; you’ll know it by its namesake paint job — in search of the tools, knowledge, or connections to make it happen, whether it’s a piece of art, a performance, or something more hybrid. As with the others, Cloud House aims to be a place where artists, emerging or experienced, can experiment, pursue offbeat visions, cultivate ambiguity. “The whole idea is to offer a space outside the hyper-productive way of capitalism,” Hue says.

This is where art bends toward activism. At Nuwu, that means platforming the Indigenous artists and creatives of color too little seen in mainstream galleries. At Lulu, you’re apt to encounter an ethic of creative repurposing in the work of such artists as D.K. Sole and Eileen Pascoe, who take consumer detritus and rework it into bright new meanings. “The art,” Feder says, “is calling us to pay attention to something we otherwise weren’t.” As with Cloud House, sometimes it’s about resisting the blanding effects of sales culture. For example, White’s show comprised challenging, experimental collages he reworked each day in the ASAP gallery, inviting viewers into his process. Without Lulu’s accommodations and ASAP’s embrace of work unlikely to move a rent-paying number of units, this compelling exhibit would have been difficult to pull off.

ASAP is a reminder that there’s not a hard either-or distinction between these new places and the standard gallery scene; the energy fluxes both ways. Some of these artists also appear in more formal settings, while spaces such as ASAP and Core Contemporary, both in the burgeoning arts hub at New Orleans Square, often lean into artivism. You can find political art on Main Street, at Recycled Propaganda. Even an institution like UNLV’s Barrick Museum — which pivoted toward artivism during the pandemic — feeds into the new scene. (Indeed, its executive director, artist Alisha Kerlin, is a leader of Lulu.) But what unites Lulu, Cloud House, and the others is their elevation of community into a vital part of the process, blurring the typical artist-audience dynamic and nurturing an important cultural stratum.

This isn’t a new idea, of course. Musicians, for one, have long performed intimate house shows with a message. Long-timers might recall Laser Vida, an influential art gang back in the 1990s or the Lower Oakey Collective, both dedicated to working beyond the mainstream. Left of Center Gallery has provided a focal point for art, community, and education in North Las Vegas since the early 1980s.

What’s different now are the more intense,

POEM Interception

BY Jennifer Battisti

For Geno Smith of the Seattle Seahawks

turbulent, and fractious realities of 2023 — which make these welcoming spaces even more necessary. “It’s like a respite from the obligations of society,” Feder says. “We want people to show up however they are in the moment and feel they can catch a breath.”

HEAR MORE:

Native Nevada podcast episode six, “The Artivists”

Before I performed your spa appointment, my daughter’s school counselor called to give me a phone number if my daughter had those feelings again — a suicide hotline number.

Writing it down felt like a folding a billboard into my purse. The way advertisement isn’t yours until you need it.

Your legs cleared the massage table by at least two feet. I cried while scrubbing your dead skin cells. You snored. I whittled away at your epidermis. I prayed while rinsing the skin’s death down the five-star drain. This was the quiet, inside prayer, kept alive by the motion of hospitality.

I know nothing about football even less about sea hawks, but plenty about self harm, which is why I tried to seize the quarterback charge from your enormous wingspan. Why I tried to tackle the stored up huddle in you, steal your fancy footwork before the hour was up.

But I could not keep the whole of it inside my palms, held open the same way I waited for her to be born, ready to catch an oblong future, not knowing how we’d be so stitched with repair.

A quarterback’s aim is to throw with power and accuracy. To make decisions in every play, to deliver the ball to the receiver. After you left, I Googled sea hawks, which I learned are technically ospreys.

Legend has it that if the fish looks up to see the bird’s white throat, its dazzling carriage, the fish will mesmerize — surrender to the hawk. As if the glow of God’s underbelly could make a fish seek the sun. As if it could break the spell of water, risk the gasp of rupture, touch down so urgently to discover it could bear the adventure of air.

UNLV PERFORMING ARTS CENTER’S

47TH SEASON

CONRAD TAO &

TEICHER: Counterpoint

Friday, September 29, 2023 · 7:30 p.m.

$35

The UNLV Performing Arts Center proudly presents Rio Sueño, the newest guitar duo from Vegas. The duo is Ricardo Cobo, multi-award-winning guitar virtuoso, and outstanding young guitarist Parsa Sabet.

CALIFORNIA GUITAR TRIO

Saturday, November 18, 2023 · 7:30 p.m.

$35

Truly stellar artists, the California Guitar Trio’s music has been used for the Olympics and even to wake up the Space Shuttle Endeavor’s crew. Enjoy an evening out with the trio that crosses musical genres.

TIME FOR THREE

Friday, January 26, 2024 · 7:30 p.m.

$60 · $45 · $30 · $20

The vocal, instrumental, and Grammy-winning magic of Time For

Three—two violinists and double bassist, all also vocalists—lies in the busy intersection of classical music, Americana, and modern pop.

CALEB

Friday, October 6, 2023 · 7:30 p.m.

$60 · $45 · $30 · $20

When Conrad Tao (piano), with his “probing intellect” (The New York Times), and Caleb Teicher (dancer), dubbed “super-charged” (The New Yorker) perform together, their harmonic, rhythmic, and theatrical counterpoints link their disparate art forms.

SÉRGIO &

CLARICE ASSAD

AND THIRD COAST PERCUSSION: Archetypes

Wednesday, December 13, 2023 · 7:30 p.m.

$60 · $45 · $30 · $20

When creating the 12 short works that comprise this program, Sérgio & Clarice Assad and Third Coast Percussion drew their inspiration from archetypes. Experience these GRAMMY®Nominated artists in a concert that brings us all together.

Friday, March 8, 2024 · 7:30 p.m.

$60 · $45 · $30 · $20

In honor of the Walt Disney Company’s 100th anniversary (2023), the UNLV Performing Arts Center proudly welcomes the return of a capella sensation Voctave, who have over 150 million video views and frequent top 10 hits.

Saturday, April 6, 2024 · 7:30 p.m. $35

capped more than 30 guitar contest wins by winning the 2020 Eurostrings and the 2022 Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competitions.

Sponsored by Dr. Mitchell & Pearl Forman

“Graceful musicality” Los Angeles Times

“Magically linked by the same innovative mindset” San Diego Union Tribune

“Winning, energetic, and highly accessible” Los Angeles Times

“Pure, perfect sound...tangible joy” The Strad

“Vocal magic” Orlando Sentinel

Sponsored by Dr. Mitchell & Pearl Forman

Sponsored by Dr. Mitchell & Pearl Forman

WRITER IN RESIDENCE

Breathe Out

The warming planet and human disturbance whip up the danger lurking in the dust

BY Meg Bernhard

On Interstate 10 in New Mexico, the yellow roadside signs become increasingly alarming.

First appears the equivocal, “Dust storms may exist next 10 miles.” Then, ramping up in intensity, the poetic: In a dust storm / pull off roadway. / Turn vehicle off. / Feet off brakes. / Stay buckled. Somewhere else, either in New Mexico or Arizona, is a mandate to cut the headlights.

It’s summertime, 2020, and I’m on the road, driving from Texas to California. I’m carrying my grandfather’s ashes in the passenger’s seat. He died of COVID on July 8, at an Alzheimer’s facility near Dallas, and my brother, mother, and I had driven there to be with him as he took his last breaths. We were only allowed to see him from behind a closed window, lest we catch the virus, too. I’d never seen anyone breathe like that — each breath requiring immense effort, gulping air with the whole force of his body. I didn’t want to think about what the virus was doing to his lungs; it was clear just from watching that it was ravaging them.

I’m on the road many times that year. I lose visibility in Tennessee and Nebraska, from rain. Nearly lose it in Wyoming, from snow. In northern California, I watch lightning strikes flash and drive out before the wildfire smoke overtakes the San Francisco Bay. In Arizona, on my way east a month after my grandfather died, winds pick up, the sky darkens, and lightning stitches across bruise-colored clouds. Somewhere behind me, dust thickens into a proper storm. I drive faster and faster, and my visibility stays clear. I outrun the storm.

Later, I learn New Mexico’s Department of Transportation put up the cautionary road signs in 2017, following a 25-car pileup during a June dust storm. Six people died.

DUST KILLS. IT can kill fast, and it can kill slow. Fast like the pileup. Slow like prolonged exposure. The body can usually stop large

particles from doing too much damage, trapping them in the nose’s mucus or in the mouth. But small particles can reach the lungs, potentially inflaming them. They can reach the lungs’ terminal airways and from there enter the bloodstream. That’s where the danger lies. Over time, particulate matter can devastate the heart.

My first Vegas dust storm rips through the valley in October 2021, exactly three days after I’ve moved here. Sitting at my desk in the tiny studio I now call home, I see a haze fall over the street outside the window. The sky turns a milky yellow. Branches swirl. I watch, anxiously, as a spindly palm tree whips back and forth next to my car, and I think about those videos of trees crashing through windshields and crushing vehicles. I run outside to move my car, the debris of other people’s lives — trash bags, receipts — flying around me. Back in the apartment complex elevator a man says to me, “It sucks out there.”

I soon become accustomed to the way these storms affect my body. My chest tightens. Throat prickles. Head aches. It’s always a guessing game: Is it dust or COVID? I’ve yet to test positive. I have exercise-induced asthma, but generally my lungs are healthy, and I wonder what will happen to them once I get sick or inhale too much bad air. I read research papers about naturally occurring asbestos in soils outside Henderson, near Boulder City. Arsenic in the soil around Nellis Dunes, near North Las Vegas. Is this what I’m breathing?

BRENDA BUCK GREW up on a remote cattle ranch in Montana. In 1998, she moved to Las Vegas to start a job at UNLV’s department of Geoscience. She developed asthma. “My research was to go out and dig soil pits,” she said. “I was hiking, driving out on various dirt roads, just going out and doing geology. A lot of camping. I was very close to the earth.” Earlier in her career, she researched the depleted uranium from ammunition used during the Gulf Wars. She then transitioned her focus on other areas of medical geology, mostly studying how soils affected human bodies. “We are all breathing this stuff,” she told me. “What does that do?”

Of particular interest were Nellis Dunes, the popular off-road vehicle recreation spot east of Interstate 15. At the time, Las Vegas was exceeding Environmental Protection Agency limits for particulates, and Buck wanted to find the answer to a controversial question: Was the air quality natural, or was it human-caused?

What often matters, she says, is the type of soil. Some soil, when driven upon, compacts and becomes less likely to release into the air. And wind is more likely than humans to stir up dust from sand dunes. But desert pavement and cryptobiotic crusts can contain tens of thousands of years’ worth of dust accumulated underneath them, and when it is disturbed, the results can be disastrous. Buck and her colleagues found high levels of arsenic in the soil around Nellis Dunes and concluded that human disturbance had doubled the amount of dust in the area.

Buck and her colleagues also found traces of asbestos-like minerals in the area. They wondered if asbestos could be found elsewhere in the desert, and as they surveyed sites, they found small concentrations in the soil around Henderson and Boulder City, a potential cause for alarm given the impending construction of Interstate 11’s Boulder City Bypass. Her colleague requested data from the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services and found cases of mesothelioma among young people, and more occurences in women than they would have expected, suggesting environmental exposure. In 2012, they planned to present preliminary findings to the Geological Society of America, but before they were able to do more work, state officials sent a cease-and-desist letter.

Buck approached the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for data

JOHN LOCHER/AP PHOTO

instead. In more recent, still-unpublished research, she and her colleagues mapped most of Clark County, and predicted that about 20 percent of the county has asbestos fibers either in the bedrock or washed out in alluvial fans.

THE MOJAVE IS North America’s driest desert. Unlike humid areas, the desert’s soils aren’t moist and filled with organic matter, nor does vegetation tend to hold the surface together. In short, Buck says, it’s not sticky: “It doesn’t take much wind to take dirt up and fling it into the air, whereas grass growing in the middle of Illinois can trap particles.”

With climate change, the Mojave is only becoming hotter and drier. This process, known as aridification, parches soils, making them even easier to be disturbed. Dust storms will become more severe, and more frequent.

KUSH MODI, A UNLV pulmonologist, sees patients with allergies, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, among other lung issues. They come into his clinic like clockwork. During dust storms and periods of high wind. During wildfire season. In the summer, as the temperature skyrockets, and refineries, landfills, cars, and roads emit “precursor pollutants” that interact with heat and sunlight to create ground-level ozone, a harmful air pollutant. In the winter, polluted air doesn’t move out of the valley as quickly as it should.

Clark County has 14 air-quality monitoring stations, from Mesquite to Jean. Ozone levels tend to pose the greatest air-quality challenges for Clark County, says Kevin MacDonald, a public information administrator for the Department of Environment and Sustainability. “Think about where we are in the world,” he said. “We’re to the east of Southern California and Asia, so pollutants can transport from that far away and come through here. Then the topography — there are mountains all around us, plus the climate, with the sunny and hot summers,” he said. “Pollutants settle into this bowl and cook. It’s a perfect oven for cooking ozone.”

Usually, the county meets EPA standards for dust. In recent years, officials have taken measures to control dust at construction sites, for example, by requiring companies to wet the dirt every so often. (This measure comes with its own environmental concerns, since “keeping the dust down takes a lot of water,” MacDonald says.) Still, the county exceeded EPA standards on eight days last year — eight very dusty days.

ON DUSTY DAYS, I think about breathing. I kept an inventory last year:

September 14: Drove out to Boulder City and down the highway toward Kingman. We wanted to find lightning, but we couldn’t. Instead, we got dust. Dust in the vents. A dust cloud overtaking us. We turned around.

August 11: With the rain comes the sirens. It started about two hours ago. I was on the back patio. The concrete changing color. Slow. Then fast. Winds picking up. A friend came outside with me, as I stood on turf. She asked, “Do you smell it, the dust?”

July 28: Lightning storm last night. High winds. I sat outside and watched for a while until the dust got in my eyes. Feel stuffy.

April 11: Alert sent to phone. Warning that there could be zero visibility with the dust storm. Can’t see the mountains. They’ve vanished into the sky. Went for a walk to see if the Strat was visible — it is. Dust in eyes. Electric energy in air. The sky looks like a wildfire.

February 10: Dust. Wind. Temperature changes can make you feel this certain strange way. Air pressure changes, too. Congestion. Feeling of heaviness in the body.

IN MAY, I drive south down I-15 near North Las Vegas with my brother. We are on our way back from central Nevada, and the light is beginning to fade. Suddenly, the sky darkens. A dust devil spirals east of us. The wind pushes my car toward concrete construction barriers, and I hunch over the wheel to careen my car back toward center. “It looks like Mordor,” my brother says. We’re near Nellis Dunes. I think about other disturbed land — solar projects in Pahrump, construction at the edges of the city — and wonder what they look like during wind storms.

In June, I’m in Manhattan when the skies turn orange. Smoke from wildfires in Canada has blown south to New York and Washington, D.C. My head aches. My throat tingles. By now I know it’s probably not COVID. It’s almost definitely the air, which reaches 400 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter. I’ve reported on wildfires in California, traveled deep in smoke-filled canyons. But this is some of the worst air I’ve ever breathed.

I return to Vegas on a night of high winds. In my backyard, evidence of the damage: an empty plastic olive oil bottle. In the front: a sponge. But when I wake up in the morning, the air has cleared, and breathing comes easy again.

Meg Bernhard is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times , and elsewhere. Her book Wine (Object Lessons) was published by Bloomsbury in June.

NOT TAKING WHAT THEY’RE GIVING

Service industry work changed during the pandemic. Is that change for good?

By Sarah Rose Cadorette

“I couldn’t get fired right now no matter what I say,” says Luke Murray, a professional guide with Desert Adventures, when asked how secure he feels in his current job. Murray began working as a driver for the company in April 2021 and says that in his two years there, he’s seen a lot of his coworkers leave.

“When I started, the majority of my coworkers had been here 10 or more years, were in their 40s and 50s, and were very plugged into the community around the Black Canyon. That’s something I really

enjoyed, the breadth of knowledge and experience that I wasn’t going to get elsewhere,” Murray says. He estimates half to three-quarters of those employees have left since he started.

The labor landscape across the country has changed considerably since the emergence of COVID, and the service industries are among the most visibly altered. As the largest city in a state that’s heavily dependent on these industries, Las Vegas saw a shocking loss of jobs at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the reopening of businesses and seismic shifts in the labor

market, what does work in this hospitality-driven city look like today — and what might it look like in the future?

“Nevada had the highest unemployment rate in the country, for any state and any month since 1976,” when records first started being consistently collected, says David Schmidt, chief economist for the Research & Analysis Bureau at the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation. “The national unemployment rate was about 30 percent during the Great Depression, and our April 2020 unemployment rate was 30.4 percent. In the Las Vegas area, it was 33 percent or 34 percent,” he says.

But as mandatory closures of nonessential businesses were lifted, and as travel picked back up, the staffing pendulum swung back with force. Many businesses that were forced to close or scale back operations during 2020 and 2021 are now hiring workers at an extraordinary rate, trying to scale back up to accommodate their previous volume of business. “We lost twice as many jobs in April 2020 as we did during the Great Recession, and we’re digesting that in half the time,” Schmidt says.

The accommodation and food services (AFS) industry as a whole across Nevada has about 25,000 fewer jobs than pre-pandemic times, with the bulk of the loss being in casinos, Schmidt says. Meanwhile, food services employment rates specifically are

at 111.8 percent compared to pre-pandemic times. “They actually have higher rates of employment since pre-April 2020,” he says.

And yet the “separation” rate (the rate at which employees leave or are forced out of a job, for any reason) for AFS employees has been higher post-March 2021 than in the years leading up to the pandemic lockdowns, at an average rate of 2.8 percent more separations per quarter. So, while businesses are hiring service workers at rates that sometimes surpass pre-COVID era rates, they’re also losing workers more rapidly. Why are these employees leaving? The main reasons — including low pay, shifting values, and unpleasant work environments — point to a broad shift in the way Las Vegans feel about service work.

IN INTERVIEWS, SEVERAL sources cited low pay as a main reason for leaving a service job. However, according to a Pew Research Center survey of workers who quit their jobs in 2021, they were equally as likely to leave a position because of the lack of opportunities for advancement.

Murray noted that both were reasons that some of his long-haul coworkers had left Desert Adventures.

“The warehouse manager had been there for 10 years and left within a year of me starting there because he wasn’t happy with his ability to progress professionally. He felt stagnant,” Murray says. “We also had the same receptionist for 10 years who was very good at her job, and she left for all the same reasons: dysfunction, low pay, not being listened to about what was causing these issues.”

Much like restaurant servers, Desert Adventures guides and drivers’ primary income isn’t what their employers pay them, but the tips they receive from customers. When the demographics of those customers change, so too might the tips.

“When I was hired, I was told about international guests and businesspeople throwing around money,” Murray says. As fewer people traveled internationally, and employers organized fewer group events, he says, that changed. “Post-pandemic, my average customer was in their 50s and 60s, living on a pension, usually government workers. I can’t tell you how many parole officers I had. So, guides went from $25 an hour with tips to $13 an hour and getting stiffed on tips. It became not enough.”

Usually, a worker who leaves a service industry job is moving into another service industry job: 55.7 percent of the time, on average, between April 2021 and January 2022,

according to Census data. The subsequent top industries are retail, administrative support, and transportation and warehousing. Service workers who were laid off as the result of COVID closures may have had time to reconsider their professional goals and options.

“It was that shock of the pandemic that opened up the gates, and people began to think, ‘You know, I’m good at customer service, I could work at the hospital, or the front desk at who knows?’ They found their skills were transferable,” says Robert Rippee, executive director of Black Fire Innovation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Local service industry worker Lisa Walker says she noticed this shift in her peers after the pandemic.

“People feel their time is more precious now,” she says. “They think, ‘I’m worth more than working as a cashier at a gas station.’” She thinks this explains why more workers now are “quiet quitting,” doing the bare minimum in their current position while putting their effort into finding another job.

I met Walker at the Cocolini gelato stand inside Excalibur Hotel & Casino, next to a promotional photography booth for male revue Thunder from Down Under. Walker began working at Cocolini in mid-May, not long after moving back to Las Vegas from Arizona. She also works as a hostess at Lola’s, a Cajun restaurant in Summerlin.

“My car got totaled, and I had some other traumas. So, I was forced into this,” she says, referring to the part-time service industry jobs that she’s working while she applies for architecture school.

“I’m not playing around. I know how much time I have left — or, I can guess,” Walker says. “I know what I’m worth.”

The third reason workers gave, in the Pew survey, for leaving their jobs in 2021 was that they felt disrespected at work. A whopping 57 percent of respondents cited this reason, and local service workers have, indeed, noticed a trend in how customers treat them since 2020.

“People split in two ways now: either they went crazy and they hate people, or they love people and they tip a lot more,” Walker says. “You can tell who’s been traumatized by the pandemic.”

For Andrew, a server at the upscale vegan restaurant Crossroads Kitchen (who asked that we only use his first name), the attitude of customers was a decisive factor in leaving his position as a manager at a casual steakhouse chain for his current role.

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“If someone had an issue, I would be called over to help. But people would not even give me the opportunity to hear the problem. They’d yell and be nasty as soon as I approached the table,” he says. “I want to support my people, but I’m not in that leadership role taking bullets for my team anymore. I couldn’t, for my own mental health.”

Andrew moved from Kentucky to manage a new Las Vegas location for the steakhouse chain and was tasked with hiring 250 workers in 11 weeks. Given that they had more than 6,000 applications come through, there was “no shortage” of interest, he says. The biggest hurdle was in finding quality applicants who remained until opening day.

“People wouldn’t show up for their interview, or they were not qualified or fit for the service industry,” Andrew says. During the pandemic, he explains, people who had service experience but were unsatisfied with the industry used the opportunity to find different work. “We would also lose people along the way, because they found something else, or they couldn’t wait until opening day to begin making tips,” he says.

BEYOND PAY, OPPORTUNITIES for advancement, and respect, there are many other reasons why someone might leave a job in the AFS industry, or any industry.

“People are a complex web of individual circumstances,” Schmidt says, listing other potential considerations: retirement, staying home to provide childcare or elder care, or finding another position with additional benefits, such as remote work.

Almost half of the respondents to the Pew survey said childcare was a reason for leaving their job, a factor that disproportionately affects working mothers. A study of unemployment demographics conducted by The Washington Post found that the number of mothers with children under the age of 13 who left the workforce and remained unemployed between February 2020 and September 2021 was twice that of fathers.

The demographics of AFS workers also shifted across age brackets, according to Schmidt.

“There has been some increase in employment at the age extremes,” he says. In 2017, nine percent of AFS workers were between 14 and 21 years old, and 21 percent were 55 or older. In 2022, those rates were 12 percent and 24 percent, respectively. Some of this shift might be attributable to workers aging into the

highest age bracket, Schmidt says, but some of it might also be due to workers seeking more sustainable, higher-paying, and/or more personally satisfying positions after the pandemic.

“If I am in an industry where workers have more power, and I’m a mid-career professional, I might be looking at what other options I have in terms of customer service. Or I might be looking for better pay in different types of careers,” Schmidt says.

EMPLOYERS, OF COURSE, are also looking for new ways to increase their profits and sustainability. Black Fire Innovation, a collaboration between the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Caesars Entertainment, serves companies in the hospitality, gaming, and entertainment industries by providing opportunities to work with academics on technologies that could positively change the way they operate, including when it comes to the labor force. Rippee notes that because of the pandemic, employers are starting to reconsider what and who is necessary to keep a business running.

“Since many organizations came to a stop, many of what they had considered to be fixed costs became variable,” Rippee says. For example, he says, ghost kitchens, food delivery, and the use of QR codes instead of printed menus are all business models that employers and customers adopted during the pandemic, but which have since stuck around because of their convenience and reduced overhead cost to the business owners.

“You’re also seeing great implementation of robots in service,” Rippee says, which is partially because of the “labor squeeze” business owners are currently experiencing. Robots are a sustainable solution for specific tasks, he says, giving the example of Mint Indian Bistro, where they are used to deliver naan to the tables. They’re terrible, however, at “abstract thinking” and the human-to-human interactions that often determine the quality of a customer’s overall experience, so they would ideally be used to open opportunities for employees to provide even better service to their clients.

“If (the servers) can spend more time explaining the menu or doing something special for your birthday, and therefore better understand the customer and upsell, then the robot that delivers the naan to the table is actually helping that human — not replacing humans, but assisting humans,” Rippee says.

In hospitality, artificial intelligence may be used to provide services that aren’t currently available to customers at all.

“A typical nice hotel in San Francisco might have a high percentage of international guests,” Rippee says. “What if a guest’s language is Korean? How do you help that guest have the maximum enjoyment of their stay without language capability? AI can help solve that.”

While Rippee’s perspective on the incorporation of technology into the AFS industry paints an optimistic future of advanced hospitality, the current reality in some industries that have already begun to tap into AI capabilities — such as the screenwriters of Hollywood — is that human workers perceive their jobs to be at risk. Whether employers decide to wield these and any future technologies to the benefit of their employees, rather than their replacement, is an ethical question that is being answered differently across industries every day.

WHILE STAFFING IN the service and hospitality industries may not be facing further major upheavals anytime soon, employers can anticipate that workers’ newfound attitudes and priorities will last as they seek more sustainable wages and better working conditions. Hourly workers in Nevada saw a bump in the minimum wage this past July, up to $11.25 an hour, and voters approved a constitutional amendment to raise it again in July 2024, up to $12 an hour. Baristas at the Lake Mead and McDaniel Starbucks location in North Las Vegas also won union representation in July, in an effort to secure better working conditions, fair wages, and consistent schedules. While Starbucks has run a counter-campaign to dismantle these unions, they have not been able to prevent employees from successfully unionizing in 330 stores across the country, more than any company in the 21st century. While the Great Resignation might be slowing down, the momentum of workers’ rights movements is still going strong, which may influence how employers and employees view their relationship in the future, even in industries outside of accommodation and food services.

“It takes a lot of individual pieces lining up to get back to what the ‘new normal’ is in the post-pandemic world,” Schmidt says. Understanding that everyone is juggling these pieces, while envisioning a more sustainable future for workers in all industries, could make the transition into this new world a little easier.

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SEEKING SANCTUARY

By DW McKinney

The empty road ahead is an auspicious sign. The night before, a snowstorm had erased the mountains from the horizon. I’d watched it from my living room window and wondered if I’d have to cancel our family trip. Yet this morning, aside from the wintry peaks in the distance, the only signs there was a storm are the wet ground and gray sky.

I am driving my family through the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area. My husband and I have told our daughters, sitting in the backseat, that we’re “headed toward a surprise.” They proffer guesses limited to their little-kid understanding of memory, desire, and place. The toy store? Denny’s? “It can’t be the cabin. It’s not time. Right, mama?” my first grader says.

Today is the first day of spring break in March. It’s seven months too early for our annual staycation at Mt. Charleston Lodge’s cabins. We usually come here in the fall, when the Spring Mountains’ 20-degree temperature difference is a welcome re-

prieve from the Las Vegas Valley’s oppressive desert heat. But my daughter is right: We are headed to the cabin. I don’t tell her or her sister, though; I want to savor their slow-building excitement. Surrounded by snow, “the cabin,” as we call it, is the perfect place for my daughters to experience the winter wonderland they’ve always wanted. My husband can nurse his broken shoulder away from work. And this trip, with its promise of tranquility, is also my gift of restoration to myself.

Snow appears in patches on the landscape, and the air grows cold enough for me to turn on the heat in the car. We cruise past the Spring Mountains Visitor Gateway where a small, misshapen snowman heralds what’s ahead. I’m anxious about overcrowding as we round the bend. Mt. Charleston sees thousands of visitors eager to ski and sled when there’s snow. I like the idea of playing in the snow with other families and participating in community memory-building. That’s one of the joys of this place. However, it’s easier

to have fun outdoors when you don’t have to compete for space with others.

While I wrestle with these anxieties, my daughters beg me to stop driving so we can play in the snow. There’s a hopeful desperation in their voices, like they’re concerned the snow will melt before they can enjoy it. But I can’t pull over. Cars pack the side of the road, filling every spare inch of parkable ground. They’re crammed together near the Acastus Trailhead and Fletcher View Campground. I’m concerned it will be similarly crowded farther up. I imagine how difficult it will be for us to find peace amid crowded parking lots or trailways.

My anxieties fall away when the road narrows and people disappear. Snow drapes the mountainsides. It sits heavy on the tree branches and blankets the rooftops in Old Town, Mt. Charleston’s blink-andyou’ll-miss-it residential community. The entire area is postcard perfect. Minutes later, my daughters cheer and scream in the backseat as I park near the front office for the lodge and cabins.

I found a refuge from a threatening world in the mountains. So did everyone else

I’m giddy too, as I pull out the duffel bags and coolers I had hidden underneath quilts in the back of our SUV. This fresher alpine air, rising landscape, and towering greenery create an ideal space for the tension coiled in my body to unfurl. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have considered this place as a retreat. My husband and I didn’t have the time to venture this way with two small children, work responsibilities, and perpetual fatigue. And I was hesitant to explore any place that wasn’t explicitly diverse and likely welcoming of a Black woman like me. But now it’s a sanctuary for my entire family to lean into ease and exploration.

We first visited Mt. Charleston, and the associated lodge and cabins, in 2020. I was consumed by the news that summer. The total COVID-19 deaths increased to unfathomable numbers each day. While protests in support of Black lives arose in major cities across the country, armed vigilantes banded together to enact their own brand of justice and policing in response. Endless doomscrolling on Twitter ensured that danger was ever-present in my mind. I became hyper-aware of my surroundings and felt unsafe outside of my home, which was feeling more cramped the longer we were isolated. I needed a place where I could feel at ease in my own mind and body, a place removed from the constant terrors on the news. I needed a refuge.

Where does one find that during a viral pandemic when social gatherings are discouraged, social distancing is mandated, and businesses are closed? The outdoors seemed like the safest place. I’ve always felt most connected to myself when in nature. I even started a garden during the pandemic to reclaim my connection to the land. However, the parks in our neighborhood were blocked off by caution tape, enclosed by newly erected chain-link fences. Living in a time of reinvigorated racism in public spaces — in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murders — augmented my need for safety in recreational spaces that historically have been predominantly white, and still are regarded as such, according to research.

Despite closures at many national parks, people were still visiting them. The local news reported an increase in visitors to Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which was already one of the 10 most visited national parks in the country. I didn’t want to go where most people were. I wanted a home away from home, and I found one in the Spring Mountains.

In fall 2020, my family drove to Mt. Charleston to sleep in a cabin and hike the empty trails. Out of caution for COVID-19 and rising discrimination, we avoided visiting the lodge, where most people gathered. Sticking to the outdoors, we marveled at towering ponderosa pines. We inspected fallen logs for insects and wildlife. Breezes softly rattled the golden aspen leaves. We wandered more often.

When we encountered other hikers, I braced myself for curt rebuffs, but the few people we saw smiled sincerely as they greeted us. At night, wrapped in my grandmother’s handmade quilts, I stargazed alone on our cabin’s balcony. My general stress, along with concerns about encountering racial prejudice, faded. Mt. Charleston was the redemptive place I needed. It was inevitable that we would return.

On our spring break trip, we check in and eat a quick lunch, then trek single-file down the road outside the cabins. Tension knots inside me as cars drift past, searching for a place to park. I can’t escape the apprehension crackling in my mind. I’ve been spending too much time reading the news once again. Since social distancing and quarantine ended, public spaces have become a common arena to release pent up frustrations. Anti-Black racism is still on the rise. I don’t want to get caught in the backlash. I need to feel like the world isn’t spinning out of control.

We hang out at a semi-secluded space we found during our second trip here. We build snow castles and decorate them with pine cones and needles while my husband snaps photos. We have a snowball fight that ends in stiff snow angels. We enjoy our little oasis.

For the rest of the trip, while my husband nurses his injury, my daughters and I play in the snow engulfing the site of the former lodge, which burned down in an electrical fire in September 2021. My daughters excavate picnic tables out of the snow and build ice castles. I bask in the cold air and take in the forest view.

Every worry I’ve been holding onto leaches into the environment. Nothing matters except the brisk air caressing my skin, the satisfying crunch of snow underfoot, and my daughters’ laughter buffeting the quietude. I’m distracted by a train of cars circling the roadway overlooking the cabins. They park illegally, and passengers get out to take photos. I wonder if my daughters and I are in them, pixelated against the snow-dusted backdrop. A local police truck arrives, and I hear the whoop-whoop of

sirens followed by a muffled voice on the vehicle’s PA system. The cars leave with the police at the rear, their absence a relief.

Somewhat selfishly, I want the cabins, the mountain itself, to be our place, excluded from the growing popularity I worry will change this area from the healing space that it is. Fewer people on the mountaintop means fewer people clogging the trailheads to take selfies. Less trash frozen to the underside of the cabins in the winter or discarded beanies left roadside. It means less of a chance for the politics and violence of the world that I’m escaping to find their way up here, too. I don’t want to lose a sanctuary that cradles me when I need it. Yet this place can’t be removed from the world around it. The outdoors has always been a respite for a world burdened by hustle.

My idea of sanctuary has to evolve. Mt. Charleston being my refuge doesn’t mean that it can’t be anyone else’s. And as more people search for places to escape the world’s anxieties (or horrors), they’ll find their way up here. Sanctuaries are created spaces, shared spaces. While this space doesn’t fully reflect me — I don’t know when I’ll stop worrying about racial profiling — I’ve begun the slow work of making it more comfortable. Last year during our family trip, my husband and I attended an Oktoberfest celebration at the former lodge site. We drank pints of beer and ate bratwurs t smothered in sauerkraut. We cheered on those who participated in a beer stein-holding contest. For the first time in a while, I was at ease in a community setting. With time, it could be the new norm.

Toward the end of our trip, my sevenyear-old and I scamper across the icy road and trudge up to the gates of Cathedral Rock Trailhead. I take a picture of her perched, legs crossed, and chin held high, atop one of the pillars peeking above the snowpack. A few cars trickle by and slow when they see us. I smile and wave. The sun shines brightly overhead, and the only cold I feel is where the snow has swallowed my shins.

“What should we do now?” my daughter asks. We scan the area and spy a set of sledding tracks cutting through the snow. I’ve only ever heard the sledders’ laughter in the distance while we’ve played outside. The tracks lead up and across the mountainside, where the wild horses roam in spring. My daughter asks if people are up there now. I shrug and suggest we go find out. She nods, and we follow the tracks together.

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Playing now in a neighborhood near you: where to eat out, be entertained, find help, and generally make the most of your side of town

BESTIES: LORRAINE BLANCO MOSS, SARAH BUN, SHIRLEY COHEN-MATTHEW, ANNE DAVIS, KRISTEN DESILVA, ERIC DURAN-VALLE, JASON HARRIS, BRENT HOLMES, BRIANA JOSEPH, HEIDI KNAPP RINELLA, HEIDI KYSER, SCOTT LIEN, MIKE PREVATT, LISSA TOWNSEND RODGERS, GABRIELA RODRIGUEZ, AND PAUL SZYDELKO

ARTS & CULTURE BEST MOVIE DESTINATION THE BEVERLY

E When The Beverly Theater debuted at Sixth and Bonneville earlier this year, cinephiles and art enthusiasts rejoiced. As the new go-to spot for independent film screenings, the versatile structure is a sparkly sight to behold. The theater (with 146 seats on a platform that can be retracted to increase capacity to 500), Segue (jazz) terrace, and courtyard also host live music and literature events. This jewel, the vision of Beverly Rogers of The Rogers Foundation, frequently updates its calendar to give us all something special to anticipate each week. GR thebeverlytheater.com

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BEST ROCK ’N’ROLL LOUNGE BACKSTAGE BAR & BILLIARDS

E Music venues in Las Vegas have seen their share of struggles. But, as we continue to mourn the closing of the Bunkhouse and await the rebirth of the Huntridge Theater, Backstage Bar & Billiards has been keepin’ on keepin’ on. For more than a decade, Triple B has provided a stage and sound system for touring bands and local acts of all genres: K-Pop DJs, Tina Turner tributes, burlesque shows, hip-hop showcases, punk rock gigs. Solid bookings with reasonable ticket prices, relatively inexpensive drinks, and a friendly staff keep its corner of Fremont Street hopping.

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BEST LIVE PERFORMANCE VENUE

THE SMITH CENTER

E That room. Enter it for the hundredth time, and you’re still gobsmacked that our supposedly degenerate boom town boasts such an august performance space. For more than 10 years now, Reynolds Hall has further elevated its house band, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and its resident dance company, the Nevada Ballet Theatre — and provided touring Broadway productions the Vegas home they deserve. Throw in its two adjacent, smaller venues, and you have a cultural complex that both stirs and rewards curiosity. MP thesmithcenter.com

FAMILY & RECREATION BEST PLACE TO GO WHEN YOU’RE BOARD WINCHESTER PARK

E There is something to be said about a park

that not only has the usual amenities of a playground and splash pad, but also a cultural center that hosts a public art gallery, dramatic performances, and creative arts workshops. Winchester Park may be best known for its open-air skate park, though.

While it’s not the biggest in the valley, the combination of hills, raised platforms, and metal railings make it a prime spot to test the limits of your skateboard, scooter, or other non-mechanized wheeled device. EDV parkslocator. clarkcountynv.gov

E Once upon a time independent bookstores were sacred around the valley. Now in the heart of the city, you can find not one, but three excellent indie booksellers, each with its own distinctive qualities. The Writer’s Block (thewritersblock.org) is Downtown’s largest and most elaborate palace of literature, boasting a diligently curated collection of tomes, a theater for intellectual engagements, a café for overcaffeinated speed reading, and just the right amount of

whimsy to keep the seemingly endless stacks from feeling stuffy. Analog Dope (analogdope.com) keeps it so, so real with a crossfade of records and readables that cater to the experiences and ideations of the African diaspora. It’s hard to find a spot where one can pick up D’Angelo on wax and bell hooks (pen name of Gloria Jean Watkins) on paper, but this shop’s got chu. As a vibrant new addition to the scene, Analog Dope is the place to cultivate new forms

of Ase. The more adventurous can find page-turners of all kinds at Avantpop (avantpopbooks.com). It’s part small press publishing radical local works and part used bookstore. If you’re looking for eclectic and esoteric, this is the best game in town. Oddities such as Ayurvedic vampire yoga commingle with sci-fi standards by Philip K. Dick, just to get side-eyed by a shelf of Bukowskis. You never know what you’ll find, and that’s a great thing. BH

THESE DOWNTOWN BOOKSTORES OFFER A REFUGE TO DREAM, DISCOVER, AND JUST BE

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The Smith Center

FOOD & BEVERAGE  BEST LOW-KEY DRAG BAR BADLANDS

E Drag shows in Las Vegas often require an investment of time and money in casino showroom tickets or a bottomless mimosa brunch. But if you just want to whoop it up in a bar with some drinking and lip-synching, Badlands has been doing it for decades. There are nights that feature a half-dozen diva turns — an homage to Nicki Minaj, ersatz Adele. Other evenings lean into variety acts or trivia competitions, while some afternoons might offer bingo or show tunes with your day drinking. Just remember: No cover means tip more! LTR badlandsbarlv.com

BEST STONE CRABS DURING THE SEASON SIEGEL’S 1941

E Sure, Florida refugees and other stone-crab lovers can get the coveted crustaceans yearround on the Strip, at premium prices. But for a comparatively affordable experience — with authentic seasonal availability — they go to the retro restaurant at El Cortez between mid-October and the beginning of May. The crabs are priced higher than the $8.95 all-you-can-eat we remember on Chokoloskee Island in the late ’70s, but then so much about the ’70s is foggy … HKR elcortezhotelcasino.com

BEST POP-UP FRIED CHICKEN FRY DAY BY THE TODDY SHOP

INDIAN FRIED

CHICKEN

E While I still remember Hemant Kishore’s Queen Karimeen, a fish he cooked in the back of a dive bar, he’s now making new dishes to dream about. His fried chicken pop-up occurs bimonthly, every second and fourth Friday, at The Parlour Coffee & Cooking. Order ahead, because

he limits amounts. And order everything. Tandoori fried chicken is Kishore’s mashup of classic tandoori flavors and southern fried chicken. Trivandrum fried chicken is a tribute to the street food in his hometown in India. And don’t forget the sides — ghee rice, cauliflower Manchurian, and black garbanzo bean salad round out this singular meal. JH instagram. com/toddyshopusa

BEST BUZZY AFTERDINNER DRINK

DARK OF NIGHT

E It tastes like a naughty Andes Mint, and the jolt will help you stay up to enjoy all the delights of Downtown. The Dark of Night at Main St. Provisions is the ultimate espresso martini with Ketel One, New Deal Dark Chocolate Vodka, Kahlúa Blonde, Branca Menta, and espresso. It strikes a nice balance of strong and sweet, like the perfect partner. That’s why I keep going back. LBM mainstprovisions.com

SHOPS & SERVICES

BEST THRIFT AND SECONDHAND STORE

ALT REBEL

E We’re living in a world where it’s become easy to accidentally morph into a fast-fashion walking mannequin. For the cool and money-savvy, shopping secondhand is the only way to go. ALT Rebel is an

unfailingly reliable resource to uncover special pieces to add to your wardrobe. Be patient sifting through the racks and shelves in this Arts District gem because good things take time. GR alt-rebel.com

BEST WARM HUG IN A BOTTLE MIKE’S RECOVERY AT FERGUSONS

E Nonbelievers of aromatherapy: I understand. But let me change your mind. When my dad died in 2020, not much could comfort me. A care package from a friend included bath soaks from Mike’s Recovery, and I used them (not exaggerating) every single day for two weeks. His blends turned every bath into a much-needed warm hug. When I restocked, I shared this with Mike, who responded so kindly when I told him why I sought out his products that I refuse to use anything else to this day. His lines include soaks, soaps, and other wellness products with a

variety of scent blends and suggested uses. His oils are carefully composed to consider the body and mind, proving Mike to be a true master of his craft. KDS mikesrecovery.com

BEST STAYCATION FOR HISTORY BUFFS EL CORTEZ HOTEL & CASINO, ORIGINAL 47

E I’m not even a mid-mod fan, and I swooned on a tour of El Cortez’s Original 47, the hotel’s first room block, built in 1941. In the recent renovation, designers struck a sweet balance of contemporary comforts and period-appropriate furnishings. The wing also includes the Speakeasy Barbershop and (if you can get access) a balcony with an amazing view of Fremont Street. The casino houses more nostalgia — vintage slot machines, the Parlour Bar, and the new History Hallway, showcasing photos from the early 20th century to today. HK elcortezhotelcasino.com

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ARTS & CULTURE:  BEST GETTING IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME LEFT OF CENTER GALLERY

E Vicki Richardson has shown art at Left of Center gallery for more than 30 years. In that time, in Las Vegas’ broader arts scene, at least three proposed fine art museums have failed to materialize. With a rotating set of excellent exhibitions, a community workshop, and the largest collection of African artifacts in Southern Nevada, Left of Center has been doing right by the arts longer

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than many of our most successful creatives have been making art. BH leftofcenterart.org

FAMILY & RECREATION:  MOST CENTRAL PARK-LIKE PARK CRAIG RANCH REGIONAL PARK

E This park isn’t even in my neighborhood, and I still go there on a regular. That’s because the 170-acre green space is an exceptional hub for all sorts of urban recreation — competitive sports on the courts and ball fields, outdoor entertainment in the amphitheater, and even growing

BEST PLACE TO GET A NO-FRILLS BURGER

HAMBURGER HUT

E Some special joy is in a good burger. Not a gastronomic travesty of a truffle-aioli Wagyu brioche bun with a slab of smoked pork belly and a runny egg on top. Rather, just a simple, perfectly undistinguished ground beef burger. Hamburger Hut’s ½ Pound Super Hut is just that. The place has generational staying power and classic flavor at a price point that anyone can afford. BH hamburgerhutlv.com

Hamburger Hut

your own veggies in the community garden. I go there for bike rides (the Lower Las Vegas Wash Trail connects to it) and dog exercise (there are both a dog park and extensive walking trails), but there are also plenty kid-play options. Pro tip: Leave the geese alone! HK facebook.com/ craigranchregionalpark

BEST FAMILY EVENT YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT FUTURE STARS OF WRESTLING

E “This! Is! Awesome!” For wrestling fans, you know the chants. You know the crowd’s hunger for higher jumps, bigger flips, harder suplexes. Our local promotion, Future Stars of Wrestling (FSW), has been in Las Vegas for 14 years now, showcasing the best of backbreaking local talent. Find many of its events at Silver Nugget with crowds of all ages. You don’t need to be a fan going in, but you’ll likely walk away wanting more. KDS fswvegas.com

BEST CINEPLEX MAYA CINEMAS

E I’d been hearing about how great this place was since it opened, and now I know why. It’s in a convenient stand-

alone building with dedicated parking and packed with amenities: a bar for adults, arcade for kids, and restaurant-style seating area where you can eat if actually noshing during a film isn’t your thing. The movie I saw (No Hard Feelings) filled the screen perfectly, the tacos were great (and reasonably priced), and the BarcaLounger-like seats were the most comfortable in town. Perhaps the best thing was the Spanish subtitles, which allowed my date and I to practice our language skills while being entertained! HK mayacinemas.com

SHOPS & SERVICES:  BEST PLACE FOR THE ASPIRING PREPPER HAHN’S WORLD OF SURPLUS & SURVIVAL

E Long before REI, if you needed camping gear in Vegas, you went to Hahn’s. In the ’70s when the store was primarily military overstock, my dad outfitted me with a pack, mess kit, and canteen for a Scouts outing. In the ’80s, I augmented my wardrobe with a green army jacket, popular with my contemporaries. Today I go there to bolster my cache of overlanding supplies and for the sheer nostalgia of perusing Hahn’s shelves overstuffed with hiking and camping gear, survival gear, military collectibles, and an abundance of curiosities. SL hahnssurvival.com

BEST EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE BROADACRES  MARKETPLACE

E Stepping through the turnstile you hear echoes of banda in the distance, while the smell of deeply spiced, seared meat mingles with that of funnel cake, beer, and fruit. You turn left down an aisle, and tables and blankets

Future Stars of Wrestling

pushed up against one another blur into one long string of objects. Is that a baby bottle?

A socket wrench?

Every power tool you’ve ever desired?

Those new Jordans (okay, maybe not that new)? A cowboy hat?

Henderson

{ + Green Valley • Anthem • Boulder City }

ARTS & CULTURE: BEST PLACE TO GET INDOCTRINATED INTO ORCHESTRA CULTURE

HENDERSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

FOOD & BEVERAGE:  BEST PLACE FOR GRACEFUL AGING 138°

A bullwhip? Your mind reels at the possibilities, each vendor a tapestry of commerce, an explosion of stuff. You settle on an old coin from 1924, a couple of delicious tacos, and a stuffed animal from

some YouTube cartoon with which your eight-year-old is obsessed, then wash it all down with a michelada as the banda plays on. BH instagram.com/ broadacresmarketplace

E Purists may have a bad feeling about this, but the Henderson Symphony Orchestra’s collaboration with Disney Concerts was for everyone else. The orchestra performed John Williams’ score for a screening of The Empire Strikes Back at Dollar Loan Center in a May the Fourth event attended by 3,000, many in costumes. Eschewing a lightsaber as a baton, music and artistic director Alexandra Arrieche conducted. The evening was a fun portal for their families to enjoy live music in a casual venue. PS hendersonsymphonynv.org

E Aged meats are old news in Las Vegas — at least aged beef, found at virtually every steakhouse on and off the Strip. But at his Henderson chophouse, Matt Meyer goes a few steps further, dry-aging not only beef (much of it sourced in Nevada) but also duck, pork, and fish, mellowing the flavor and drying the skin to promote crispiness (duck), adding a sort of beefy funkiness (pork), and concentrating flavor, maintaining moisture, and removing overly strong aromas (fish), rendering all three unlike any you’ve had before. HKR 138restaurant.com

Las Vegas is spoiled when it comes to coffee, but my first pick for a cup of Joe is Vesta Coffee Roasters downtown. Jerad Howard’s Vesta ushered in a new era of downtown specialty coffee shops after its opening in 2016. My advice? Try everything on the seasonal menu, take home a bag of its blends, and always get the soup. Howard recommended downtown neighbor PublicUs and Dark Moon Coffee Roasters out in Henderson; the latter, he notes, buys great coffee and roasts it well. Kyle Porterfield, owner of Dark Moon, says they pick up coffee from local e-commerce brand Luminous, which roasts out of its facility. “We love to support the community that supports us!” he says. This includes Savor Coffee, where I talked to owner Veronica Degefu. Her bright and modern shop adjacent to Sunset Park makes its syrups in house, including lavender, honey vanilla, snickerdoodle, and blueberry basil. Degefu sent me over to Sunrise Coffee, near the northern border of the park, for its butterbeer latte. Owners Juanny Romero and Josh Walter also own Mothership Coffee Roasters. Sunrise is the longest-running independent coffee shop in Las Vegas (since 2008), so it feels fitting to end this journey here. —KDS

FOOD & BEVERAGE:  BEST OLD-SCHOOL, AUTHENTIC WINGS JOHNNY MAC’S SPORTS BAR & GRILL

E We miss their wings with watermelon barbecue sauce, which were just the right balance of sweet and spicy, piquant, and tame. Still, these are the real thing (John McGinty himself hails from Buffalo, after all), meaty and shatteringly crisp, and they’re available in eight other flavors, including suicide and garlic-Parmesan. This 40-year-old Henderson spot with brick walls, a massive buffalo head, and sports on TV is also known for pizzas, burgers, subs and salads. HKR johnnymacswings.com

SHOPS & SERVICES:  BEST RETREAT FOR A FULL-BODY RECHARGE NOW MASSAGE

E The layout makes it more of a sanctuary than a spa. Throw in some bohemian decor, soothing sounds of the ocean, and the faint scent of jasmine, and this becomes the refuge you had been seeking. Enjoy the serenity of a massage package with aromatherapy and facial treatment before you inevitably return to the city’s hustle and bustle. BJ thenowmassage.com/ henderson

BEST DESERT JUNGLE OASIS BOTANY

E Nestled in our barren, arid valley is an oasis of luscious tropical greenery.

The greenhouse features a diverse collection of flora and fauna, but this is so much more than your typical plant shop. Sheep bleat in the back, dogs frolic around, and koi fish (which are available for purchase) glide in the pond while you search for your new plant pick-up. And for anyone with a less-than-green thumb, Botany offers plant rentals and maintenance services. Plant lovers unite every month for the Half Moon Market, which features local vendors and community activities. BJ botanylv.com

BEST PLACE TO SPARK YOUR CREATIVITY DESERT ART SUPPLIES

E In one of Green Valley’s oldest strip malls, Desert Art Supplies has served the creative commu-

nity for years. This supply depot long predates the mega-mart — the original location opened on Charleston Boulevard 66 years ago. Spools of canvas, rolls of velum, and papers of every imaginable weight and tooth fill the narrow aisles. Metal shelves explode with utensils for sketching, painting, drafting, printing, carving, and molding along with inks, paints, and dyes in a dizzying array of hues and chemical composition. You’ll find polymers, clays, and curious shapes and lengths of wood, metals, and plastic. While you won’t score a pair of socks or tonight’s dinner, you can walk out with a pica pole (look it up) and Letraset transfer type — while supplies last. SL

desertartsupplies.com

ROAM ON THE WILD SIDE AT THESE OUTDOOR EDUCATIONAL SPOTS

E Henderson’s family-friendly reputation is no coincidence — take its abundance of parks and other outdoor spaces. Perhaps the best-known, and tastiest, spot for kids — and kids at heart — is the Ethel M. Botanical Garden (ethelm. com), attached to the famous chocolate factory, which allows visitors to meander among more than 300 species of towering cacti. Another all-ages favorite is Wetlands Park (clarkcountynv.gov). Bike one of the all-levels trails, visit the immersive exhibit gallery, or spend a quiet morning watching for herons, ducks, egrets, and songbirds around the streams of water that flow year-round. And farther south, Boulder City’s Hemenway Park (bcnv.org/facilities) is a panoramic option for families hoping to interact with nature. The long drive is worth it: The park boasts spectacular views of Lake Mead (even in its depressingly diminished state) and roaming desert bighorn sheep you simply can’t see anywhere else. AD

Ethel M. Botanical Garden

ARTS & CULTURE:

BEST CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM MARJORIE BARRICK MUSEUM OF ART

E While social media continues to bemoan our lack of a metropolitan art museum, the Barrick has been quietly showing exhibits — usually by local artists — that you’d find in just such a place. Furthermore, its curative focus on community-first art reflective of marginalized communities bears similarities to that of other university and urban museums in the Southwest.

With as many as six exhibits going at any given time, there’s no such thing as downtime at the hardest-working art space in the desert. MP unlv.edu/ barrickmuseum

BEST CONCERT VENUE TO THROW A STRIKE BROOKLYN BOWL

E No music hall with a bowling alley should be this inviting. But it works. In fact, bowling while bands play behind you somehow works, too. Frankly, we have willed it to

work because no other music venue in town — even in the neon saturnalia that is the Strip — aims to have as joyous a music experience, or as diverse a booking calendar, as this concert space in the Linq Promenade. And if they will book it, we will come. And dance. And quite possibly bowl. MP brooklynbowl.com/ las-vegas

BEST NEW STRIP SHOW MAD APPLE

E Gone are the days when several ambitious production shows would debut annually on the Strip. Who has that kind of dough anymore?

Having escaped bankruptcy itself, Cirque du Soleil

sought to avoid another R.U.N-sized flop and settled on a variety show light on stage production and heavy on old-school entertainment

— vaudevillian comedy and a few music performances flecked with the athletic derring-do long associated with the Quebec company. That’s hardly a slam-dunk elevator pitch, but in modern-day Vegas, it does the trick nicely. Mostly because it’s legitimately funny, and man, do we need a laugh. MP cirquedusoleil.com/ mad-apple

BEST PLACE TO GO AROUND IN CIRCLES SKATE ROCK CITY

E Thanks to the revival of retro activities through shows such as “Stranger Things,” roller skating has gotten a huge boost in popularity. Don’t believe me? Try to keep count of how many Hellfire Club shirts you see next time you go. For just $20 ($15 if you’ve got your own skates), a few

laps around Skate Rock City easily turns into a cyclical reverie of nostalgia. Even if you find yourself occasionally falling, it’s hard not to have fun with a DJ keeping the vibes right, groovy overhead lights, and the sound of hundreds of wheels rolling together in harmony. EDV skaterockcity.com

FAMILY & RECREATION:  BEST CLASSIC COMMUNITY THEATER

JUDY BAYLEY THEATRE

E Although it opened 51 years ago, UNLV’s Judy Bayley Theatre is still the best venue to catch community-oriented music and theater productions. Initially acting as home base for the nascent Nevada Ballet Theatre, the building’s stage now hosts the Nevada Conservatory Theatre, as well as many of Opera Las Vegas’ performances. Popular shows tend to sell out the 550 seats, so if the next opera or musical piques your interest, jump on it! AD unlv.edu/maps/jbt

{ + Silverado Ranch } ETHEL M. BOTANICAL GARDEN: SCOTT LIEN, MAD APPLE: COURTESY CIRQUE DU SOLEIL, BARRICK MUSEUM OF ART: SCOTT LIEN

Mad Apple

Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art

BEST TASTE OF

DISNEY

IN

LAS

VEGAS FLYOVER

E Twenty years after Disney California

Adventure Park’s ride

Soarin’ Over California began offering audiences the experience of flight, Pursuit created its own version. At the Showcase Mall, find FlyOver Las Vegas, currently gliding over the American West (which took 100 hours of filming), Iceland, or the Canadian Rockies. Strapped in their seats and their feet dangling, guests feel “six degrees of motion,” mists, and scents immersed in front of an 8K, spherical, 52-foot screen. KDS flyoverlasvegas.com

FOOD & BEVERAGE:

BEST TASTING MENU

BAZAAR MEAT

E José Andrés offers two tasting menus: “José’s Way” and “Ultimate,” both with

at least a dozen different dishes, from land and sea, both traditional and experimental. Foie gras is transformed into a fluff of “cotton candy,” and “olives” are liquid-filled spheres that pop in your mouth. The steak tartare is a spot-on rendition of the classic dish. Served with the main courses, the potato puree, described on the menu as “butter, butter, more butter, some potatoes,” is the comfort food you wish your mama made. LTR thebazaar.com

SHOPS & SERVICES:

BEST SOLUTION FOR AN IDENTITY CRISIS

HOTBOX SALON

E Too many times have I been desperate for a makeover, only to end up with a new DIY-do with uneven bangs and splotchy highlights. Learn from my mistakes: If you’re in crisis, trust the

professionals. This salon has been reinventing locals through the magic of styling since 2006. Never suffer through another bad hair day. Get a complete chop, funky color, unique braid design, or texture treatment from stylists who are determined to make you feel more like yourself. BJ hotboxsalon.com

BEST PLACE TO BE A GYM RAT FIT CLUB LV

E This gym is a flex, embodied. Fit Club LV is unapologetically flashy with its retro Miami Beach aesthetic that nods to the golden era of bodybuilding. Get a workout here that will leave you glowing as bright as the neon ceiling. Ultimate fitness enthusiasts will enjoy the pump with elite equipment and trainers that you won’t find at just any gym. It’s a vibe. BJ fitclubvegas.com

BEST PLACE TO OUTFIT YOUR INNER WEDNESDAY ADAMS CASH 4 CHAOS

E If you want to get far, far from Target and the Gap, both aesthetically and geographically, there’s Cash 4 Chaos. Open since 1998 (just a decade after Hot Topic, thanks), the shop carries a full complement of bondage pants and brocade corsets, as well as bowling shirts and pinup-style wiggle dresses. If you need to restock your T-shirts, Cash 4 Chaos carries an assortment of twofor-$20 tees emblazoned with punk bands such as the Misfits, rock icons such as David Bowie, or one of goth’s three graces — Morticia, Vampira, Elvira. A small but well-curated selection of vinyl and monster movie/vintage Halloween tchotchkes also make for promising gifts, although whether that treat is for yourself or someone else is up to you. LTR cash4chaos.com

BEST SPIRITUAL SHOP THE REALMS WITHIN

E Although light on literature, the Realms Within makes up for it in atmosphere and style. For your spiritual objectivist cravings: All manner of chakra stones and divining utensils can be obtained. It also provides an expansive events calendar with sound baths and meditation circles. Services include reiki, shamanic reiki, and past-life regression meditation. The Realms Within vibes high among similar shops. BH therealmswithin.com

BEST LAST-MINUTE APOLOGY WHISPERS + HONEY

E Admittedly, I’ve forgotten many a birthday, anniversary, or Hallmark-inspired holiday. But in my absentmindedness, I have learned that flowers solve every-

thing. This florist offers same-day delivery all over the valley, so it’s a lifesaver (and relationship-saver). Its selection includes everything from flowers and succulents to candles and soaking salts. A handcrafted arrangement is the perfect way to tell your loved one, “I’m thinking of you,” even if they actually slipped your mind. BJ whispersandhoney.com

Enterprise

ARTS & CULTURE: BEST MAGICAL NIGHT OUT SUPER SUMMER THEATRE

E There’s something glorious about being entertained while sprawled out on the grass. Maybe you’ve taken your kids to see a Pixar film on the lawn at The District at Green Valley. But there’s something equally special happening at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park every summer: live theater. And we’re not talking about some austere Mamet or Miller production. Super Summer Theatre churns out large-scale and locally cast Broadway-inspired musicals, casting a net as wide as the mountain range that its stage faces. And it’s not flinching

at anti-woke hysteria, either; 2023’s season includes the gender-fluid celebration that is Kinky Boots. Singing under the stars has rarely felt so fabulous. MP supersummertheatre.org

FAMILY & RECREATION:  BEST LUNCHTIME OR AFTER-WORK HIKE EXPLORATION PEAK

E Down at the southern tip of Buffalo Drive, just after the entrance to Mountain’s Edge, a rolling 80-acre park with a quick-but-stout little jaunt is perfect for either midday energizing or end-ofday de-stressing. The entire trail is slightly less than one mile, but it includes almost 200 feet of elevation gain and tops out at 2,846 feet, offering a

spectacular view of the Las Vegas Valley in just a 30-minute (total) trek. HK parkslocator. clarkcountynv.gov

FOOD & BEVERAGE:

BEST UPSCALE

ITALIAN LOCALE

ITALIAN KITCHEN

E Locale Italian Kitchen embraces both its Italian tradition and its Las Vegas location with a mixture of pastas and big meats. You can get linguine alfredo or rigatoni bolognese, but also a tomahawk steak for two — or something that combines the flavors of Sin City and the Eternal City, like a Wagyu meatball or short-rib tortellini. You can do multicourse fine dining or get a pizza and salads. There’s also an extensive cocktail menu, including a basil-inflected old fashioned and one of the city’s best espresso martinis. With seasonal prix fix menus, Sunday

brunch, and an ongoing happy hour in the bar, Locale has something for everyone. LTR localelv.com

BEST DINNER WITH WILDLIFE COTTONWOOD STATION

The Cleveland visitors, bored with the Strip, wanted to get outdoors before their evening flight. A quick tour of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area was in order, followed by al fresco dinner in Blue Diamond. With my back to the parking lot, I was explaining that one could sometimes see wild horses nearby and, more frequently, wild burros. “Is that one in the parking lot?” asked the woman facing me. Well, yes; yes, it was. We saw six or eight more on the way out of town — fresh images just in time for their return to the Midwest. HKR cottonwoodstationeatery.com

We’ll start at The Silver Stamp, a two-year-old beer bar in downtown Las Vegas. At the helm of this throwback, Midwestern basement-style bar is Rose Signor and Andrew Smith, who’ve racked up accolades for their impressive selection and immaculate vibes. Signor and Smith sent me to Khoury’s Fine Wine & Spirits in Silverado Ranch, with wine by the glass or 20 beers on tap in their lounge, as well as a large selection of bottled beverages. “We tend to gravitate to the lighter and hoppier beer styles on their rotating draft list, but love splitting sour bottles with friends from their expansive bottle shop,” Smith says. From there, hop over to Henderson or back Downtown for CraftHaus Brewery, which Khoury’s owner Issa Khoury picked for its Czech Pils or Hop Vegas West Coast IPA. Then remember this name, because you’ll see it again: Rebellion Pizza, where CraftHaus owners Dave and Wyndee Forrest sent me, saying, “They are as passionate about their craft beer program as they are about their super tasty pizza.” Lastly, Rebellion co-owner Ricky Lewis added to those already mentioned the Downtown spots SerVehZah, Horse Trailer Hideout and Able Baker Brewing. “It’s been a great time to support other friends with their great concepts,” Lewis says. KDS

{ + Southern Highlands • Blue Diamond }

INDUSTRY KNOWS BEST

A chain of recommendations, from those in the know ...

BEST FROYO WITH THE LITTLES POPPY’S

E Poppy’s frozen yogurt shop has been a Mountain’s Edge staple for 13 years. With a cow-shaped bench outside and props for taking pictures, it elicited from my six-year-old a hearty “wwwhoooaaaa!” upon entering. Poppy’s serves eight flavors of frozen yogurt, more than 20 flavors of Thrifty ice cream and plenty of topping options. They also make ice cream cakes in-house, chocolate-dipped frozen bananas, and fresh donuts. And it has a kid-sized table and chairs, coloring pages, and a TV playing children’s movies. SCM poppysfroyo.com

SHOPS & SERVICES:  BEST PLACE TO GET FLEXIBLE STRETCHLAB

E I’m terrible about stretching. I know I’m supposed to do it, especially after workouts, but I don’t do

it enough. StretchLab provides one-on-one assisted stretching. For 25 or 55 minutes, a “flexologist” contorts your limbs for maximum pliability. They customize each session to focus on whatever your body needs now. Sometimes it gets a little intense, but when you’re done, you’ll feel like a happy rubber band. LBM stretchlab.com

BEST INSTAWORTHY CLOSET HAUTE CHIX

E If you’re in need of a thorough wardrobe overhaul, this is a one-stop shop for a new ultra-chic look. Every piece is hand-selected, and the store offers only the trendiest looks for all occasions. But beyond that, this boutique is a place for inspiration. Owned and operated by women of color, Haute Chix caters to women of all ages and backgrounds to bring style into their lives. BJ hautechixvegas.com

Spring Valley { +

Asia Town }

ARTS & CULTURE:

BEST JAZZ CLUB

MAXAN JAZZ

E The historic musical legacy of Las Vegas should mandate a large complement of jazz clubs. Among the actual few we have, one sits comfortably in the shadows of the Strip: Maxan Jazz, a righteous newcomer near Chinatown that balances tastefulness with tastiness (its culinary focus is sushi, and it’s no gimmick). More importantly: It gives local players an elegant space with an intimacy that discourages chatter. Whether it’s a vocalist showcase or a post-bop trio, your jazz needs will be met here. MP maxanjazz.com

FAMILY & RECREATION:  BEST PLACE TO RECREATE ON ICE

LAS VEGAS ICE CENTER

E I get it, ice-skating can be scary: Falling and embarrassing ourselves can ruin a perfectly good skate sesh. However, the Las Vegas Ice Center’s daily public skating times allay this fear enough for me to actually enjoy the experience. Music videos play on a big screen, and LED party lights lend a fun, unintimidating vibe. It’s ridiculously affordable at $15 for two hours on the ice, which makes it my top spot for staying active (and cool) year-round. AD lasvegasice.com

EXIT SPRING MOUNTAIN FOR FOODIE FINDS

E You can spend a whole day eating amazing food in Chinatown. This is how I’d spend my day here. Dim Sum in the morning makes my little heart go pitter-patter. And for a true OG experience, head to O-G, Orchids Garden (orchidsgardenrestaurant.com). Its shuimai and har gow are among the best in Vegas. You can discern the quality of dumplings by the texture of the noodle skin, and it’s impressive here. Next stop: snacks! Half Bird Chicken & Beer (halfbird.com) is a fast-casual frying up crunchy little chicken bites called “nuggs,” and they’re bomb! Dip them in any of the seven sauces such as yuzu hot honey or sweet miso bbq. For dessert, hit up Somi Somi (somisomi.com), where frozen treats are stuffed in fish-shaped waffle cones. The cone tastes like a cake, and the cream is soft-serve style with Asian flavors such as ube, matcha, and black sesame. In Korean, they call the dessert ahboong; in Japanese, it’s taiyaki. I call it delectable. LBM

Half Bird

BEST ARCADE FOR HYPER-DETERMINED PEOPLE

THE CLAW

Stepping into The Claw is like a shock to your system (in the best way). The overhead lighting illuminates the pastel pink and purple hues of the claw machines and showcases the trapped plushies that are begging to be saved. It’s tough to resist your hand at the claw amid the blasting K-Pop, flashing lights, and excited gasps from other players. GR instagram.com/ theclawusa

FOOD & BEVERAGE:

BEST HAPPY HOUR

MÁS POR FAVOR

E Happy hour is supposed to be an escape, and the Dia de los Tiki-styled secret bar at Más Por Favor

certainly does feel like a getaway. From 3 to 6 p.m., seven days a week, you can slip down a hallway, slide into a hidden door, and saunter up to the bar. There are discounts on margaritas, beers, and selected cocktails, as well as a variety of street tacos and other bites — and tequila

flights, if you want your hour to be really happy. And you can always pick up a few tacos to go on the way out in case anyone at home asks why you’re a little late. LTR masporfavorlv.com

BEST CHILL BBQ EXPERIENCE

MABEL’S BBQ

E Sure, it was celebrity chef Michael Symon’s name that propelled me to head to his modern sports BBQ

bar, but it was the food that left my taste buds wanting more. After reopening in 2022, it has a slightly new menu. Its classics — brisket, pulled pork, and ribs — are what barbecue is all about. Go ahead and slather with Mabel’s Memphis dry rub or Cleveland mustard. With the succulent fat that gives the meats a propulsion of flavor, the waffle fries, poppy coleslaw, pickles — lots of them — round out the meal nicely in your mouth. SB mabelsbbqvegas.com

BEST BAKERY TO GET YOUR

TIRAMISU FIX

SUZUYA PATISSERIE

E Once tucked behind a gas station on Durango, Suzuya Patisserie was so hidden it evaded GPS radar. Even those in the know had to call for directions. Led by chef Misuzu Ebihara, the bakery relocated in 2020 and now dominates on Buffalo and Warm Springs. The strawberry shortcake remains a bestseller,

but the tiramisu is nothing short of amazing. Misuzu marries the Italian dessert with millecrepe, a treat invented in Japan, inspired by the French crêpe. Meticulous layers of crêpe are sandwiched between mascarpone and marsala wine (no rum), giving this cake-style dessert a delicate blend of classic tiramisu flavors. It’s a made-toorder, hybrid dessert that puts the bakery on the map. SB suzuyapatisserie.com

SHOPS & SERVICES:

BEST CIRCUS WORKOUT EXPERIENCE

SHINE ALTERNATIVE FITNESS

E At some point, we’ve all had the fantasy of escaping the real world and joining a circus. (No? Just me?) This gym turns dreams into reality with an artistic fitness perfect for expressing your inner child. Enjoy an elevated exercise in aerial silks, lyra, and pole dance classes. And this is a judg-

ment-free zone for adults who want to learn tumbling skills and basic acrobatics. Don’t let all the flips and flair fool you … this is still a workout. But who says fitness can’t be fun? BJ shinealternativefitness.com

BEST CANDLE SHOP SPEAKEASY CANDLE CO.

E There are many experiences, most of them pleasurable (and some requiring “protection”!) that one can have with cocktails and candles. At the Speakeasy Candle Co., a different angle on candles and cocktails can be explored. This luxurious lounge space is loaded with scents and sips. Mixing drinks and a candle-pouring class might seem unusual, but they go together like lemon and rosemary. You can customize your scents while tippling to your heart’s content. BH speakeasycandleco.com

Maxan Jazz

Mabel’s BBQ Más Por Favor

Las Vegas

{ + West Las Vegas • Historic Westside }

ARTS & CULTURE:

BEST LGBTQ+ HANG THE PHOENIX

E The stereotypes for gay bars end here, an establishment identifiable to passersby for its fiery Gear Duran murals. Inside Las Vegas’ most colorful alternative bar, you’ll find a genuinely inclusive representation of Las Vegas, queer and straight. The Phoenix is that rare venue that offers something for everyone, including cleverly themed dance parties for revelers, drag shows for live-entertainment seekers, video and tabletop games for friendly competitors, and even Golden Knights watch parties. A kitchen expounds upon traditional bar fare and, much like the drinks, it’s all gentle on the wallet. MP facebook.com/ thephoenixlv

BEST NEW GALLERY THIRTYTHREE GALLERY

E Artist Chase McCurdy expanded his studio practice with intention and passion in both its programs and its location, in the Historic Westside, to create a space for community and growth. The gallery houses teaching, conversation, and the creation of intergen-

erational art made by the community. With monthly slammin’ Saturday game nights and its first showing of contemporary artists originating in the Historic Westside (dubbed Black Kings), 33.G gives new promise to a community in rebirth. BH thirtythreegallery.com

BEST PLACE TO INTRODUCE KIDS TO AFRICAN DANCE WEST LAS VEGAS ARTS CENTER

E A Saturday morning at the West Las Vegas Arts Center is

time well-spent. Bass plays through the dance studio as any number of workshops begin, and the youth African drumming classes generate their own cacophony. On a cool afternoon you can catch African dance being practiced in the adjacent park, while youth chess and a recording studio keep the center active throughout the week. And just like that, so many brilliant creative practices are born out of this space. BH lasvegasnevada. gov/residents/ parks-facilities/ west-las-vegasarts-center

FAMILY & RECREATION:

BEST MUSEUM

NEVADA STATE

E The Nevada State Museum isn’t large, but it manages to pack in the full range of our state’s history. There’s everything from a woolly mammoth’s skeleton to a silver miner’s tools, a Washoe weaver’s baskets to a showgirl’s feathered headdress. The extensive costume collection, containing everything from socialites’ couturier gowns to Bob Mackie headliner costumes to Folies Bergère showgirl spangles, could be a museum in itself. Temporary exhibits have ranged from motorcycles to wedding dresses to vintage technology (think telegraphs and, um, telephones). Currently on display is “Liberace: Real and Beyond” (see p. 37.), a collection of the legendary entertainer’s cars, costumes, and candelabras. LTR lasvegasnvmuseum.org

BEST PUBLIC FACILITY SAHARA

WEST LIBRARY

E The Sahara West Library is more than just a place to circulate literature. It’s a true haven for the community, with boundless workshops and other free programs. A spacious art gallery showcases paintings, photography, and local pottery. The used bookstore is invaluable to find new reads, and countless books and games fill the kids section upstairs. GR thelibrarydistrict. org/locations/sw

BEST CARNIVAL SUBSTITUTE CIRCUS CIRCUS MIDWAY

E Circus Circus challenges the stereotypical belief that Las Vegas is not fit for kids. Those who grew up here are certainly familiar with the hyper carnival-themed facility. Hundreds of games, old and new, are yours to play until it’s time to watch one of the daily free shows in the center of the Midway, and these trapeze performers will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end. GR circuscircus.com

FOOD & BEVERAGE:

BEST LUNCH DEAL

BENTO AT OSAKA

E In a city of flamboyance, Osaka

Japanese Bistro reminds us that low-key can also be delicious. An astonishing array of sushi rolls, teppanyaki grill specialties, and a late-night menu feed both the gourmand and the party animal. But the best deal is the lunch bento. For less than $15, you’ll be filled up. First choose the A or B variation — the former with pickled and cooked vegetables, seaweed

salad, and an omelet; the latter with green salad, gyoza, and a roll. Then choose from nine proteins, including beef teriyaki, chicken katsu, and broiled eel. For a few dollars more, you can add another protein or a sushi roll and leave yourself with leftovers. LTR lasvegas-sushi.com

BEST DELI FOR YOUR MATZO BALL FIX

BAGEL CAFÉ

E If you’re feeling a bit out of sorts , physically or mentally, there’s something about chicken soup with a big, round matzo ball that turns it around. When I think about this soup, I crave it immediately. Always grab a few of the top-notch bagels to dunk and/or to enjoy with a schmear in the morning. This New York-style deli is always crazy busy, but you’d be crazy

Pizza

not to wait for the best comfort soup in the valley. LBM  thebagelcafelv.com

SHOPS & SERVICES:

BEST COMMUNITY GARDEN OBODO COLLECTIVE

E The Obodo Collective is creating new growth in the Historic Westside. Executive director Tameka Henry has built a Black women-run nonprofit with a mission to combat generational poverty, and they doin’ it from a garden y’all. Green things propagate well when tended to with care, just like communities. This half-acre plot educates, uplifts, and serves as home to two of the Westside’s growing mural collections. If you want to be involved with change starting at its roots, this is the garden you’ve been waiting for. (Read more about Obodo on p. 28.) BH obodocollective.org

ARTS & CULTURE:  BEST COMMUNITY YOUTH DANCE

PROGRAM NEVADA

BALLET THEATRE

E The Academy of Nevada Ballet Theatre offers classes for students from 18 months to 18 years — including Me & Mum, Ballet ’n’ Play, Pointe, and Partnering. Classes are in the company’s spacious, airy complex in Summerlin, where young dancers perfect their craft. For dancers interested in furthering their training, NBT II is a program for dancers 17-21 to work toward a professional career while performing in The Nutcracker and other company productions. They also work with students in the Clark County School District as part of NBT’s community outreach program,

helping create the next generation of dancers — and audiences. LTR nevadaballet.org

FAMILY & RECREATION:  BEST QUIET REFLECTION SPOT WARSAW GHETTO REMEMBRANCE GARDEN

Tucked behind one of Summerlin’s synagogues is a small, gated courtyard with 10-foot walls, upon which is engraved the following verse from the Torah: “Guard your soul so that you will not forget the things that your eyes have seen … and make these things known to your children and your children’s children.” This sums up the raison d’être of Temple Beth Shalom’s Remembrance Garden, dedicated in 2003, which houses the U.S.’s largest collection of cobblestones (more than 200 in total) from Poland’s Warsaw

Looking for a damn good slice of pizza in Las Vegas? Well, in my opinion, it’s at Yukon Pizza, where they’re killing it with their classic margherita and specialty pizzas. Co-owners Alex White and Dani Garcia-White sent me down Maryland Parkway to the punk/tiki-themed Red Dwarf for its $20 lunch special: a cheese Detroit-style pizza and a pitcher of beer (“Dwarf Piss”), saying, “It’s a nice change up from our thin pies. Quick, easy, and consistently delicious.” Dwarf’s Russell Gardner, the owner and founder, sent me back to Yukon (I can’t blame him). So, I headed to Desert Companion contributor Jason Harris’ best pizza pick, Rebellion (the Inspirada pizza is *chef’s kiss*). Co-owner Ricky Lewis and his partner “eat a lot of pizza,” so they could confidently recommend Las Vegas Pizza Alliance member Good Pie, led by pizzaiolo Vincent Rotolo. Like many of his peers in this industry, this man eats, sleeps, and breathes pizza. At least once a month, he says, he goes to Pizza Rock for a grandma-style pie, New York, or Detroit. If not there, he’ll go to chef Giovanni Mauro’s spots: Pizzeria Monzu or Old School Pizzeria. “My wife loves Gio’s food. For date night, we go there as much as we can,” Rotolo says. “Some of the best dough in the city. It’s a nice night out, but you can cheat and get pizza, too.” KDS

INDUSTRY KNOWS BEST

A chain of recommendations, from those in the know ...

Ghetto, where 350,000 Jews were held and systemically starved during the Holocaust. It’s a sobering, stirring, quiet place to sit for a while when you find yourself in need of some perspective on your own trials. AD bethsholomlv.org/remembrance-garden

BEST PLACE TO WATCH LIVE SPORTS

LAS VEGAS BALLPARK

EA lot has changed since the days of Cosmo at Cashman Field. Our minor league baseball team, now called the Stars 51s Aviators, have a state-of-the-art home in Summerlin with more comfortable seats, free parking, drool-worthy concessions, a pool, and a splash pad for the kiddos, all nestled in a setting of stunning natural beauty. Did I mention free parking? And hey, $1 beer night might be $2 beer night now, but the newer park means the Aviators can celebrate 40 years as a franchise this year in style. KDS thelvballpark.com

BEST ANIMAL CRAWL

BEST LAWN FOR FREE COMMUNITY EVENTS DOWNTOWN SUMMERLIN

E There’s something about outdoor yoga: the breeze ruffling your hair, the smell of grass, the sight of peach-colored clouds during twilight. This experience was something I never knew I needed, until I participated in my first Fitness on the Lawn class at Downtown Summerlin, which offers a weekly rotation of yoga, barre, Pilates, and any other workout you can do outside with minimal equipment. The same principle applies to DTS’s Summerlin Sounds summer concert series, also on the Lawn, where the only prerequisites to have fun are a blanket (or chair) and a good attitude — no cash required. AD summerlin.com/events

FOOD & BEVERAGE:

BEST SUSHI BANG FOR YOUR BUCK NENE JAPANESE CONTEMPORARY BISTRO

E It’s easy to overspend here because everything is so good. But for an authentic sushi experience, presentation, and superb knife skills, it’s worth shelling out $6 for a piece of exquisitely cut sushi such as its salmon truffle aburi or kamashita toro or $9.50 for its A5 Wagyu uni. Yes, Wagyu! For the sushi lovers who prefer the tried-and-true, such as a spicy tuna and salmon roll, order from the Happy Hour menu. (No worries, it has happy hours on Saturdays and Sundays, too.) Go with a plan and a budget in mind or just order until you’re full. Though by that point,

A PERFECT DAY FOR FOURLEGGED FRIENDS

there may be damage to your wallet. Order at your own risk. SB nenesushilv.com

BEST POLISH COMFORT FOOD PIEROGI VILLAGE

As you open the door to Pierogi Village, it feels like you’ve just stepped into a Polish family’s dining room or a village in Poland. Polish artifacts line this restaurant. There are original Polish sausages and borscht soups, but since you’re at a Polish dumpling house, it’s all about the pierogi. From duck, meat, spinach and feta, to sausage, potato and onion, sauerkraut and mushroom pierogi, you can’t go wrong with any choice. Undecided?

Order the 10-pierogi sampler plate to try five flavors. SB thefoodygram.com/pages/ pierogi-village-menu

SHOPS & SERVICES:

BEST PLACE TO CLEAR YOUR LUNGS (AND YOUR HEAD) THE SALT ROOM

E I was a salt room skeptic until I was diagnosed with a chronic interstitial lung disease in 2019.

I’ve been on steroids, a couple different inhalers, and an anti-inflammation diet, but nothing has offered me as much immediate benefit as a 45-minute halotherapy session in a salt cave. The closest thing you’ll get in Las Vegas to a seaside vacation, each room is covered floor-to-ceiling in Himalayan salt and has a fan that gently fills the space with salty air. Its purported benefits include clearer lungs and softer skin, but even if you don’t experience those effects, a massage or body treatment — also available at all locations — is sure to unwind some tension. HK saltroomlv.com

BEST STUDIO TO SWEAT AND SELF-CARE PERSPIRE SAUNA

E Start your morning with a cup of tea with the kitties at Rescued Treasures Cat Café (palnv.org). Book an adoption session, and you can come home with a new four-legged friend. Your dog will love endless playtime at Tails Pet Resort (tailsresorts. com). Just try not to take it too personally when your pooch doesn’t want to come home from doggy daycare. And take the whole family away from the city to the Farm at Barn Buddies Rescue (thelasvegasfarm.com). Shop the Ole’ Time Farmers Market and let the kids interact with all sorts of animals. There are peacocks, turkeys, goats, and horses, just to name a few. BJ

E I’m addicted to the afterglow of 40 minutes at 150 degrees. Perspire Sauna offers private, full- spectrum, infrared saunas decked out with custom chromotherapy lighting and streaming services (in case you want to Netflix and sweat). Depending on what studies you read, infrared saunas may have health benefits. For me, I feel relaxed and recharged. I step out and breathe in the chilled eucalyptus towel provided in the room. My skin is glistening, and I’m caught up on the latest episode of my favorite show. Self-care: superstar status. LBM perspiresaunastudio. com/nv/summerlin

Centennial

ARTS & CULTURE:

BEST SUBURBAN ART SPACE RITA DEANIN

ABBEY ART MUSEUM

E There’s a bona fide art museum deep in the wilds of Centennial Hills, and for a large semi-suburban compound, it’s as unassuming as it gets. But then you walk into the gallery, and the grandeur pulls your jaw downward. Rita Abbey loomed large as one of the first art professors at UNLV, but her legacy is vaunted by the indoor/ outdoor presentation of her multimedia collection — 175 of them, currently, from expressionist sculptures to widescreen stainedglass works to simple watercolor paintings. It’s astonishing in, yes, its scope of medium, but also its artistic distinction, sense of revelation, and enrichment of its dusty environs. MP ritadeaninabbeymuseum.org

BEST ECLECTIC PARK TRINOGO HILLS PARK

Right before the pandemic shutdown in 2020, Trinogo Hills Park opened. Named for the

Greek word for triangle, this isn’t your usual city park. Sure, there are grass fields, picnic areas, a splashpad and the like, but something about the rest of the design transports you into the future. There’s a “kinetic play zone” rather than a playground, an interpretive garden featuring local flora, some public workout equipment, a bike-repair station, and geological information posted along the walkways — not to mention the stunning cityscape view. KDS lasvegasnevada.gov/ residents/parks-facilities/trinogo-hills

FAMILY & RECREATION:  BEST PLACE TO PICNIC FLOYD LAMB PARK

E Finding the perfect space to picnic in Las Vegas is a difficult feat. If you’re having trouble battling the natural desert elements, Floyd Lamb Park is your saving grace. The 680-acre area is lush with greenery, fishing ponds, and wildlife. This hidden marvel will transport you

from city life during your visit and is well worth the $6 fee per vehicle. GR lasvegasnevada.gov/ residents/parks-facilities/floyd-lamb-park

BEST GOLF COURSES

LAS VEGAS PAIUTE

GOLF RESORT

E I’ve been golfing since the ripe old age of 10, meaning I grew up with a healthy respect for Pete Dye, the famed course designer whose name is code in the golfing sphere for superior 18-hole experiences. And Las Vegans are lucky: There are only three of his courses in the entire state, all operated by the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort, all equally fun. The Snow Mountain course’s draw is visually spectacular water hazards framed against a desert backdrop, while Sun Mountain’s rolling slopes and abundance of Dye’s iconic railroad tie bunkers make this one the more challenging of the two. The Wolf course, at 7,604 yards, is the longest in Nevada and features another Dye design hallmark:

The 15th hole is an island and is the ultimate test of the accuracy we golfers brag about. AD lvpaiutegolf.com

BEST SEASONAL FAMILY ACTIVITY

GILCREASE ORCHARD

E The pick-your-ownproduce farm not too far from Floyd Lamb Park operates seasonally, with different produce and flowers available throughout the year. In the fall, expect long lines on the weekend for the coveted apple cider donuts, then wander the orchard for autumn staples such as squash and apples. Don’t be surprised if you see a few flannel-clad family photoshoots. Founders Ted and Bill Gilcrease have both passed on, but the popular orchard lives on in their honor many years after its founding in 1977. KDS thegilcreaseorchard.org

BEST QUIET HIKE BUCKSKIN CLIFF SHADOWS

E When the weather is a little cooler or the Red Rock Canyon hikes are too crowded,

a little-known hiking area in the northwest valley may do the trick. At the very end of Buckskin Avenue, west of the 215 Beltway, there’s a parking lot for Buckskin Cliff Shadows Park, which marks the starting point for several hikes. The classic loop is 4.3 miles with about a 600-foot elevation gain. It’s open to hikers, bikers, trail runners, and even horseback riders. Watch out for snakes in the warmer months once you get deeper on the trail. KDS alltrails. com/trail/us/nevada/ buckskin-cliff-shadows

FOOD & BEVERAGE:

BEST 24-HOUR TAVERN THE STANDARD TAVERN  When it comes to finding a great 24-hour bar, consider a few things: good food, cold beer and friendly staff. The Standard Tavern has it all and then some. Whether it be a busy game night or just a weekday post-work stop-in, you can count on this bar to satisfy your cravings. GR thestandardlv.com

{ + Northwest • Kyle Canyon }

SAWMILL SHORT LOOP TRAIL

By Reannon Muth

We’re 10 minutes into our hike when my two-yearold daughter sits down and starts to cry. “I want backpack!” She hollers, meaning she wants to ride in the carrier.

I stand a few feet ahead of her with my Irish Wolfhound mix, who’s sniffing the breeze — for horse scents, no doubt. This area of Mt. Charleston is popular with trail riders. I consider my options: The hike is only a little over a mile and mostly flat, which means I could encourage my daughter to keep walking. Or, I could give in and put her in the carrier.

I give in.

If I were hosting one of the kids’ hikes that I lead through Tiny Hikes and Adventures, I might have tried harder to get her to hike on her own. Some of the group’s two-year-olds can hike for hours without being carried, and I know my daughter can, too. But I also know the longer we wait, the warmer it’ll get. Even at our 15-degrees-cooler-than-Vegas elevation, it’ll hit the high 80s on the Sawmill Short Loop Trail by midday.

SAWMILL SHORT LOOP: Parents of young kids like this hike because it’s short, flat, and a loop, making it easier to keep kids engaged. The piñon pines and junipers offer some shade, and certain points offer a clear view of Mummy Mountain poking through the treetops — a chisel of gray against a cobalt sky.

Once my daughter is strapped in safely on my back, I continue up the trail. My daughter starts to sing, her tears from earlier

forgotten. I wonder, not for the first time, if hiking with a toddler is worth all the work. Then, we turn a corner and see a glade of grass dotted with red and yellow wildflowers and several pink and yellow blooming cacti. I smile and decide that it is.

GETTING THERE: Exit U.S. 95 North at Lee Canyon Road. After 12 miles, look for the Sawmill Picnic Area on the right. Sawmill’s parking lot is set a safe distance away from the main road, so you can pack and unpack the car more safely with little ones around. The trailhead is behind the restrooms. Watch signs and follow yellow markers to stay on the trail.

DISTANCE: 1.3 miles (With a child, it can take an hour or more.)

ELEVATION GAIN: 164 feet

STEWARDSHIP 101: The Spring Mountains are home to a wide range of plants and animals, including some you can’t find anywhere else in the world. Respect their habitat by remaining on the trail and taking only pictures. The Junior Ranger program teaches kids Leave No Trace principles.

LEARN MORE: Visit gomtcharleston.com.

HEAR MORE: Listen to our hiking experts’ summer advice on “KNPR’s State of Nevada.”

Earlier this summer, Desert Companion magazine celebrated the 11th Annual Focus on Nevada photo contest winners at a gallery showcase held at Bottega Exchange. Our team awarded prizes for the top snaps in six categories submissions. Our sincere thanks to the winners, participants, and guests who attended the celebration!

SPONSORED BY

During every stage of his career, he has published on topics ranging from the doctor-patient relationship to strategies for addressing patients’ social needs and has received numerous teaching awards, from small group teaching to large group teaching to student mentorship. He was twice honored with the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award from the Gold Humanism Honor Society and in 2020 was selected Exemplary Full-Time Educator of the Year by the Florida Academy of Family Physicians. When returning to full-time academic medicine at FIU, he saw patients at underserved clinics in South Florida and helped oversee a medical student home visit program where students assessed patients’ social needs and connected them with medical and social services. He enjoyed providing care for the un- and under-insured and being a part of courses that exposed students to the social, cultural, and economic factors that influence health. In many ways, his career has come full circle, as he joins the team founding a new medical school here at Roseman that will be committed to serving the local community. RMG provides high-value, compassionate, and patient-centered care. RMG’s dedicated team of primary care providers offers a wide range of care for adults in order to maintain health, treat illness, and manage chronic diseases. RMG offers adult and geriatric medicine, wellness and preventative visits, immunizations, chronic disease management, and behavioral health service, and often, sameday appointments.

In over 20 years of teaching, he has taught undergraduate literature, philosophy, math, and science, earning tenure at a small liberal arts college; directed medical school courses from medical ethics to literature and medicine to community medicine; and trained family medicine residents in both inpatient and outpatient care. He has his Master of Liberal Arts degree at Southern Methodist University and a Professional Certificate in Screenwriting at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Gregory Schneider, MD, joined Roseman University in 2022 as the medical director for Roseman Medical Group (RMG) and as the Associate Dean for Clinical Education. His primary responsibilities involve developing the clinical aspects of the College of Medicine curriculum, including clinical skills and population health. Dr. Schneider was at the Florida International University (FIU) Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine in Miami. There, his medical student teaching focused on clinical skills, ethics, and the social factors involved in health, in addition to practicing family medicine in underserved neighborhoods.

ROSEMAN MEDICAL GROUP

DR. GREGORY SCHNEIDER

702.367.6666

THE

geon in Las Vegas, NV as he’s highly regarded for his treatment of patients with severe bone loss and missing teeth. Even today, Dr. Letelier continues to expand his knowledge by participating in specialty courses throughout the world. Additionally, he is a highly sought-after lecturer by his colleagues throughout the USA and other global locations.

facial and dental trauma. He is a trusted oral sur-

Dr. Letelier has taught in the OMFS residency program at Fresno University Medical Center. His expertise covers a broad range of oral surgery, from wisdom tooth extraction and dental implants to

both oral and maxillofacial and cosmetic surgery,

After that, Dr. Letelier went on to complete his surgical residency and graduate from UCLA Medical School with both an MD and an OMFS degree. In addition to becoming board certified in

Cum Laude with a DMD degree.

School of Dental Medicine, graduating Summa

where he earned his DDS degree. He then went to Boston, where he enrolled in Tufts University

Dr. Carlos Letelier has a passion for dental and medical excellence that’s exemplified through his distinguished background and his education credentials. His dentistry studies began in Chile

DR. CARLOS LETELIER

The team at Red Rock Fertility Center includes Amity Herrera,a highly experienced Physician Assistant at Red Rock Fertility Center. With a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and a Master’s Degree from Western University, she brings a wealth of knowledge to the field of reproductive endocrinology. The center’s focus on personalized care, advanced technologies, and a supportive environment has enabled countless families to fulfill their dreams of having children. Dr. Littman’s dedication to her patients, her extensive medical expertise, and her commitment to giving back to the community all contribute to making Red Rock Fertility Center a trusted and sought-after destination for individuals and couples seeking fertility assistance.

Red Rock Fertility Center is committed to providing a comforting and intimate environment for patients. Patients benefit from concierge-level care, limited wait times, and one-on-one personal attention throughout their journey, from the initial visit to the completion of assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments.

At Red Rock Fertility Center, the focus is on achieving exceptional success rates, year after year. The clinic is equipped with state-ofthe-art facilities, including a Class 5 clean room, ensuring the highest standards of cleanliness and quality.

Dr. Littman’s passion for helping others extends beyond the walls of the clinic. She actively supports Volunteers in Medicine Southern Nevada, a nonprofit medical clinic providing healthcare to the uninsured. Dr. Littman’s dedication to her patients and the community has garnered recognition, including being named a “Top Doctor” in the field of fertility for multiple years and receiving the prestigious “Business of the Year” award from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Dr. Littman’s extensive medical training from prestigious institutions such as Duke University and Stanford University is a testament to her dedication to excellence. Her groundbreaking research and contributions to the field of fertility have been recognized by esteemed organizations, including the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society and the National Medical Foundation.

Red Rock Fertility Center, founded and directed by Dr. Eva Littman, is a renowned fertility clinic located in Las Vegas, Nevada. With a steadfast commitment to helping families grow, Dr. Littman and her team have positively impacted thousands of lives. The center has earned a reputation as one of Las Vegas’ most trusted and knowledgeable fertility practices, offering personalized physician care and expertise in a boutique-style setting.

Red Rock iFertil dan directed renowned ifertil aNev commitment to aLittm aveh i ave nce reputation as no most dtruste an truste epractic practic dizela nsicia in a outique-stb a e rp tions such as uD tanfordS rUnive to Her aredbroung contributions ot aveh nrecog organizationsin

RED ROCK FERTILITY CENTER

WWW.DOCLV.COM

702.731.4088

2930 WEST HORIZON RIDGE PARKWAY, SUITE ,100 HENDERSON, NV 8905

HENDERSON

WEST CENTRAL 8689 WEST CHARLESTON BOULEVARD, SUITE 105, SLA VEGAS, NV 89117

SLA VEGAS, NV 89113

SOUTHWEST 8205 WEST WARM SPRINGS ROAD, SUITE 250

SLA VEGAS, NV 89149

NORTHWEST 8402 WEST CENTENNIAL PARKWAY, SUITE 100

SLA VEGAS, NV 89121

2800 EAST DESERT INN ROAD, SUITE 100

Our primary goal is excellence in the care of our patients. We are committed to providing comprehensive orthopaedic care of the highest quality found anywhere in the nation.

“Since 1970, our team has evolved into what it is today,” says Hugh L. Bassewitz, M.D. “Throughout that time, we have dedicated ourselves to the improvement of our patients’ experience with the latest advancements in orthopaedics. Moreover, we have worked hard to establish an environment that builds trust, ensuring that our patients can have confidence in the exceptional quality of their care.”

DESERT ORTHOPEDIC CENTER

As the region’s most preferred orthopaedic practice,* our team at Desert Orthopaedic Center is proud to serve Las Vegas, Henderson, and the surrounding areas. For over 50 years, we have provided our patients with individualized, compassionate bone, joint, and muscle care. Our world-class team of experts is made up of many experienced and highly trained personnel. From our specialty-trained doctors who treat you to our front desk staff who welcome you, our commitment is to provide you with orthopaedic care tailored to your needs, all while giving you the highest-quality and most cost-effective care possible. The doctors of Desert Orthopaedic Center have the expertise to treat a range of orthopaedic injuries and conditions. In addition, they possess expertise in various areas, including joint replacement and revision, pain management, physical medicine and rehabilitation, sports medicine, and trauma. We are proud to offer a variety of services to diagnose and treat your orthopaedic injuries and conditions. Our offerings include state-of-theart imaging technology such as digital X-ray, MRI, and CT scans. Furthermore, we offer a workers’ compensation program, physical therapy, and durable medical equipment as well as access to the Desert Orthopaedic Surgery Center and Recovery Center.

MEDICAL PROFILES

Special Expertise: vascularEndo Surgery, Varicose Veins

General Vascular Specialists, 7200 estW Cathedral Rock Drive, Suite 130, (702) 228-8600

Bruce Hirschfeld, MD

VASCULAR SURGERY

Aaron Peterson, MD Red Rock Radiology vascularEndo Clinic, 7130 Smoke Ranch Road, Suite 101, (702) 304-8135

VASCULAR & INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGY

Special Expertise: Prostate Benign Disease (BPH), Vasectomy & Vasectomy Reversal

Urology Specialists of vada,Ne 58 North Pecos oad,R (702) 877-0814

Jason Zommick, MD

Pediatric Urology, ologyEndour

Special Expertise: ediatricP Urology, Endourology

Michael P erni,V MD Urology Center, 653 North ownT Center Drive, Suite 302, (702) 212-3428

Special Expertise: Bladder gery,Sur Prostate Benign Disease (BPH), Erectile Dysfunction, Kidney Stones, Prostate Cancer

encewrLa H Newman, MD Las Vegas Urology, 7150 estW Sunset Road, Suite 201, (702) 316-1616

Special Expertise: Reconstructive Surgery, Robotic Surgery, Urinary Reconstruction

O. Alex Lesani, MD Las Vegas Urology, 7150 estW Sunset Road, Suite 200, (702) 316-1616

Special Expertise: Kidney Stones, Incontinence-Male & Female, Minimally vasiveIn Surgery, Prostate Cancer-Cryosurgery

yijaV Goli, MD Las Vegas Urology, 7200 alCathedr Rock Drive, Suite 210, (702) 316-1616

Erectile Dysfunction, Vasectomy-No Scalpel, Kidney Stones, Prostate Cancer

Special Expertise:

Sheldon J Freedman, MD 653 North Town Center e,Driv Suite 308, (702) 732-0282

CancerUrology-Female, Urologic Cancer

Special Expertise: ology-Female,Ur Urologic

eSmok Ranch Road, Suite 200, (702) 316-1616

Las Vegas Urology, 7500

Joseph V Candela, MD

UROLOGY

Repair, Minimally Invasive Surgery

Special Expertise: ogynecology,Ur Pelvic Reconstruction, Incontinence-Urinary, Pelvic Organ Prolapse

Women’s Cancer Center of vada,Ne 700 Shadow Lane, Suite 370, (702) 693-6870

Geoffrey C Hsieh, MD

UROGYNECOLOGY/ FEMALE PELVIC MEDICINE & RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY

Special Expertise: Cardiac Surgery-Adult, Heart Valve Surgery, Thoracic Aortic Surgery, Heart Valve Surgery-Mitral

oupGr Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Clinic, 7190 South Cimarron Road, (702) 829-4259

Dignity Health Medical

Michael G Wood, MD

Special Expertise: Cardiothoracic Surgery

oup,Gr 7190 South Cimarron Road, (702) 970-4979

Dignity Health Medical

Neel V Dhudshia, MD

THORACIC & CARDIAC SURGERY

Special Expertise: Peripheral Nerve Surgery

yimothT W Tollestrup, MD 3035 West Horizon Ridge, arkway,P Suite 120, (702) 666-0463

Special Expertise: Breast Disease, Breast Surgery

entersC of Nevada, 1505 Wigwam kway,Par Suite 130, (702) 369-6008

Comprehensive Cancer

Margaret A Terhar, MD

Special Expertise: Bariatric/Obesity Surgery, Minimally Invasive Surgery, Laparoscopic Surgery, Robotic Surgery

Advanced Surgical Care, 3150 North enayaT Way, Suite 508, (702) 838-5888

ancisFr W eng,T MD

Special Expertise: Surgical Oncology, -Gall bladder Surgery, Hernia

Charles R St. Hill, MD UNLV Medicine Department of gery,Sur 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 160, (702) 671-5150

Special Expertise: Bariatric/Obesity Surgery, Laparoscopic SurgeryAdvanced, Minimally Invasive Surgery

Darren W Soong, MD Surgical Weight Control enter,C 2850 West Horizon Ridge kway,Par Suite 100, (702) 313-8446

Restoration/Transplant

Special Expertise: Minimally Invasive Vascular Surgery, Vein Disorders, Varicose Veins, Hair

Irwin B Simon, MD Vegas Valley Vein Institute, 2450 estW Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 341-7608

Special Expertise: Breast Surgery, Gastrointestinal Surgery, Hernia, Trauma/Critical Care

(702) 369-7152

Nancy Rivera, MD Desert Surgical sociates,As 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 217,

ticRobo Surgery, Minimally Invasive Surgery, Vein Disorders, Breast Cancer, Venous Insufficiency, Wound Care

Special Expertise:

(702) 383-4040

Drive, Suite 250,

Lee M Reese, MD Desert West Surgery, 7200 alCathedr Rock

er,Canc Melanoma

Special Expertise: Gallbladder Surgery, Breast Surgery, Robotic Surgery, Thyroid & Parathyroid Surgery, Liver Disease, Hernia, Skin

Desert West Surgery, 7200 alCathedr Rock Drive, Suite 250, (702) 383-4040

Frances W Phang, MD

ts,Specialis 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 310, (702) 914-2420

Fikre A Mengistu, MD Southern Nevada Surgery

Burn Care, Wound Care

Special Expertise:

Allan David MacIntyre, DO Sunrise Hospital & Medical enterC Burn and Reconstructive Center, 3186 South Maryland Parkway, (702) 961-7552

Special Expertise: Trauma, Critical Care, Hospital Medicine

Department of gery,Sur 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 160, (702) 671-5150

UNLV Medicine

Deborah Ann Kuhls, MD

Special Expertise: Surgical Oncology, Breast Cancer & Surgery, Melanoma, Sarcoma, Pancreatic & Biliary Surgery

Department of gery,Sur 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 160, (702) 671-5150

Daniel Kirgan, MD UNLV Medicine

Special Expertise: Breast Cancer & Surgery, Surgical Oncology

Souzan El-Eid, MD Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 653 North Town Center Drive, Suite 402, (702) 243-7200

Sean D Dort, MD Southern adavNe Surgery Specialists, 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 310, (702) 914-2420

Special Expertise: ticRobo Surgery, Minimally Invasive Surgery, Gallbladder Surgery, Colon & Rectal Surgery

James D Curry, MD Desert West Surgery, 7200 alCathedr Rock Drive, Suite 250, (702) 383-4040

Special Expertise: Vascular Surgery

Peter A Caravella, MD Las Vegas Surgical sociates,As 8930 West Sunset Road, Suite 300, (702) 258-7788

Breast Cancer & Surgery

Special Expertise:

Department of gery,Sur 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 160, (702) 671-5150

Jennifer Baynosa, MD UNLV Medicine

Advanced, Minimally Invasive Surgery

Bariatric/Obesity Surgery, Laparoscopic Surgery-

Special Expertise:

James Dee Atkinson, MD Surgical Weight Control enter,C 2850 West Horizon Ridge kway,Par Suite 100, (702) 313-8446

SURGERY

Women, Sports Injuries, Orthopaedics-Non Surgical, Knee & Shoulder Pain, Stress Fractures, Joint and Soft Tissue Injections

Primary eCar Sports Medicine, Sports Medicine-

Special Expertise:

Desert Orthopaedic enter,C 2800 East Desert Inn Road, Suite 100, (702) 731-1616

Jessica R Zarndt, DO

Randall E Yee, DO Advanced Orthopedics & Sports ,Medicine 7195 Advanced Way, (702) 740-5327 Special Expertise: Arthroscopic Surgery, Cartilage Damage & Transplant, Knee Surgery

Timothy James Trainor, MD Advanced Orthopedics & Sports ,Medicine 7195 Advanced Way, (702) 740-5327 Special Expertise: Arthroscopic Surgery, Shoulder & Knee Surgery, Shoulder Arthroscopic Surgery, Fractures

Arthroscopic Surgery, Shoulder & Knee Injuries, Hip Surgery, Elbow Surgery

Special Expertise:

Desert Orthopaedic enter,C 8689 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 105, (702) 731-1616

Chad M Hanson, MD

Sports Injuries, PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma)

Special Expertise:

SPORTS MEDICINE Brian A Davis, MD Intermountain Healthcare, 9280 estW Sunset Road, Suite 426, (702) 968-3240

Special Expertise: Arthritis, Autoimmune Disease

Elham Taherian, MD Dignity Health Medical oup,Gr 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 203, (702) 616-5801

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Special Expertise:

Ewa Olech, MD Ewa Olech Rheumatology onsultants,C 7200 Cathedral Rock Drive, Suite 110, (702) 489-4838

Special Expertise: Arthritis, Autoimmune Disease

Dignity Health Medical oup,Gr 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 203, (702) 616-5801

Dodji Modjinou, MD

Special Expertise: Autoimmune Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus/SLE, Sjogren’s Syndrome

Southwest Medical Eastern eHealthcar Center, 4475 South Eastern, Suite 2400, (702) 877-5199

Johnson C Kay, DO

Special Expertise: Autoimmune Disease, Fibromyalgia

RHEUMATOLOGY Neil Braunstein, MD Southwest Medical sociates,As 4750 West Oakey Boulevard, (702) 251-3670

Special Expertise: Infertility-IVF

Bruce S Shapiro, MD/PhD Fertility Center of Las egas,V 8851 West Sahara Avenue, Suite 100, (702) 254-1777

Infertility-IVF, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Egg & Embryo Freezing, LGBTQ+ Family Building, Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis, Telemedicine

Special Expertise:

Suite 200, (702) 262-0079

The nation’s only Alzheimer’s disease prevention center exclusively for women

•If you are worried about Alzheimer’s disease due to family history or known genetic risk.

•If you are ages 30-60.

WHY YOU:

WomenPreventAlz.org/KNPR 833.WOMEN.AD (833.966.3623)

YOUR RISK TODAY Schedule an appointment:

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•While Alzheimer’s disease affects women of all races and ethnicities, Black women are 2 times and Hispanic women are 1.5 times more at risk, compared to White women.

•Women have some risks that men don’t, as well as greater exposure to some types of risk.

•Women live longer than men.

WHY WOMEN?

Of the 6.5 million Americans with Alzheimer’s disease, two-thirds are women.

Up to 40% of Alzheimer’s disease cases may be preventable by making lifestyle changes, including in diet and exercise.

Helping Women Reduce Their Risks for Alzheimer’s Disease

WOMEN’S ALZHEIMER’S MOVEMENT PREVENTION CENTER

Eva D Littman, MD Red Rock Fertility Center, 9120 estW Russell Road,

Special Expertise: Infertility-IVF, Menstrual Disorders

(702) 722-2229

Jeffrey Fisch, MD Green Valley Fertility artners,P 2510 Wigwam Parkway, Suite 201.

Preservation in Cancer

Preservation, Fertility

Special Expertise: Women’s Health, Women’s Health in Developing Countries, Telemedicine, Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) , Fertility

Cindy M. Duke, MD/PhD Nevada Fertility Institute, 8530 estW Sunset Road, Suite 310, (702) 936-8710

REPRODUCTIVE ENDOCRINOLOGY/ INFERTILITY

entersC of Nevada, 9280 West Sunset Road, Suite 100, (702) 952-1251

Comprehensive Cancer

* Wei-Gang A Wang, MD

Special Expertise: Pediatric Cancers, Breast Cancer, Gynecologic Cancers, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

GenesisCare, 2851 North enayaT Way, Suite 100, (702) 243-3340

Paul Treadwell, MD

Special Expertise: Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy, Image Guided Radiotherapy (IGRT)

Beau James W Toy, MD Radiation Oncology entersC of Nevada, 624 South Tonopah Drive, (702) 463-9100

Special Expertise: Prostate Cancer, Lung Cancer, Breast Cancer, Stereotactic Radiosurgery

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 7445 Peak Drive, (702) 952-2140

Michael T Sinopoli, MD

Breast Cancer, Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT), Lung Cancer, Prostate Cancer

Special Expertise:

Matthew W Schwartz, MD

Tumors, Prostate Cancer

Special Expertise: Breast Cancer, Stereotactic Radiosurgery, Brain

Susan A Reisinger, MD GenesisCare, 2851 North enayaT Way, Suite 100, (702) 894-5100

Special Expertise: Brachytherapy, Stereotactic Radiosurgery

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 9280 West Sunset Road, Suite 100, (702) 952-1251

Raul T Meoz, MD

Special Expertise: Breast Cancer, Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT), Stereotactic Radiosurgery

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 3730 South Eastern Avenue, (702) 952-3366

Farzaneh Farzin, MD

Special Expertise: Prostate Cancer, Brachytherapy, Head & Neck Cancer, Skin Cancer

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 655 North Town Center Drive, (702) 233-2200

Dan Lee Curtis, MD

Special Expertise: Breast Cancer, Lung Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Image Guided Radiotherapy (IGRT)

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 7445 Peak Drive, (702) 952-2140

Andrew M Cohen, MD

Special Expertise: Head & Neck Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Brachytherapy, Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT)

entersC of Nevada, 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 108, (702) 952-3399

Comprehensive Cancer

Michael J Anderson, MD

RADIATION ONCOLOGY

Special Expertise: Lung Cancer, Critical Care

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 108, (702) 952-3444

John J Wojcik, MD Lung Center of Nevada, 9280 estW Sunset Road, Suite 312, (702) 737-5864

Special Expertise: Sleep Disorders/Apnea, Emphysema, Pulmonary Fibrosis

George S Tu, MD Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 3150 North Tenaya Way, Suite 125, (702) 869-0855

Special Expertise: Asthma, Emphysema, Critical Care, Lung Cancer, Sleep Medicine, Interventional Bronchoscopy, Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (COPD), Telemedicine, Robotic Bronchoscopy

Joaquim Tavares, MD United Critical Care, 6040 South ortF Apache Road, Suite 100, (702) 476-4900

Special Expertise: Critical Care, Lung Disease, Sleep Disorders/Apnea

entersC of Nevada, 3150 North Tenaya Way, Suite 125, (702) 869-0855

Comprehensive Cancer

John B Collier, MD

Special Expertise: Emphysema, Lung Cancer

Nisarg Changawala, MD Lung Center of Nevada, 9280 estW Sunset Road, Suite 312, (702) 737-5864

PULMONARY DISEASE

Special Expertise: Psychosomatic Disorders, Geriatric Psychiatry, ADD/ ADHD, Psychiatry in Physical Illness

Alison Netski, MD UNLV Medicine Mojave ounseling,C 6375 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite A-100, (702) 968-4000

PSYCHIATRY

Special Expertise: Cosmetic Surgery-Breast, Body Contouring after Weight Loss, Cosmetic & Reconstructive Surgery, Botox

gerySur Associates, 60 North Pecos Road, (702) 948-7595

Hankins & Sohn Plastic

Samuel Sohn, MD

Special Expertise: Breast Augmentation, Facelift, Liposuction & Body Contouring, CoolSculpting, Cosmetic Surgery-Body, Abdominoplasty, Rhinoplasty

Lane Smith, MD Smith Plastic Surgery, 7650 estW Sahara Avenue, (702) 838-2455

Andrew G Silver, MD Plastic Surgery Vegas, 8530 estW Sunset Road, Suite 130, (702) 822-2100

Special Expertise: Botox, Breast Augmentation, Breast Cosmetic Surgery, CoolSculpting, Cosmetic Surgery-Face & Body, Cosmetic Surgery, Abdominoplasty, Blepharoplasty, Facelift

Jeffrey J Roth, MD Las Vegas Plastic Surgery, 6140 South ortF Apache Road, Suite 100, (702) 450-0777

Cancer Reconstruction

Reduction, Cosmetic Surgery-Face & Body, Skin

Special Expertise: Breast Cosmetic & Reconstructive Surgery, Breast

Reynolds Plastic Surgery, 5550 aintedP Mirage Road, Suite 217, (702) 410-9800

Brandon Reynolds, MD

Special Expertise: Facial Plastic Surgery, Rhinoplasty, Eyelid Surgery/ Blepharoplasty, Botox

John J Minoli, MD Minoli Plastic Surgery, 5735 South ortF Apache Road, Suite B, (702) 463-3369

Restoration/Transplant

Cosmetic Surgery-Face & Breast, Liposuction & Body Contouring, Hair

Special Expertise:

Stephen M Miller, MD 8435 South Eastern venue,A Suite 100, (702) 369-1001

Craniofacial Surgery, Cosmetic & Reconstructive Surgery

Special Expertise:

gerySur Clinic, 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 190, (702) 671-5110

UNLV Medicine Plastic

John M Menezes, MD

Augmentation, Hand Surgery

Special Expertise: Cosmetic Surgery, Breast

VIP Plastic Surgery, 2779 Sunridge Heights Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 608-1318

Christopher Khorsandi, MD

Special Expertise: Microsurgery

Terrence B Higgins, MD Plastic Surgery Vegas, 8530 estW Sunset Road, Suite 130, (702) 822-2100

Cosmetic Surgery-Face & Breast, Liposuction & Body Contouring

Special Expertise:

Hankins & Sohn Plastic gerySur Associates, 60 North Pecos Road, (702) 948-7595

W. Tracy Hankins, MD

Breast Reconstruction & Augmentation

Special Expertise:

Michael C Edwards, MD Plastic Surgery Vegas, 8530 estW Sunset Road, Suite 130, (702) 822-2100

Facelift, Rhinoplasty, Fillers & Injectables, Brow Lift, Neck Lift, Botox

Special Expertise:

Platinum Plastic Surgery, 5824 South angoDur Drive, Suite 110, (702) 331-1178

Christopher R Costa, MD

la, Botox, Rhinoplasty

Special Expertise: Facelift, Liposuction & Body Contouring, CoolSculpting, Breast Augmentation, Gynecomastia, Labiaplasty, Kybel-

Arthur M Cambeiro, MD SurgiSpa, 2370 West onHoriz Ridge kway,Par Suite 130, (702) 566-8300

Hayley Brown, MD Desert Hills Plastic Surgery enter,C 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 406, (702) 260-7707

Breast Cosmetic & Reconstructive Surgery

Special Expertise:

UNLV Medicine Plastic gerySur Clinic, 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 190, (702) 671-5110

Richard C Baynosa, MD

PLASTIC SURGERY

close to home.

Special Expertise: Pain Management

Relevium Pain Specialists, 6064 South ortF Apache Road, Suite 100, (702) 940-8007

Nianjun Tang, MD

Special Expertise: Musculoskeletal Injuries, Musculoskeletal Disorders, Pain Management

Desert Orthopaedic enter,C 2800 East Desert Inn Road, Suite 100, (702) 731-4088

Andrew B Kim, DO

Arthritis, Musculoskeletal Disorders, Neuromuscular Disorders

Special Expertise: Hospital Medicine,

Suite 100, (702) 386-1041

Horizon Ridge kway,Par

Rehabilitation Specialists of Henderson, 1669 estW

Bevins K Chue, MD

PHYSICAL MEDICINE & REHABILITATION

Suite 370, (702) 260-4525

Rabbi Zia, MD Desert Valley Pediatrics 10105 Banburry oss,Cr

Sunshine Valley Pediatrics 9091 estW Post Road, (702) 363-3000

Laura H Weidenfeld, MD

Special Expertise: Preventive Medicine

Anthem Pediatrics, 2510 estW Horizon Ridge, Suite 130, (702) 263-7800

Huynh-Truong P Vu, MD

Special Expertise: Preventive Medicine

Anthem Hills Pediatrics, 5320 South wRainbo Boulevard, Suite 172, (702) 566-2400

Catherine C Smitha, MD

Dodds P Simangan, JrDO UNLV Medicine Pediatric Clinic, 1524 oPint Lane, Floor 3, (702) 944-2828

(702) 363-3000

Wesley Robertson, MD Sunshine Valley Pediatrics 7455 estW Washington Avenue, Suite 300,

Fatehali G Peera, MD UNLV Medicine Pediatric Clinic, 1524 oPint Lane, Floor 3, (702) 944-2828

Special Expertise: Pediatric Care, Preventive Medicine, Vaccines

Andrew C Oshiro, MD Oshiro Pediatrics, 4570 ternEas Avenue, Suite 21, (702) 733-6033

Special Expertise: Preventive Medicine

Anthem Hills Pediatrics, 871 oronadoC Center Drive, Suite 141, (702) 566-2400

Ineada B Okafor, MD

Special Expertise: Adolescent Medicine

Ryan M Nishihara, MD Meadows Pediatrics, 9030 estW Cheyenne Avenue, Suite 120, (702) 436-7337

UNLV Medicine Pediatric Clinic, 1524 oPint Lane, Floor 3, (702) 944-2828

Beverly A Neyland, MD

Special Expertise: Pediatric Care

Thanya C Lee, MD Henderson Pediatrics, 1490 estW Sunset Road, Suite 150, (702) 566-0333

Nevada Health Centers, 400 aloP Verde Drive (702) 636-5400

Kami Larsen, MD

Anthem Hills Pediatrics, 871 oronadoC Center Drive, Suite 141, (702) 566-2400

Kim M LaMotte-Malone, MD

Desert Valley Pediatrics, 10105 Banburry oss,Cr Suite 370, (702) 260-4525

Henry Ky, MD

Special Expertise: Pediatric Care

Henderson Pediatrics, 1490 estW Sunset Road, Suite 150, (702) 566-0333

Special Expertise: Pediatric Care, Preventive Medicine, Vaccines

Oshiro Pediatrics, 4570 ternEas Avenue, Suite 21, (702) 733-6033

Vicki Hom, MD

Heath H Hodapp, MD St. Rose Pediatrics, 2350 estW Horizon Ridge Parkway, (702) 564-8556

Special Expertise: Nutrition, Newborn Care

Pamela Greenspon, MD Desert Valley Pediatrics, 10105 Banburry oss,Cr Suite 406, (702) 260-4525

Diane S Goebel, MD St. Rose Pediatrics, 8980 estW Cheyenne Avenue, (702) 564-8556

Special Expertise: Diabetes, Nutrition

Blair Duddy, MD Southwest Medical sociates,As 2704 North Tenaya Way, Suite 1500, (702) 877-5199

Special Expertise: Preventive Medicine, Nutrition

Anthem Hills Pediatrics, 871 oronadoC Center Drive, Suite 141, (702) 566-2400

* Sarah Chamanara, DO

Anthem Hills Pediatrics, 871 oronadoC Center Drive, Suite 141, (702) 566-2400

Douglas H Barlow, MD

Special Expertise: Newborn Care, Preventive Medicine, Adolescent Medicine, ADD/ADHD, Vaccines

Wee Care Pediatrics, 4785 South angoDur Drive, Suite 101, (702) 889-8444

James A Bakerink, MD

PEDIATRICS

Special Expertise: Undescended Testis, Incontinence, Congenital Anomalies-Genitourinary

Children’s Urology sociates,As 6670 South Tenaya Way, Suite 180, (702) 369-4999

James C Plaire, MD

Margaret Hwang, MD Southwest Medical sociates,As 2704 North Tenaya Way, Suite 1500, (702) 877-5199 Marcy A Kulic, MD

Transplant-Kidney

Special Expertise:

Andrew H Hwang, MD Las Vegas Pediatric ology,Ur 653 North Town Center Drive, Suite 407, (702) 728-5686

Special Expertise: Congenital AnomaliesGenitourinary, Fetal Urology, Hypospadias, Undescended Testis

Clare Close, MD Close Pediatric Urology, 2653 estW Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 220-4006

sociates,As 6670 South Tenaya Way, Suite 180, (702) 369-4999 Special Expertise: Reconstructive Surgery, Hypospadias, Vesicoureteral Reflux (VUR), Robotic Surgery

Children’s Urology

Jessica T Casey, MD

PEDIATRIC UROLOGY

Special Expertise: Trauma

Department of Pediatric Surgery, 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 110, (702) 650-2500

Michael Scheidler, MD UNLV Medicine

sociates,As 653 North Town Center Drive, Suite 412, (702) 233-8101

Nicholas F Fiore, JrMD Pediatric Surgery

PEDIATRIC SURGERY

Special Expertise: Lung Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, PneumoniaLung Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Pneumonia

David P Parks, MD UNLV Medicine Pediatric Clinic, 1524 oPint Lane, Floor 3, (702) 660-8658

Asthma, Lung Disease, Sleep Disorders/Apnea, Cystic Fibrosis

Special Expertise:

Children’s Lung ts,Specialis 3196 South Maryland Parkway, Suite 209, (702) 598-4411

Craig T Nakamura, MD

PEDIATRIC PULMONOLOGY

Special Expertise: Kidney Disease, Kidney Failure, Hypertension

Children’s Nephrology Clinic, 7271 estW Sahara Avenue, Suite 110, (702) 639-1700

Michael O Aigbe, MD

PEDIATRIC NEPHROLOGY

Special Expertise: Vaccines, Travel Medicine

David Di John, MD UNLV Medicine Pediatric Clinic, 1524 oPint Lane, Floor 3, (702) 944-2828

PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Special Expertise: Nutrition

Rebecca L Scherr, MD UNLV Medicine Pediatric Clinic, 1524 oPint Lane, Floor 3, (702) 660-8658

3196 South Maryland Parkway, Suite 309, (702) 791-0477

Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition sociates,As

Elizabeth Mileti, DO

nal Motility Disorders

Special Expertise: Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, Gastrointesti-

3196 South Maryland Parkway, Suite 309, (702) 791-0477

Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition sociates,As

Howard I Baron, MD

PEDIATRIC GASTROENTEROLOGY

Special Expertise: Interventional Cardiology

vada,Ne 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 230, (702) 732-1290

Children’s Heart Center

Abraham Rothman, MD

Fetal Echocardiography

Special Expertise:

vada,Ne 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 230, (702) 732-1290

Children’s Heart Center

Gary A Mayman, MD

Interventional Cardiology, Cardiac Catheterization

Special Expertise:

vada,Ne 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 230, (702) 732-1290

Children’s Heart Center

Alvaro Galindo, MD

Street, Suite 230, (702) 732-1290

Children’s Heart Center vada,Ne 3131 La Canada

William N Evans, MD

Special Expertise: Fetal Cardiology, Echocardiography

Children’s Heart Center vada,Ne 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 230, (702) 732-1290

William J Castillo, MD

Special Expertise: Neonatal Cardiology, Arrhythmias, Fetal Echocardiography

Children’s Heart Center vada,Ne 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 230, (702) 732-1290

Ruben J Acherman, MD

PEDIATRIC CARDIOLOGY

Special Expertise: Pain Management

Katherine D Travnicek, MD Pain Institute of Nevada 7435 estW Azure Drive, Suite 190, (702) 878-8252

Special Expertise: Pain-Musculoskeletal, Pain-Interventional Techniques

Ruggeroli & Helmi Pain ts,Specialis 9159 West Flamingo Road, Suite 100, (702) 307-7700

Anthony Ruggeroli, MD

Special Expertise: Non-Opioid Pain Management, Pain-Interventional Techniques, Ultrasound, Spinal Cord Stimulation, Peripheral Nerve Stimulation

S. Andrew Park, MD Desert Orthopaedic Center, 8402 estW Centennial Parkway, (702) 731-1616

Special Expertise: Pain-Back & Neck

Ho Viet Dzung, MD Innovative Pain Care Center, 9920 estW Cheyenne Avenue, Suite 110, (702) 684-7246

Special Expertise: Pain-Chronic, Pain-Interventional Techniques, Sciatica

Special Expertise: Corneal Disease & Surgery, LASIKRefractive Surgery, Cataract Surgery, Dry Eye Syndrome, Glaucoma, PRK-Refractive Surgery, Cornea ansplant,Tr Telemedicine

Wellish Vision Institute, 2110 tEas Flamingo Road, Suite 211, (702) 733-2020

Kent L Wellish, MD

Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

Raymond Theodosis, MD

Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

Robert B Taylor, IIIMD

Special Expertise: Cataract Surgery, Corneal Disease, Glaucoma, LASIKRefractive Surgery, Uveitis

Matthew Swanic, MD Las Vegas Eye Institute, 9555 South ternEas Avenue, Suite 260, (702) 816-2525

Special Expertise: Corneal Disease, Cornea & Refractive Surgery

Ksenia A tafeeva,S MD New Eyes, 2020 Wellness ay,W Suite 402, (702) 485-5000

Special Expertise: Cataract Surgery, LASIKRefractive Surgery, PRKRefractive Surgery

Nevada Eye Physicians, 1505 igwamW kway,Par (702) 757-9969

Surjeet Singh, MD

Special Expertise: Pediatric Ophthalmology, Cataract Surgery, Glaucoma, Macular Disease/Degeneration

Ideal EyeCare, 6028 South ortF Apache Road, Suite 101, (702) 896-2020

Grace S Shin, MD

Special Expertise: Cornea Transplant

Emily Schorr, MD New Eyes, 2020 Wellness ay,W Suite 402, (702) 485-5000

Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

damA J Rovit, MD

Special Expertise: Eyelid Surgery/ BlepharoplastyEyelid Surgery/Blepharoplasty

Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

Ravindranath Reddy, MD

Special Expertise: Cataract Surgery, Glaucoma, Dry Eye Syndrome

* Devasis N Reddy, MD New Eyes, 2020 Wellness ay,W Suite 402, (702) 485-5000

Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

Tushina A Reddy, MD

Special Expertise: Cataract Surgery

Helga F Pizio, MD New Eyes, 2020 Wellness ay,W Suite 402, (702) 485-5000

Special Expertise: Diabetic Eye Disease/Retinopathy, Macular Disease/ Degeneration, Retinal Disorders, Retinal Vascular Diseases, Retina/Vitreous Surgery

Matthew Pezda, MD Retina Consultants of vada,Ne 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 134, (702) 369-0200

ocular Lens Replacement

Special Expertise: Glaucoma, Diabetic Eye Disease/Retinopathy, Intra-

Timothy Perozek, MD See Right Now, 653 North ownT Center Drive, Suite 212, (702) 982-1360

(702) 731-2088

Interconnect,

Shepherd Eye Center, 3575 os-McLeodPec

Steven N Montgomery, MD

Laser Refractive Surgery, Telemedicine

Special Expertise: Cataract Surgery, Dry Eye Syndrome, LASIKRefractive Surgery, Cornea & External Eye Disease,

(702) 733-2020

Avenue, Suite 100,

Wellish Vision Institute, 10424 South ternEas

William N May, MD

Diseases, Uveitis, Retinal Detachment

Special Expertise: Retinal Disorders, Macular Degeneration, Diabetic Eye Disease/Retinopathy, Retinal Vascular

(702) 369-0200

Retina Consultants of vada,Ne 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 134,

Judy C Liu, MD

Special Expertise: Cataract Surgery, Corneal Disease & Transplant, LASIK Surgery

Ethan Wonchon Lin, MD Westwood Eye, 5380 South wRainbo Boulevard, Suite 108, (702) 570-2820

Special Expertise: Glaucoma

Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

Janet Lee, MD

Special Expertise: Glaucoma, Cataract Surgery, Laser Surgery, Dry Eye Syndrome, Diabetic Eye Disease/ Retinopathy, Macular Degeneration, Optic Nerve Disorders, Ocular Inflammatory Disease, Telemedicine

Wellish Vision Institute, 10424 South ternEas Avenue, Suite 100, (702) 733-2020

Tigran Kostanyan, MD

Special Expertise: Retina/Vitreous Surgery

Retina Consultants of vada,Ne 653 North Town Center Drive, Suite 518, (702) 369-0200

Rodney Hollifield, MD

Center For Sight, 5871 estW Craig Road, (702) 724-2020

Jeffrey Hart, MD

Special Expertise: Cataract-Complex, Intraocular Lens, Multifocal IOL

Eissa Hanna, MD Wellish Vision Institute, 2555 xBo Canyon Drive, (702) 733-2020

Transplant, Diabetic Eye Disease/Retinopathy, Glaucoma

LASIK-Refractive Surgery, Cataract Surgery, Corneal Disease & Surgery, Cornea

Special Expertise:

Mark W Doubrava, MD Eye Care for Nevada

Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

Carolyn Ann Cruvant, MD

Special Expertise: Glaucoma

Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

Joyce H Cassen, MD/PhD

Special Expertise: Retinal Disorders

Charles M Calvo, MD Retina Consultants of vada,Ne 3131 La Canada Street, Suite 134, (702) 369-0200

Special Expertise: ornealC Disease

Brian Alder, MD Shepherd Eye Center, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 404, (702) 731-2088

OPHTHALMOLOGY

Jacob Skinner, MD Complete Care ObGYN, 1528 estW Warm Springs Road, Suite 100, (702) 213-5601

Nevada, 2880 North Tenaya Way, Suite 420, (702) 255-2022

Women’s Health sociatesAs of Southern

Tammy Reynolds, MD

Special Expertise: Minimally Invasive Surgery, Endometriosis, Gynecologic Surgery, Robotic Surgery

Women’s Health sociatesAs of Southern Nevada, 2580 Saint Rose Parkway, Suite 140, (702) 862-8862

Special Expertise:

Philip G McLemore, JrMD My OBGYN, 6850 North angoDur Drive, Suite 401, (702) 463-2981

Special Expertise: High-Risk Pregnancy

Staci L McHale, MD New Beginnings OB-GYN, 8850 estW Sunset Road, Suite 110, (702) 740-0500

Special Expertise: Pregnancy

Women’s Health sociatesAs of Southern Nevada, 2880 North Tenaya Way, Suite 420, (702) 255-2022

John V Martin, MD

Special Expertise: Menstrual Disorders, Pregnancy, Women’s Health

Kevin Hsiung, MD Complete Care ObGYN, 1528 estW Warm Springs Road, Suite 100, (702) 213-5601

Special Expertise: Obstetrics Only

Special Expertise: Minimally Invasive Surgery, Robotic Surgery, Tubal Ligation Reversal, Pain-Pelvic, Endometriosis

Nadia A Gomez, MD UNLV Medicine Maternal etalF Medicine Clinic, 3196 South Maryland Parkway, Suite 303, Floor 3, (702) 660-8658

Special Expertise: Menstrual Disorders, Pregnancy, Women’s Health

Women’s Health sociatesAs of Southern Nevada, 2580 Saint Rose Parkway, Suite 140, (702) 862-8862

Amit Garg, MD

Golnaz R Alemi, MD Dr. Nader and Associates GYN,OB/ 1815 East Lake Mead vard,Boule Suite 215, (702) 818-1919

Edmond E Pack, MD

Special Expertise: High-Risk Pregnancy, Pap Smear Abnormalities, Menopausal Management

heT Lakes Business Park, 9011 West Sahara Avenue, Suite 101, (702) 794-2020

OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY

Special Expertise: PET Imaging, CT ScanPET Imaging, CT Scan

Donna M Miller, MD For Women OB/GYN, 861 oronadoC Center Drive, Suite 131, (725) 777-0414

Las Vegas Medical esearch,R 8530 West Sunset Road, Suite 300, (702) 750-0222

Bharat Reddy Mocherla, MD

Women’s Health, Pregnancy, Minimally Invasive Surgery

NUCLEAR MEDICINE

Special Expertise: Neurodegenerative Disorders, Neuro-Psychiatry, Cognitive Impairment-Mild, Behavioral Neurology

Dylan P Wint, MD Cleveland ClinicLou Ruvo enterC for Brain Health, 888 West Bonneville Avenue, (702) 483-6000

Special Expertise: Headache

Abraham J Nagy, MD Nevada Headache Institute, 400 South Rampart Boulevard, Suite 295, (702) 432-3224

Special Expertise: Clinical Neurophysiology, Electromyography (EMG)

Christopher Milford, MD Sagebrush Healthcare, 701 wShado Lane, Suite 170, (702) 387-1757

Special Expertise: Movement Disorders, Parkinson’s Disease

Zoltan Mari, MD Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo enterC for Brain Health, 888 West Bonneville Avenue, (702) 483-6000

Le Hua, MD Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo enterC for Brain Health, 888 West Bonneville Avenue, (702) 483-6000 Special Expertise: Multiple Sclerosis, Neuro-Immunology

Lydia B Estanislao, MD 4206 West Charleston vard,Boule (702) 331-6709

Special Expertise: Clinical Neurophysiology, Stroke, Epilepsy/Seizure Disorders, Headache, Cerebrovascular Disease

Shanker N Dixit, MD Neurology Center of Las egas,V 2480 Professional Court, (702) 405-7100

Special Expertise: Dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, Memory Disorders

Charles Bernick, MD Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo enterC for Brain Health, 888 West Bonneville Avenue, (702) 483-6000

Special Expertise: Epilepsy

NEUROLOGY Samir Bangalore, MD Nevada Neurosciences titute,Ins 3201 South Maryland Parkway, Suite 220, (702) 961-7310

Special Expertise: Brain & Spinal Surgery, Chiari Malformations, Minimally Invasive Surgery

The Spine & Brain Institute, 8530 estW Sunset Road, Suite 250, (702) 851-0792

Michael E Seiff, MD

Special Expertise: Spinal Surgery, Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery, Spinal Surgery-Complex, Peripheral Nerve Surgery

Jason E Garber, MD Las Vegas Neurosurgical titute,Ins 3012 South Durango Drive, (702) 835-0088

Special Expertise: Brain & Spinal Surgery, Spinal Surgery

The Spine & Brain Institute, 861 oronadoC Center Drive, Suite 200, (702) 896-0940

Derek A Duke, MD

NEUROLOGICAL SURGERY

Special Expertise: Diabetes, Hypertension, Chronic Kidney Disease, Kidney Stones

7316 West Cheyenne Avenue, (702) 870-0731

Kidney Specialists of Southern vada,Ne

Vincent Yang, MD

Special Expertise: Hypertension, Cholesterol/Lipid Disorders

Nevada Kidney Disease & ensionHypert Centers, 2450 Fire Mesa Street, Suite 110, (702) 732-1586

Marwan Takieddine, MD

Transplant Medicine-Kidney

Special Expertise:

500 South Rancho Drive, Suite 12, (702) 870-0731

Kidney Specialists of Southern vada,Ne

Syed I Shah, MD

Care, Dialysis-Peritoneal

Special Expertise: ension,Hypert Dialysis

500 South Rancho Drive, Suite 12, (702) 870-0731

Chidi C Okafor, MD

500 South Rancho Drive, Suite 12, (702) 870-0731

Kidney Specialists of Southern vada,Ne

Deepak Nandikanti, MD

Chronic Kidney Disease

Special Expertise:

500 South Rancho Drive, Suite 12, (702) 870-0731

Kidney Specialists of Southern vada,Ne

Lawrence M Lehrner, MD

Special Expertise: Fluid/Electrolyte Balance, Glomerulonephritis

500 South Rancho Drive, Suite 12, (702) 870-0731

Kidney Specialists of Southern vada,Ne

Bindu Khanna, MD

Kidney Disease

Special Expertise:

Nevada Kidney Disease & ensionHypert Centers, 1581 Mount Mariah Drive, Suite 150, (702) 851-7766

Samuel A Kantor, MD

Nevada Kidney Disease & ensionHypert Centers, 5815 South Rainbow Boulevard, Suite 110, (702) 732-1586

aRadhik R Janga, MD

500 South Rancho Drive, Suite 12, (702) 870-0731

Kidney Specialists of Southern vada,Ne

Jay K Chu, MD

Hypertension, Kidney Failure

Special Expertise:

500 South Rancho Drive, Suite 12, (702) 870-0731

Kidney Specialists of Southern vada,Ne

NEPHROLOGY Adin Boldur, MD

Neonatal Nutrition

Special Expertise:

4043 tEas Sunset Road, (702) 733-0744

Elmer S David, MD A Las Vegas Medical Group,

NEONATALPERINATAL MEDICINE

Suite 140, (702) 735-7154

3131 La Canada eet,Str

Steven W Yates, MD Intermountain Healthcare

Breast Cancer, Lymphoma, Lung Cancer

Special Expertise:

Kidney Specialists of Southern vada,Ne

Ann M Wierman, MD 3150 North Tenaya Way, eSuit 200, (702) 749-3700

entersC of Nevada, 2460 West Horizon Ridge Parkway, (702) 822-2000

Comprehensive Cancer

Restituto Tibayan, MD

entersC of Nevada, 7445 Peak Drive, (702) 952-2140

Comprehensive Cancer

Anuradha Thummala, MD

Special Expertise: Hematology

entersC of Nevada, 9280 West Sunset Road, Suite 100, (702) 952-1251

Comprehensive Cancer

Hamidreza Sanatinia, MD

Special Expertise: Melanoma, Sarcoma, Kidney Cancer, Merkel Cell Carcinoma, Skin Cancer

entersC of Nevada, 9280 West Sunset Road, Suite 100, (702) 952-1251

Comprehensive Cancer

Wolfram E Samlowski, MD

entersC of Nevada, 2460 West Horizon Ridge Parkway, (702) 822-2000

Comprehensive Cancer

Ramalingam y,Ratnasabapath MD

Special Expertise: Hematology

entersC of Nevada, 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 108, (702) 952-3444

Comprehensive Cancer

Rupesh J Parikh, MD

Special Expertise: Gastrointestinal Cancer, Lung Cancer, Anemias & Red Blood Cell Disorders, Hematology

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 1505 Wigwam kway,Par Suite 130, (702) 856-1400

Anthony V Nguyen, MD

Hematologic Malignancies

Special Expertise:

entersC of Nevada, 3730 South Eastern Avenue, (702) 952-3400

Comprehensive Cancer

Edwin Kingsley, MD

Special Expertise: Leukemia & Lymphoma, Lung Cancer, Palliative Care

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 3730

H. Keshava-Prasad, MD

Hematologic Malignancies, Leukemia & Lymphoma

Special Expertise:

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 7445 Peak Drive, (702) 952-2140

Clark S Jean, MD

Special Expertise: Breast Cancer, Gynecologic Cancers, Hematology

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 9280 West Sunset Road, Suite 100, (702) 952-1251

Karen S Jacks, MD

Special Expertise: Breast Cancer, Lung Cancer, Colon Cancer, Hematology

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 1505 Wigwam kway,Par Suite 130, (702) 856-1400

Regan Holdridge, MD

Special Expertise: Breast Cancer, Lung Cancer, Lymphoma

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 3730 South Eastern Avenue, (702) 952-3400

Liawaty Ho, MD

Hematology

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 9280 West Sunset Road, Suite 100, (702) 952-1251

Vikas Gupta, MD

Special Expertise: Genitourinary Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Bladder Cancer

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 9280 West Sunset Road, Suite 100, (702) 952-1251

Oscar B Goodman, JrMD/PhD

Russell Gollard, MD Optum Cancer Care, 2300 estW Charleston Boulevard, (702) 724-8787

Transplant, Colon Cancer, Lung Cancer

Breast Cancer, Bone Marrow

Special Expertise:

West Horizon Ridge Parkway, (702) 822-2000

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 2460

Muhammad S Ghani, MD

South Eastern Avenue, (702) 952-3400

Hematologic Malignancies, Colon Cancer, Lung Cancer

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 108, (702) 952-3444

Khoi M Dao, MD

Special Expertise: Breast Cancer, Hematology

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 1505 Wigwam kway,Par Suite 130, (702) 856-1400

Stephani Christensen, MD

Special Expertise: Gastrointestinal Cancer, Lung Cancer, Breast Cancer, Colon & Rectal Cancer, Castleman Disease

Comprehensive Cancer entersC of Nevada, 3730 South Eastern Avenue, (702) 952-3400

MEDICAL ONCOLOGY Fadi S Braiteh, MD

Special Expertise: High-Risk Pregnancy

Stephen M Wold, MD High Risk Pregnancy enter,C 2011 Pinto Lane, Suite 200, (702) 382-3200

Mary L Khine-Stickler, MD Desert Perinatal sociates,As 5761 South Fort Apache Road, (702) 341-6610

Special Expertise: Premature Labor

Sean M Keeler, MD Desert Perinatal sociates,As 5761 South Fort Apache Road, (702) 341-6610

High-Risk Pregnancy

Special Expertise:

Manijeh Kamyar, MD High Risk Pregnancy enter,C 2011 Pinto Lane, Suite 200, (702) 382-3200

Special Expertise: High-Risk Pregnancy

David N Jackson, MD High Risk Pregnancy enter,C 2011 Pinto Lane, Suite 200, (702) 382-3200

Prenatal Diagnosis, Ultrasound, Diabetes in Pregnancy, Multiple Gestation, High-Risk Pregnancy

The Official Top Doctor Directory: Empowering Patients to Choose with Confidence

Special Expertise:

Brian K Iriye, MD High Risk Pregnancy enter,C 2011 Pinto Lane, Suite 200, (702) 382-3200

Special Expertise: Prematurity/Low Birth Weight Infants, Ultrasound

Wilson H Huang, MD High Risk Pregnancy enter,C 2845 Siena Heights Drive, Suite 350, (702) 382-3200

Special Expertise: High-Risk Pregnancy, Ultrasound

Lauren E Giacobbe, MD High Risk Pregnancy enter,C 2011 Pinto Lane, Suite 200, (702) 382-3200

MATERNAL & FETAL MEDICINE

Janmejay J Patel, MD Intermountain Healthcare, 9280 estW Sunset Road, Suite 320, (702) 534-5464

Coronary Angioplasty/ Stents, Preventive Cardiology

Tariq S Marroush, MD Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3150 North Tenaya Way, Suite 460,

227-3422

Sanjay Malhotra, MD Nevada Heart & Vascular enter,C 4275 Burnham Avenue, Suite 100,

Special Expertise: Arrhythmias

Heart Center of Nevada, 700 wShado Lane, Suite 240, (702) 384-0022

James A Lally, MD

Ovale, Atrial Septal Defect, Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Tenaya Way, Suite 460, (702) 233-1000

Jawad G Kiani, MD Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3150 North

Special Expertise: Arrhythmias, Coronary Artery Disease, Heart Failure Arrhythmias, Coronary Artery Disease, Heart Failure

Tenaya Way, Suite 460, (702) 233-1000

Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3150 North

Navid Kazemi, MD

John B Bedotto, MD Intermountain Healthcare, 9280 estW Sunset Road, Suite 320, (702) 534-5464

INTERVENTIONAL CARDIOLOGY

Special Expertise: Concierge Medicine

Eastern Avenue, Suite 402, (702) 617-8684

Dignity Health Medical oup,Gr 10001 South

Steven P Winkler, MD

Special Expertise: Aortic Valve ReplacementTranscatheter TAVR, Coronary Angioplasty/ Stents, Patent Foramen

Decatur vard,Boule (702) 889-8355

Henry H Wang, MD Wang Medical, 1346 South

Special Expertise: Preventive Medicine, Hypertension

Department of ernalInt Medicine, 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 230, (702) 671-5060

Sandhya Wahi Gururaj, MD UNLV Medicine

Dignity Health Medical oup,Gr 10001 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 101, (702) 616-5801

Raji Venkat, MD

Weight Management, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Preventive Medicine

Special Expertise:

Department of ernalInt Medicine, 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 230, (702) 671-5060

John A Varras, MD UNLV Medicine

Special Expertise: Concierge Medicine, Diabetes

Jerry Schwartz & sociates,As 7395 South Pecos Road, Suite 102, (702) 737-8657

Candice H Tung, MD

Department of ernalInt Medicine, 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 230, (702) 671-5060

Aditi Singh, MD UNLV Medicine

Special Expertise: Nephrology

Dipti R Shah, MD Radar Medical, 2810 West tonCharles Boulevard, Suite E47, (702) 644-0500

Concierge Care Physicians, 2450 estW Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 150, (702) 990-0622

Russell N Neibaur, MD

Chronic Illness, Eating Disorders, Nutrition

Special Expertise:

Suite 110, (702) 463-3333

(725)

At ArchWell Health, we believe you should leave a doctor’s appointment feeling seen, heard, and understood. That’s why we go to great lengths to make

Mohammed Najmi, MD

Marija Krstic, MD Intermountain Healthcare, 4275 Burnham venue,A Suite 255, (702) 369-0088

John S Hou, MD Intermountain Healthcare, 4275 Burnham venue,A Suite 255, (702) 369-0088

Special Expertise: Preventive Medicine, Concierge Medicine

Rama Harouni, MD Harouni Concierge Care, 8960 estW Tropicana Avenue, Suite 100, (702) 385-9505

Afi Y Bruce, MD Intermountain Healthcare, 4275 Burnham venue,A Suite 255, (702) 369-0088

sion, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Liver Disease

ease, Anxiety & Depression, Diabetes Management, Emphysema, Hyperten-

Asthma, Pulmonary Dis-

Special Expertise:

sure

(702) 740-5311

INTERNAL MEDICINE Bashab Banerji, MD Internal Medicine Clinic, 5731 South ortF Apache Road, Suite 100,

(702) 343-7610

Kathleen Wairimu, MD Infection Doctors, 2810 estW Charleston Boulevard, Suite 48,

Special Expertise: HIV, Hepatitis, Travel MedicineHIV, Hepatitis, Travel Medicine

(702) 380-4242

sociatesAs & Travel Medicine Clinic, 6088 South Durango Drive, Suite 100,

Infectious Disease

Chukwudum Uche, MD

HIV/AIDS

Special Expertise:

artners,P 3483 South Eastern Avenue, Floor 2, (702) 309-2311

Infectious Disease

Ronald A Shockley, MD

HIV/AIDS, Pneumonia

Special Expertise:

Brian J Lipman, MD 10001 South Eastern venue,A Suite 407, (702) 909-7170

HIV/AIDS

Special Expertise:

825 North Gibson Road, Suite 311, (702) 776-8300

Infectious Diseases of Southern vada,Ne

Fadi El-Salibi, MD

INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Special Expertise: Hand & Wrist Surgery, Sports Injuries, Upper Extremity Surgery

Bronstein Hand Center, 10135 estW Twain Avenue, Suite 100, (702) 458-4263

Olivia J Wang, MD

SurgeryHand & Upper Extremity Surgery

Special Expertise: Hand & Upper Extremity

James Vahey, MD Hand Center of Nevada 8585 South ternEas

Injuries-Hand/Wrist, Nerve Disorders/Surgery, Arthritis, Arthroscopic Surgery

Injuries, Wrist Injuries, Sports Injuries, Work

Special Expertise: Shoulder Surgery, Rotator Cuff Surgery, Hand & Elbow Surgery, Hand & Elbow Nerve Disorders, Elbow Fractures/ Dislocations, Elbow

Walter J Song, MD Desert Orthopaedic enter,C 2800 East Desert Inn Road, Suite 100, (702) 731-1616

Trauma, Arthritis, Elbow Surgery, Shoulder Surgery, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Special Expertise:

tsSpecialis of Nevada, 9321 West Sunset Road, (702) 645-7800

Hand Surgery

David Fadell, DO

Avenue, Suite 100, (702) 798-8585

Special Expertise: Wrist Reconstruction, Elbow Surgery, Pediatric Hand Surgery, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Arthritis, Arthroscopic Surgery, Fractures-Complex, Cubital TunnelSyndrome, Hand & Wrist Injuries

Bronstein Hand Center, 10135 estW Twain Avenue, Suite 100, (702) 458-4263

HAND SURGERY Andrew J Bronstein, MD

Humanitas Primary Care, 3201 South Maryland Parkway, Suite 512, (702) 685-7700

Esteban Hennings, MD

GERIATRIC MEDICINE

Disease/Crohn’s, Colitis, Digestive Disorders, Colon & Rectal Cancer

Inflammatory Bowel

Special Expertise:

you get more time with your provider to talk about the things that are important to you—and your long-term health. It’s just one of the many ways we work to keep you healthy today…and for years to come.

Comprehensive Digestive tituteIns of Nevada, 9260 West Sunset Road, Suite 306, (702) 483-4483

Christian Diaz Stone, MD

Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), Barrett’s Esophagus, Peptic Ulcer Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Colon Cancer Screening

Special Expertise:

Comprehensive Digestive tituteIns of Nevada, 9260 West Sunset Road, Suite 306, (702) 483-4483

David Quan Shih, MD

Special Expertise: Gastrointestinal Functional Disorders, Digestive Disorders

Gastroenterology sociates,As 6950 South Cimarron Road, Suite 200, (702) 796-0231

Frank J Nemec, MD

GI Excellence, 9260 West Sunset oad,R Suite 203, (702) 476-2822

Wai Li Ma, MD

Gastrointestinal Functional Disorders, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)

Special Expertise:

Gastroenterology sociates,As 6950 South Cimarron Road, Suite 200, (702) 796-0231

Gregory M Kwok, MD

lowing Disorders

Barrett’s Esophagus, Swal-

Special Expertise: Colonoscopy & Polypectomy, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD),

Comprehensive Digestive tituteIns of Nevada, 9260 West Sunset Road, Suite 306, (702) 483-4483

Andrew I Kim, MD

Liver Disease, Endoscopy

Special Expertise:

Digestive Associates, 866 venSe Hills Drive, Suite 104, (702) 633-0207

Nikhil Karanth, MD

Colonoscopy, Endoscopy

Special Expertise:

Vishal Gandotra, MD Vegas Gastroenterology, 5701 estW Charleston Boulevard, Suite 201, (702) 750-0313

Barrett’s Esophagus, Celiac Disease, Colonoscopy

Digestive Disorders,

Special Expertise:

Comprehensive Digestive tituteIns of Nevada, 9260 West Sunset Road, Suite 306, (702) 483-4483

Gary Chen, MD

Cancer, Digestive Disorders

Endoscopic Ultrasound, Pancreatic & Biliary Disease, Colon & Rectal

Comprehensive Digestive tituteIns of Nevada, 9260 West Sunset Road, Suite 306, (702) 483-4483

Tarek Ammar, MD

GASTROENTEROLOGY

Special Expertise: Geriatric Medicine

Lara Wenner, MD Intermountain Healthcare, 1302 estW Craig Road, Suite A, (702) 473-8380

(702) 383-1961

Darren Rahaman, MD Nevada Health Centers, 1799 Mount Mariah e,Driv

Special Expertise: Concierge Medicine

Shari Klein, DO 8571 West Lake Mead vard,Boule Suite 100, (702) 545-0283

Sungwook S Kim, MD Brighton Family Medicine, 1720 estW Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 140, (702) 566-5445

Sunita B Kalra, MD Intermountain Healthcare, 9077 South osPec Road, Suite 3800, (702) 947-1940

Special Expertise: Telemedicine

Jenny C Ha, MD Siena Hills Primary Care, 2789 Sunridge Heights Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 614-0850

Special Expertise: Primary Care Sports Medicine

Michael Gunter, MD Canyon Trails Family actice,Pr 7455 West Washington Avenue, Suite 445, (702) 804-5138

Telemedicine

Siena Hills Primary Care, 2789 Sunridge Heights Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 614-0850

Nancy C Chu, MD

Special Expertise: HIV/AIDS, Adolescent Medicine, Sports Medicine, Chronic Illness, Preventive Medicine

Kimberly Adams, MD Total Wellness Family ,Medicine 5225 South Durango Drive, (702) 253-9355

FAMILY MEDICINE

Special Expertise: Diabetes, Metabolic Disorders, Thyroid Disorders

Omid O Rad Pour, MD Palm Medical Group, 9280 estW Sunset Road, Suite 306, (702) 696-7256

Special Expertise: Hypertension, Metabolic Syndrome, Nutrition & Obesity

Quang T Nguyen, DO Las Vegas Endocrinology, 229 North osPec Road, Suite 100, (702) 605-5750

Special Expertise: Diabetes, Thyroid Disorders

Desert Endocrinology, 2415 estW Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 434-8400

W. Reid Litchfield, MD

Special Expertise: Diabetes

Department of Endocrinology, 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 290, (702) 660-8658

UNLV Medicine

Kenneth Izuora, MD

Special Expertise: Diabetes, Thyroid Disorders

Department of Endocrinology, 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 290, (702) 671-6469

Amber Champion, MD UNLV Medicine

Special Expertise: Diabetes

e,Driv (702) 804-9486

Brian A Berelowitz, MD 653 North Town Center

ENDOCRINOLOGY, DIABETES & METABOLISM

Special Expertise: Pediatric, Radiology

2020 alominoP Lane, Suite 100, (702) 759-8600

Lisa K Wong, MD Desert Radiology

Nuclear Medicine

Special Expertise: Cancer Imaging, Musculoskeletal Imaging,

Desert Radiology, 2020 alominoP Lane, Suite 100, (702) 759-8600

Alan Weissman, MD

Special Expertise: Body Imaging, Mammography, Ultrasound, CT Scan

Dianne Mazzu, MD Desert Radiology, 2020 alominoP Lane, Suite 100, (702) 759-8603

Special Expertise: Abdominal Imaging

Ashok Gupta, MD Desert Radiology, 2020 alominoP Lane, Suite 100, (702) 759-8600

Special Expertise: Neuroradiology, Interventional Radiology

Rajneesh Agrawal, MD Desert Radiology, 2020 alominoP Lane, Suite 100, (702) 759-8600

DIAGNOSTIC RADIOLOGY

Disorders, ADD/ADHD

Special Expertise: Autism Spectrum

Center, 630 South Rancho Drive, Suite A, (702) 998-9505

oundation–AckermanF

Grant A Gift Autism

Mario J Gaspar de Alba, MD

DEVELOPMENTALBEHAVIORAL PEDIATRICS

Special Expertise: Hair Loss in Women, Acne, Facial Rejuvenation, Botox, Cosmetic Dermatology

Candace Thornton Spann, MD Couture Dermatology & ticPlas Surgery, 9950 West Flamingo Road, (702) 998-9001

Special Expertise: Mohs Surgery, Laser Surgery, Cosmetic Dermatology, Varicose Veins

Laser & einV Institute, 10105 Banburry Cross Drive, Suite 350, (702) 243-6400

Strimling Dermatology

Robert B Strimling, MD

Mohs Surgery, Reconstructive Surgery, Skin Cancer Surgery

Special Expertise:

Vivida Dermatology, 6460 Medical enterC Street, Suite 200 and 350, (702) 255-6647

Mac L Machan, MD

Special Expertise: Pediatric Dermatology, Laser Surgery, Cosmetic Surgery

Lionel J Handler, MD Strimling Dermatology, Laser & einV Institute, 10105 Banburry Cross Drive, Suite 350, (702) 243-6400

Mohs Surgery, Cosmetic Surgery, Scar Removal

Special Expertise:

Matthew Hand, MD Thomas Dermatology, 6170 North angoDur Drive, Suite 140, (702) 430-5333

Mohs Surgery

Special Expertise:

Vivida Dermatology, 6460 Medical enterC Street, Suite 350, (702) 255-6647

Douglas Fife, MD

Acne & Rosacea, Psoriasis

Special Expertise: Cosmetic Dermatology, Dermatologic Surgery,

Vivida Dermatology, 2110 tEas Flamingo Road, Suite 213, (702) 255-6647

Victoria G Farley, MD

Hair & Nail Disorders, Mohs Surgery, Skin Cancer

Special Expertise:

Las Vegas Skin & erCanc Clinic, 400 North Stephanie Street, Suite 400, (702) 933-0225

Michael G Bryan, MD

Melanoma, Mohs Surgery

Special Expertise:

DERMATOLOGY Miriam Bettencourt, MD Thomas Dermatology, 6170 North angoDur Drive, Suite 140, (702) 430-5333

Special Expertise: Anorectal Disorders, Colon & Rectal Cancer, Minimally Invasive Surgery

Calvin D Lyons, MD Colon and Rectal Clinic of Las egas,V 2121 East Flamingo Road, Suite 200, (702) 586-6688

rhoids, Robotic Surgery

Minimally Invasive Surgery, Colon & Rectal Cancer, Robotic Surgery, Hemor-

Special Expertise:

Department of gery,Sur 1707 West Charleston Boulevard, Suite 160, (702) 671-5150

Ovunc Bardakcioglu, MD UNLV Medicine

COLON & RECTAL SURGERY

Neurophysiology, Epilepsy

Special Expertise:

Parkway, Suite 120, (702) 247-9994

Neurology Center of Nevada, 2380 estW Horizon Ridge

Monica M Chacon, MD

CHILD NEUROLOGY

ADHD, Eating Disorders

Disorders, Mood Disorders, Psychopharmacology, ADD/

Autism Spectrum Disorders, Depression, Anxiety

Special Expertise:

Health, 6284 South wRainbo Boulevard, Suite 110, (702) 257-0140

Center for Emotional

Debora A Barney, MD

CHILD & ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY

Heart Failure

Special Expertise: Interventional Cardiology,

Cardiology Specialists of vada,Ne 3150 North Tenaya Way, Suite 135, (702) 598-3999

Thomas L Lambert, MD

Tenaya Way, Suite 460, (702) 233-1000

Patrick C Hsu, MD Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3150 North

Special Expertise: Nuclear Cardiology, EchocardiographyTransesophageal

Tenaya Way, Suite 460, (702) 233-1000

Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3150 North

Samuel E Green, MD

Tenaya Way, Suite 460, (702) 233-1000

Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3150 North

Vanessa Gastwirth, MD

Special Expertise: Peripheral Vascular Disease, erventionalInt Cardiology, Concierge Medicine

Ameli-Dadourian Heart enter,C 400 South Rampart Boulevard, Suite 240, (702) 906-1100

Berge J Dadourian, MD

Special Expertise: Coronary Artery Disease, Interventional Cardiology, Angioplasty & Stent Placement, EchocardiographyTransesophageal

Richard Chen, MD Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3201 South Maryland Parkway, Suite 400, (702) 796-7150

Special Expertise: Cardiac CT Angiography, Echocardiography

Smart Heart Care, 8970 estW Tropicana Avenue, Suite 6, (702) 473-5333

Keshav Chander, MD

Special Expertise: Cholesterol/Lipid Disorders, EchocardiographyTransesophageal, Preventive Cardiology, Hypertension, Coronary Artery Disease, Concierge Medicine

Ameli-Dadourian Heart enter,C 400 South Rampart Boulevard, Suite 240, (702) 906-1100

Sean S Ameli, MD

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

Special Expertise: Arrhythmias, Pacemakers/Defibrillators

Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3150 North Tenaya Way, Suite 460, (702) 233-1000

Foad Moazez, MD

Special Expertise: Arrhythmias

Niuton Koide, MD Las Vegas Heart sociates,2880As North Tenaya Way, Suite 100, (702) 962-2200

Special Expertise: Arrhythmias, Catheter Ablation, Heart Failure, Atrial Fibrillation

Nevada Heart & Vascular enter,C 401 North Buffalo Drive, Suite 100, (702) 227-3422

Arjun V Gururaj, MD

Special Expertise: Sudden Death Prevention, Radiofrequency Ablation, Atrial Fibrillation

Nevada Cardiology sociates,As 3201 South Maryland Parkway, Suite 400, (702) 796-7150

Robert Lewis Baker, MD

CARDIAC ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY

Sandy Yip, MD Southern Nevada Allergy, thmaAs & Immunology, 2821 West Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 735-1556 Special Expertise: Allergy-Adult & Pediatric, Food Allergy, Nasal Allergy, Skin Allergies

David H Tottori, MD Tottori Allergy & thmaAs Associates, 4000 East Charleston Boulevard, Suite 100, (702) 240-4233 Special Expertise: Asthma & Allergy, Food Allergy, Eczema

Bob K Miyake, MD Allergy Partners of Nevada, 2485 estW Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 212-5889 Special Expertise: thmaAs

A. Sean McKnight, MD Allergy Partners of Nevada, 2485 estW Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 212-5889 Special Expertise: Allergy, Asthma, Immune Deficiency

Victor A. Estrada, MD Southern Nevada Allergy, thmaAs & Immunology, 2821 West Horizon Ridge Parkway, Suite 100, (702) 735-1556 Special Expertise: Allergy-Adult & Pediatric, Food Allergy, Nasal Allergy, Skin Allergies

ALLERGY & IMMUNOLOGY

VASCULAR SURGERY .......................19

VASCULAR & INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGY..19

& RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY ..............18 UROLOGY ..................................18

UROGYNECOLOGY/FEMALE PELVIC MEDICINE..18

THORACIC & CARDIAC SURGERY .............18

SURGERY ..................................18

SPORTS MEDICINE ..........................18

RHEUMATOLOGY ...........................18

REPRODUCTIVE ENDOCRINOLOGY/INFERTILITY . 16

RADIATION ONCOLOGY .....................16

PULMONARY DISEASE ......................16

PSYCHIATRY ...............................16

PLASTIC SURGERY ..........................16

PHYSICAL MEDICINE & REHABILITATION ......14

PEDIATRICS ................................14

PEDIATRIC UROLOGY .......................14

PEDIATRIC SURGERY ........................14

PEDIATRIC PULMONOLOGY ..................14

PEDIATRIC NEPHROLOGY ...................14

PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASE .............14

ALLERGY & IMMUNOLOGY

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT: castleconnolly.com or everydayhealthgroup.com

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Castle Connolly is part of Everyday Health Group, a recognized leader in patient and provider education, attracting an engaged audience of over 74 million health consumers and over 890,000 U.S. practicing physicians and clinicians to its premier health and wellness digital properties. Our mission is to drive better clinical and health outcomes through decision-making informed by highly relevant information, data, and analytics.

In addition to Top Doctors, Castle Connolly’s research team also identifies Rising Stars, early career doctors who are emerging leaders in the medical community. Physicians selected for inclusion in this magazine's "Top Doctors" and “Rising Stars” feature may also appear online at www.castleconnolly.com, or in conjunction with other Castle Connolly Top Doctors databases online and/or in print.

The Castle Connolly Doctor Directory is the largest network of peer-nominated physicians in the nation.

Castle Connolly's physician-led team of researchers follows a rigorous screening process to select top doctors on both the national and regional levels. Its online nomination process is open to all licensed physicians in America who are able to nominate physicians in any medical specialty and in any part of the country, as well as indicate whether the nominated physician(s) is, in their opinion, among the best in their region in their medical specialty or among the best in the nation in their medical specialty. Then, Castle Connolly’s research team thoroughly vets each physician’s professional qualifications, education, hospital and faculty appointments, research leadership, professional reputation, disciplinary history and if available, outcomes data. Additionally, a physician’s interpersonal skills such as listening and communicating effectively, demonstrating empathy, and instilling trust and confidence, are also considered in the review process.

ith over 30 years’ experience researching, reviewing, and selecting Top Doctors, Castle Connolly is a trusted and credible healthcare research and information company. Our mission is to help people find the best healthcare by connecting patients with best-in-class healthcare providers.

TOP DOCTORS

The valley’s best physicians, as chosen by their peers

optumcare.com/nevada

Urology Specialists of Nevada

Urology

Jason Zommick, MD

Radiation Oncology Centers

Radiation Oncology

Beau James Toy, MD

Southwest Medical

Rheumatology

Johnson Kay, DO

Southwest Medical

Rheumatology

Neil Braunstein, MD

Southwest Medical

Pediatrics

Margaret Hwang, MD

Southwest Medical

Pediatrics

Blair Duddy, MD

Optum Cancer Care

Medical Oncology

MD

Russell Gollard,

Optum is proud to acknowledge these members of our family of 3,500 providers selected as 2023 Top Docs honorees. Admired by their colleagues, and passionate about caring for others, these doctors inspire all of us, every day.

PLASTIC SURGERY

PEDIATRICS

ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY

MEDICAL ONCOLOGY

FAMILY MEDICINE

ALLERGY & IMMUNOLOGY

SPECIALISTS IN:

MEDICAL SPECIALISTS AND GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

OF THE VALLEY’S BEST