Las Vegas Athletics, MGM Gets Japan Casino, NYNY Water Removal & Mirage's Transition Delayed

Hello and welcome to the MTM Vegas podcast. I'm Sean Coomer, your host joined as always by Mark Osterman. We have a great show for you. As a reminder, you can watch this show along with all the visuals that go with it at youtube.com forward slash miles to memories. We record two shows a week and combine the audio into this podcast for your listening enjoyment. We have a lot to discuss on this week's show, including the athletics coming to a deal for land to build a stadium and relocate to Las Vegas. How much is the city going to pay for that? Will the team change their name? We have all of it for you. Plus, MGM got approval for the first casino in Japan. Hard Rock announced a new initiative to attract locals to the mirage while also delaying their construction timeline. We take a detailed look inside the arts district, including why it may be the coolest area of Las Vegas and New York, New York and Excalibur are removing water. What are they replacing with all of that and a lot more coming up right now? As a reminder, you can find all of our Vegas content that's posts, podcasts and videos at mtmvegas.com. Thanks so much for listening. Let's get it. So Mark, really bad news. Long time restaurant in Chinatown, Big Wong has announced that they're closing within the next 30 days. The good news is that they're still selling T-shirts. $18 can get you a Big Wong T-shirt. Sad to see this go. This is a family owned place that's been around the wild. I love swag and having Big Wong on my shirt. It would be pretty amazing. Can you get me one? I'll wear it on the show. I think I need a Big Wong shirt. We've talked about this and even before the show, I've been wanting to go to Chinatown area of Vegas. You said there's amazing restaurants there. I've never been over there. But I'll take up T-shirt at the minimum. Now, good news. Fox Kim Long is still in business. They're still doing their things. So if you like those names, then you still have something to do. But 30 days, check it out. We've talked over the years about how it's been a big move. There's a water shortage and they're making people remove grass. I live in Green Valley here, Mark, and it's turning into Brown Valley because all the grass is going away. And even when they replace it, it's often being replaced with fake turf. And some of the parks, they've done that Bermuda grass, but it's getting ugly. But now that's spreading to the strip and New York, New York has removed all the water around the Statue of Liberty and is replacing it with turf. So I guess it's going to turn into a hot green. Yeah. And the next caliber across the street where the old Merlin show was in the entrance to water there. Also being removed, it seems for dirt. I don't know what they're finally going to do there. On a side note, when we talked about that show, the Merlin show a few shows ago, a lot of people told us that the animatronic dragon is still there, although he has no water anymore. Hey, dragons are in the desert too, sometimes. You know, I've watched movies. But, uh, no, I actually think the sand kind of looks cool, and especially because it's like raked and stuff. And I don't know if they're going to put something over top of it. I know somebody made a mention of dune. That's some big dune thing coming to Vegas, which I love the dune movies, the book, all that. So if that's what they're going for, I think that'd be really cool. I don't know if this is just kind of like working their way to something else. But I think that sand looks cool. The New York, New York thing looks stupid, but I think the sand at Excalibur looks kind of cool. Yeah, I don't know. Is this cost cutting? Are they being forced to do it? Obviously, the Bloggio fountains are going to stay. We're going to lose the Mirage Volcano. But it's always been talked about how they recycle water very heavily on the strip. So I, you know, thought they would be able to keep this stuff. So I don't know when you flush your toilet in the room, it ends up in the pond out front. Yeah, something like that. Actually, in Las Vegas, we do recycle all of our water. So all of our waste gets treated and recycled through Lake Mead. So it actually is a way that we preserve water here. But yeah, I don't, yeah, green fake turf around the Statue of Liberty. I think they could have come up with something better. If it wasn't going to be water, I don't know about fake turf. But I think this changes that corner a lot with those two water features removed. Yeah, definitely. And it's both MGM. So, you know, insert MGM cheap joke here. But I'm sure there's some reason behind it besides just cost cutting. Yeah, we'll see. Let us know what you guys think. Is this an improvement? I agree that the sand looks better than the fake grass. So maybe they should just put sand over by the Statue of Liberty. Yeah, we should have the Statue of Liberty. Maybe they'll have a beach. Yeah. All right. So more news about strats parking as we finally got details on how it's all working and travel scholar at dot com. He wrote about the experience. And you know, they started charging for parking after denying it for months. And then the system that they've implemented requires you to like scan a QR code, pay on your phone, you know, with various codes, apparently it's causing huge backups. So they just didn't want to invest in a ticket system, I suppose. And then on top of that, when you pay on your phone, they're charging a service fee. This he paid $6 for his parking plus a 99 cent service fee. Strat, come on, man. I mean, forget ridiculous. Forget about resort fees. This might be the most insane fee ever that you have to use their system. And you can only pay with a credit card. And then they charge you a fee to pay for their parking with a credit card. And anytime you go to a parking structure, somebody always has an issue with the system. And it's pretty straightforward system. Push the button, get the ticket or swipe your credit card. And they still struggle with it. And you're going to add like four steps to that with a phone. And not everybody has a smartphone or will be able to get service in a parking garage. It's just horrible. This is like the worst run organization in Vegas. I can't say enough bad things about the way that they've rolled this out. It blows my mind. It's crazy. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. Yeah, I think that golden entertainment needs to rethink who's making these choices and exactly what they're doing. I mean, they're charging for parking alone isn't something that they're unique on. So you can make the argument, but then making it harder and now charging fees on top of that. I know people on Twitter pointed out they charge fees for the view seats at the restaurant on top of the strat, which other places have done. Giada's charges, for example, Caesars doesn't in a few of their restaurants. I think that's not good because the prices up there are already so high. But it just seems like they're nickel and diming. But if you're going to do that, you've got to make the customer experience a little bit better. And the parking should pay for the equipment you need to get tickets. And just to make it a normal experience. Other places do have QR codes that you can use as a backup or as an alternative. But you got to do a normal system here. And yeah, this is a PR nightmare for them. They've gotten so much bad press from this. Yeah, and to talk about the restaurant, thanks for a minute. Like, I don't mind if you want to have people have a minimum or they pay a fee to reserve the table. And that comes off your bill. You know, like we see at some day clubs and stuff like that, like, oh, you want this chair, you need to spend at least $50 this in the chair. I get that totally. Because you know, there'll be people that'll get the window seat and they'll get like two drinks and maybe an appetizer and that's it. So I understand that. But to charge people $50 and then, you know, a two, three, $400 meal on top of that, it's just crazy. Like there's ways to ensure that you're getting value, you know, from your customers, making money off your customers and not, you know, taking them to the cleaners. And the parking is just how much does it cost to buy a machine that you just do tickets? It can't be that expensive. And you're going to make it back in a couple days, you know, charging all these people you didn't use to charge. And your locals focus casino somewhat. And you're kind of out in the middle of nowhere. It's just error after error after error. And it blows my mind. Yeah, we'll talk a little later in the show how another casino is doing it right for locals in making a bit of a gamble on getting a shit away. But first, let's talk about Jose Andres, who has several restaurants in Las Vegas. And he's announced that he's going to open two new ones, one that will open in the crystals shop at city center in 2024. And another that is going to open in the forum shops at Caesars this year. And that's Zitina. I hope I pronounced that right. The first location of that opened in DC in 2002. I actually ate there in 2019. One of my favorite dining experiences is it's like a mix of different Mediterranean style foods. We were with a big group and everybody ordered just a bunch of different stuff. So I got to taste most of the menu. And it was so delicious. There was not one thing that was bad. I'm excited for this restaurant to come adding it to his other restaurants in Vegas, like Bazaar Meat and Haleo. You can tell like how much Vegas has gone to experience, especially like in the dining, because when I read the headline and it said in a mystery restaurant, I was like, Oh, what's this? Like, you don't know what you're gonna get when you get there? Like, because they just don't know the name of it. So they're not sure what kind of restaurant is gonna be. But I totally thought it was the theme of it. Like, you're gonna go in there and it's gonna be a you pick a box and you get a random ingredient added to your food or something, which sounds really cool to me. So maybe they should do that. I had the same thought when I saw the headlines. I think they eroded specifically for that, but it's just a restaurant that's not named as of yet. But they announced it Simon who owns the mall plus Jose Andres announced it. This guy does great work all over the world. A lot of humanitarian stuff, but most importantly to his restaurants, the food is so good. I, you know, eaten at a few of them and I've never had a bad meal. It's not cheap, but when you paying up for, you know, food and it's so delicious and it feels worth it. And it's good to see his restaurant empire expanding. I know he has a lot of restaurants in on the East Coast also in Orlando. I see a quite a few, you know, Disney Springs and stuff like that. So he really has expanded his his empire and couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Yeah, there you go. Mark hates Disney, but he loves Disney Springs. You Vegas, people don't know the history of that. We've gone back and forth about that a lot over the years. All right. So MGM has been pursuing their Osaka casino for I think since 2014. And with the pandemic things sort of changed. Now over the years, when in Las Vegas, Sans were both in the running for casinos, they dropped out MGM has done a lot to sort of get the cash for this. We, you know, obviously selling Mirage and they've done some other things selling off a lot of their land. And that's always been with the purpose of expanding overseas, including this Osaka casino. And finally, after all these years, they got approval. And there's only two bids for casinos there now, MGM's. And another one in Nagasaki, which is from Casino Austria, which I don't know what that company is, although that one has not been approved because there's funding concerns. So this may be the only casino in Japan for a long time. It's going to cost about $8 billion to build it on an island in Osaka Bay. And we've showed concept art before. We'll show it here. It looks really cool. And this is going to be a world-class place. I'm sure it's going to be very popular. Yeah, funding concerns. They must they moved all their money to All-Nad Arena. So that's where that's why they can't afford to build it over there now. But I was like 8.1 billion, right? That's the price tag. That is an astronomical amount of money. And they're putting a big, you know, risk out there, but they assume it's going to be really popular. I think I read like $4 billion a year in revenue and stuff. So pretty high level. And we've seen this, you know, for Sands Casino, they only had one casino overseas in an area that was doing a huge portion of their money. So I'm kind of surprised they dropped. That's the most surprising thing about all of this is so many people dropped out of the bidding and maybe MGM just went so high that they weren't willing to do it. I don't know. But I was kind of shocked by that. Yeah, Las Vegas Sands has done really well with Marina Bay Sands, which is just one of two casinos in Singapore, the other one being Resorts World. So yeah, there's definitely a huge market in Japanese culture for gambling. And they point out it's, you know, just I think an hour and a half on this bullet train, about an hour and a half flight from Tokyo. So there's a huge population within reasonable distance of here and no other casinos. And with this other bid being sort of shaky, it may be a long time before you get another casino. So on top of them, you know, getting this pretty prime location on this island in the middle of Osaka Bay, they're also probably going to be the only casino for a while. And I think they're going to be probably printing money. But to your point, $8.1 billion is a huge investment. MGM is going to own 40% of it, along with a bunch of other partners owning other parts of it. But it will be MGM branded. And you know, this has been their vision for a long time. So it's good to see them finally achieving that after they've changed so much about their acid structure by selling off the land underneath, you know, pretty much all their casinos here in Vegas. Yeah, and they know how to bring the fake grass and sand with them over there. So they'll make it look nice. Hopefully they love them to have real grass. I don't know. All right. And yeah, so we foreshadowed this a little bit earlier. Mirage has said that they want to attract locals or, you know, it's owned by Hard Rock now. And I want to talk about that in the second mark. But in this article on the review journal, there was a little bit of something that was, you know, kind of buried in the story saying that they probably aren't going to start construction on Hard Rock until 2025. So that is news to us because they had always said pretty much early 24 would be when construction started. And they said they probably don't expect it in 24. So that could push the guitar tower everything to pretty much the end of the decade volcano lovers rejoice. We got some time to say goodbye. No, I was surprised by that too. You think you'd want to get this rolling, but you know, maybe they're looking to bankroll some money before they go to spending it. So it kind of makes sense, especially with the current state of things and how we've seen everybody else pause certain projects and back off and the costs of everything being high. Maybe they are seeing that materials and everything in a couple years will be cheaper. So I think it makes business sense still surprising to me. But you already got a working functioning property. So you don't really need to rush through it, you know, make the money while you can. And, you know, we get to love Mirage a little bit more. So I think that's kind of cool. It's a win-win. And clearly they want to build their book of gamblers and they want to expand that with the local offerings, which I'll say in a second. I saw something on Twitter and I don't remember who shared this saying that he asked MGM he was a player at Mirage and he stopped getting offers completely from MGM when Hard Rock took over. And basically it kind of came out that there's a contract that MGM can't target their old Mirage players until at least I think the end of 2023. So if you did play a lot at Mirage and you're not getting any offers from MGM, then that's probably why they probably have an agreement, which makes sense. If you're buying a business, you don't want the person you just bought it from to be targeting you and trying to take your customers to their other casinos. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense from a business perspective. I'm still a little bit surprised because MGM, you know, owns all these other properties. If you fuse your car to any other property, you think they'd be like, well, he's a gamble here before, so we're still going to give him offers or her offers. So it's kind of interesting to see. And something I've never heard of before when the casino takes over and everything. Another MGM rewards thing, before we get in, I've been teasing this local thing from Mirage forever, but is that MGM, somebody discovered in the terms on MGM rewards that members who generate high levels of gaming activity and table games are subject to exclusion from earning MGM rewards points. And they say basically 25,000 or more per trip at their discretion, they can just cut you off from earning points, which I guess that means they don't, yeah, they don't want high rollers or people that are optimizing the table games, you know, high percentage paybacks or what. It just seems weird. I'm guessing this is not enforced unless they want to. So it's sort of a clause that can help them get rid of troubled people or people that are winning too much or something like that. But it does seem strange, doesn't it? Yeah, I'm, I had the same thought initially. Like this 25,000 seems like a lot, but when you're talking about a whole trip and if you're betting 25 or $50 a hand at Blackjack, you can get there reasonably, you know, easily and not lose a ton of money or put a ton of money out there to do it. I don't know, it's just kind of a weird thing to add in there. The limit is so low compared to what you think for high roller. Yeah, and we know this from our studying loyalty programs that they put all kinds of stuff in the terms to protect themselves in case they want to do something, in case they deem you a bad customer. This is what that seems like. So I wouldn't expect this in practice. Plus, if you're spending that much on a trip, you probably have a host. You're probably getting other comps and other stuff like that. So yeah, we'll see how that works out, but it is a strange piece of terms. And then finally to Mirage, they announced that they want locals to come. Joe Lupo, who is the president who has taken over when Hard Rock took over, longtime casino executive here in Nevada, has said that they want locals and they're going to come with a bunch of different promos, like happy hours, different two for one specials. You'll also get upgraded to their legends tier. If you go sign up for their unity program with your local ID. And basically, the thought process behind this is Mirage is one of the easiest properties to get to on the strip because you can just get off on spring mountain from I-15 turn right in there. So I think this is actually a smart thing because nobody else on the strip is really targeting locals. I know other people I saw Vital Vegas kind of crapping on this saying this is dumb. This is a bad pursuit. I think it's worth doing because there isn't a huge market for locals on the strip, but there is a market. You're going to give them free parking with this tier. You're going to give them other specials. We used to see Caesars do this with Rio and other places around town. Like Rio used to have 50% off their buffet, for example, for locals for a long time. And I think it drew a lot of people in there. Rio and Mirage, not exactly the same, but I think this is a great try. And like I said, they want to build up their book of customers. And as they before they transition, they want to do their best to make Mirage successful. And I wish them well. And I actually think because of their location, this could work. Yeah, I think it makes a ton of sense to me. And I don't know why people would think it's not worth it. Like, what are you really losing to put promos together? If nobody takes advantage of them, you didn't spend a ton of money, maybe a little bit in marketing, but they basically have to use it for it to cost you. And if they're using it, they're on property and they're likely spending money other places. So I think it makes a lot of sense. Good marketing. Something, you know, we wish Virgin would have done. Virgin's another one that could be widely popular as a local casino, I think. Resorts world a little bit, maybe, you know, put a little more effort into it. So I think this is smart. And something nobody else is doing. And it's kind of a really great idea to give them that status that gives you free parking. If you just show your ID, like, you don't have to say it's free parking, but anybody that pays attention gets it. And it's kind of like a roundabout way to give locals free parking, which as we know, everybody likes to complain about. So I think it's great. Kudos to them. As much as we've seen Strat do terrible, this is the other end of the spectrum. Yeah, and I think this company understands sort of a local market because their other casinos are often in markets where they're drawing from locals, like in Florida and Tampa and in Hollywood, Florida. And they do really well in marketing people. Their unity program is often very generous. And, you know, right now they're giving the three free hours of parking for locals like MGM did. But they said, you know, people want to go for longer and why not keep them on property? And, you know, with these discounts on the love show, like I said, discounts on spa packages on dining happy hours. It's a cool marketing thing. And we'll see if people will go there. It's easy enough though. If you can just get off I-15 on spring mountain turn right in, you never have to deal with Las Vegas Boulevard and your one block on and off the freeway. So yeah, I think this is really smart thinking about their position, thinking about their goodwill that they want to earn in the community as they go through that transition into Hard Rock, apparently starting in 2025. Yeah, and I mean, think about it this way, you love a little sticcation. I know you do. And this a big guitar is coming in, you know, it's probably going to be a cool pool area. Hard Rock is going to be kind of, you know, sexy and where else would you want to bank your your play a little bit and get get an easy access, or if somebody's coming into town, you can hook them up with a room at the newest property and stuff. Makes a lot of sense. Like if I lived there, I'd probably start putting my play into that area and see what kind of program they have. And if it's a good reward system, then I'd start earning level leveling up until they build that guitar tower and I'd be like, yeah, hook me up, let's go. You know, we talked about their property in Florida. They got great properties around the country. Links into that so you can travel a little bit more. I know MGM, of course, has it as well, but I think the Hard Rock local properties are some of the better ones. Now, machines in the strip pretend to be tighter and restrictions on tables. You don't get as good odds. You know, you're not going to see, you're going to see six to five blackjack, all that stuff. So that could keep locals away, but I do think that they have the ability to attract some people and we'll see how they do. So Mark, I was this many years old when I found out that Las Vegas Harry Reid Airport has bats. Apparently Mexican free-tailed bats took up residence there 20 years ago in the employee parking garage, and I guess you can see them flying in and out of there all the time. Yeah, talk about creepy. I wouldn't want to watch them, but this reminds me of what like Austin, where they all come out from under the bridge and people like actually travel there to see it. So maybe this will be the new hot spot in Vegas to go check out the bats flying out and at sunset. It just reminds you no matter how much you know about a place, there's always things to learn. They tweeted this out and like I said, I had absolutely no idea. I've never seen bats in Las Vegas proper, although I've seen them, plenty of them out at the railroad trail out near Lake Mead and it's a really cool place to do that. They have all the old railroad tunnels that you can hike through. Bats everywhere. Of course, you got to watch out for the droppings. No. No. Mark, new sphere news or Madison Square Garden news, and actually it's not related to the sphere other than they need money to pay for this thing. So they have to start selling off assets and the town nightclub group is being sold by MSG or at least what 66.9% of the group and it's going to be sold for $550 million. The sale is going to close in May and they have over 80 locations in 20 markets on four different continents. So this is a worldwide brand in Las Vegas. You would know they have tau, Hakason, Omnia, Caesars Palace, Lavel at Palazzo, Marquis and Beauty and Essex at Cosmopolitan. So a lot of adult oriented places here in Las Vegas and the sphere strikes again. That cost overruns. They're killing it. Yeah, you know, what's the number one rule in investing? Like don't put all your eggs in one basket and it's like they're selling off pieces right and left to put all their eggs in this one sphere shaped basket, which you know, I hope it works out for them. I skeptical that it will long term like it'll get built, it'll open and I think it'll be kind of cool. I just don't know that they ever recoup all this investment in a meaningful way, but you know, it'll be crazy to see a long way. I think they took their position in tau in 2017. So they haven't been the long term owners of this brand and I wouldn't expect any changes in the short term as another hospitality group takes over, but in long term you might see some changes in the venues and maybe an expansion we'll see, but already a very big name worldwide and in Las Vegas and it's not going to be part of Madison Square Garden anymore. When they announced they were splitting up the company, this part of the company tau was going to go with the sphere in the sphere entertainment side. So clearly this money will go towards the company that operates the sphere, not the other split off of Madison Square Garden. So yeah, cost overruns. The sphere is like I said, they're they're hurting, but I guess it's good for them that they're able to get the funds, they're going to get this thing built and charge their $150 movie ticket prices. For our movies, they don't even do the three hour movies there, just just an hour. And people pointed out and we failed to say this, but it's obvious they're using ticket master. So those tickets we talked about for their movie do not include the ticket master fees, which in some cases were like another $30 on the most expensive tickets. So yeah, so we actually underplayed what the actual cost is of those movies. Yeah, get them on the resell, they're going to be at tickets for less and no time. Now, Vegas Eater had a first look inside the Tiki bar at Resorts World that we talked about a few weeks ago. And this is basically an overlay on the bar that was already there as part of their flagship restaurant, Genteg Palace. But as part of the renovations, they got rid of the entrance to Genteg Palace, making them separate venues, which I think is a great idea. They also spruced up to place with a lot of decor. You're going to have all the drinks you would expect at a Tiki bar, you know, the special glasses, all of that stuff for the what fish shaped mugs, all that stuff. But it does look like a Tiki. Yeah, like a Tiki overlay though on a bar. So I think like true Tiki lovers are going to be a little bit skeptical of this. I am skeptical. I don't, I don't love it. Like it's still a beautiful looking bar and I do agree separating the two makes a lot of sense. One, if you're in a fine dining place, you don't want to be looking at people in a Tiki bar. An opposite end of that, if you just want to go have a drink and have some fun, you don't want to look at a fine dining establishment, you know, they don't vibe very well. But it looks like a high end Asian bar that they put Tiki motifs in there and like hung some stuff on the walls. It still is a really beautiful looking place. It just doesn't scream Tiki to me. It screams Tiki light or like they just wallpaper it over it real quick. So I mean, the drinks will probably be good and that's probably the most important thing. But you go to like, you know, the other Tiki bars in Vegas and it's like the whole thing is encompassing. And you go to this one and it's like, oh, we have Tiki touches, you know, like a section of pure one or something. Is pure one even around? I don't know. I don't know if they're still around. No, I totally agree. Although like if you're going to put a Tiki bar in a place like Resorts World, I feel like this is about as good as you're going to get. And we knew that the switchover was only going to take a couple weeks. So they weren't going to do major renovations. And as you said, this is one of the more beautiful spots in Resorts World before that. So the base level bar was really nice, but you're not going to get anything crazy. I think the one part I didn't love is where they covered up the entrance to the restaurant. They put some like wood veneer stuff and some surfboards that looked a little weird or out of place to me. I did like the window that overlooks the Hilton lobby. They put in some like, I don't know, foliage and stuff like that. So you're going to get a little bit of a Tiki experience. It's not going to be golden Tiki. As you said, kind of a callback to our restrooms episode. A lot of people said in the comments there that the restrooms at Golden Tiki over in Chinatown are the best in Las Vegas. We can't I was going to say we can't really talk about them. But if you want to Google what they what they look like, you sure can. But I did want to give a shout out to those restrooms because people did mention them. I will not show them here on the show though. Yeah, we don't want to get kicked off of YouTube. Now the biggest Golden Knights are in the playoffs, Mark and they're playing the Winnipeg Jets. Unfortunately, as we record this, they lost game one, five to one. But game two is going to be done before this comes out. But game four, they're going to do a free viewing party at Stadium Swim. And all you need to do is wear your Vegas Golden Knights gear and you get in for free. And you can watch game four on the big 143 foot screen. And so it's a nice way to get up there, I guess, for free. Otherwise, I was on their side. It looked like you could still reserve tickets for 20 bucks. But then it said, if you wear your gear, you get in free. So I don't know how it works if you're going to be able to swim or just watch the game. Yeah, it's a cool setup and it's definitely a cool place to watch a game, especially this time of year where it's really nice at night, not too hot. So if you want to go swim, maybe you can reserve it and then get refunded. I'm not sure exactly how that works. Maybe want to call if you're thinking about it. But even if you want to just go hang out and you don't even care about the nights and just be in the atmosphere, this is kind of a cool way to get in. I'm sure you can find a cheaper than $20 hat or shirt around town, you know, one of those souvenir shops and wear that in and get like a discounted entry price by even if you're not a fan. And I have been able to watch a Golden Knights game there on the screen. It really is incredible to watch sports on that screen, especially when they have one game on the entire screen. They have audio everywhere. So it feels like you're watching it in your living room with 143 foot screen. So yeah, it's an incredible experience and fun. And I'm assuming you're going to be able to swim, which would make it even cooler. The water's heated, nice and comfortable, like 91 degrees. So check it out. We missed this last week. So I just wanted to say it really quick, not a lot to say, but Katy Perry announced a huge tour and she's going to create a new album and doing all of that. So her final resorts world residency dates, the tickets are on sale now. She'll be their October 4th through November 4th. And then she previously had May 12th through August 12th on her schedule as well. And then she's done at least for the foreseeable future at resorts world as she goes and makes new music. I guess this is sort of the trade off of having very current artists doing residencies because eventually they're going to want to go make new music. Yeah, you don't have to worry about that with Usher, but um, trigger Usher fans everywhere. But no, I was kind of surprised like how final it felt when they announced it. Like she's ending her residency instead of just like saying it's going on a pause or whatever and with how successful it's been. And I'm assuming how much money she's made. I'm kind of surprised by that. Like I get going out and touring and you know, selling your new music, but you think like a year later after you've done that tour, you come back and do something in Vegas. So hopefully there's something in the future because everything we heard was the show was really great. So hopefully they they work it out going forward. But like you said, that's kind of the downside of this and where you get people for here and there and it might not match up with your trip versus like a Celine Dion who's there all year round. And you know, when you go to Vegas, you can go see her and stuff like that. So it's a give and take, but it's cool. It gives you something different than what you're used to for sure. Very well reviewed show. So if you want to go see it, if she ever comes back to Las Vegas, it probably won't be that show. So recommend going there if you want to see her before the end of the year. Now I did talk last week saying I was trying to go to Esther's kitchen in the arts district. I did get in there. It's very hard to get reservations there, especially for brunch and for dinner on most nights. And if you walk up, you're going to want to do it early and then you're going to be kind of relegated to the back area where they have tent dining, which for me is like a bonus, right? So we got there last Friday night and we put our name in, you know, around five 30, I think, and they said it was about an hour and 45 minutes to get in. Indeed, it was like exactly that. And they also said we had to sit in the tents. And like I said, I was excited for the tent. So I was very happy about that. Yeah, I feel like tents is an upsell to me. I don't especially this time of year. Yeah, the weather was beautiful. So they have a back patio area with some tables and then they have a bunch of tents. And then they have the main dining room, which is very small. Now Esther's kitchen is in the process of relocating to a building next door, which I think is about twice the size. But I don't think there's a firm date on when they're going to move in there. But yeah, this restaurant really does live up to the hype. This was my first time eating there. Everything is homemade. They're pizza, they're pasta. They have the best sourdough bread as they are known for. And it really lives up to the hype. But the pasta was great. The food was great. The atmosphere was great. Service was really great. And she was just saying how hard it is to get into the server. She says she can't even get a brunch reservation for herself. That's how hard brunch is. And then on most nights, they're turning away people to get into eat as well, even during the week. And the other interesting thing she said was on any given night, she might have a couple locals come in. But for the most part, tourists are keeping this place going. Yeah, I am surprised because of the where it's located in the art district. I mean, it's touristy, but it's not a mainstay for tourists. I feel like it's a good mix of locals. So I'm kind of surprised by that. And your pictures and everything I saw, the pasta looks amazing. It looks just like what you'd get in Italy. The pizza looked a little doughy for me, but I know you say it's sourdough and it has too much green stuff on it. So that's a problem I'm going to fight about. But I would love to try it to have that sourdough flavor. It's something you don't really get with pizza anywhere else. So I think it'd be kind of a cool, unique taste take on it. So I definitely give it a try. It looks amazing. Yeah, one of the interesting things is they have the sourdough bread and they serve it with butter. But you can order this like different spreads to go on the bread. So we sort of shared it as a table. Our friends and us, I think it was $29 for the full selection of spreads and had everything from like a liver one to anchovy butter to some interesting ones, a beet based one. Most of them were good. Some of them weren't popular. Believe it or not, the anchovy butter was the winner for me. It was so good. That's the one I would probably just go single out if I was going to go order one. But I think it's free if you just get the bread and the butter along with entrees and stuff. And the pizza, yeah, it's sourdough crust and that green on top is a Rugalow mark. So it's not kale. So it's a kale in the article, but whatever. Well, that particular pizza that I'm showing here was a Rugalow. The one that you're throwing up on the screen. See, I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm learning. But yeah, the Arts District in general, it really is beautiful what they've done there. Basically, this is going to be south of Charleston between Maine and Casino Center. And in some cases, you know, you could say it goes almost all the way south to Strath. Although, you know, really, it's going to go three or four blocks is the heart of it south of Charleston. And you know, there's restaurants like Casa Don Juan that have been there for a long time. Lots of breweries, lots of really cool little bars in like back alleys and stuff like that. Street art everywhere. Of course, in like sort of a hipster way, they have vintage clothing stores, tattoo parlors. It's just a very kind of up and coming interesting area with a lot of cool little businesses. And on a Friday night, you know, I was expecting it to be a little busier, but it wasn't that busy down there. Even as it got later, I saw some bars that were sitting sort of empty, which kind of was concerning. We know we had a meetup at three sheets, craft beer bar, which closed last year. So we know not all the businesses are thriving there, even if Esther's is doing really good. But we took a walk around and it just as we walked towards like third street and kind of closer to Las Vegas Boulevard, it just reminded me that a decade ago, you would have never really wanted to walk around this area. And now it's very nice. And we stumbled across Silver Stamp, my friend had been there before. And this bar apparently has been around a long time. And I don't know how to describe it. It's definitely a dive bar. But then they have all this midwest that's a midwest dive bar. That's what I'm gonna tell you, wood paneling on the walls, drop ceilings, dark, it's Midwest, baby. Yeah, they have like the old lampshades. They have this weird doll display with lights. They have a claw machine or they have a vending machine that has like mystery things you can get in it. A wall of different obscure beer cans. So much stuff. There is a lot of video that I will put up on the screen for you guys to see to kind of describe this better. But this is a this is a great area. And there's just so much to discover. There's a lot of cool little bars and there's alleyways because this is an older area of Las Vegas. You don't see alleys a lot of the time in Las Vegas, but there's alleyways and there's bars in there. And like I said, there's even the Elvis Chapel around there if you want to get married. So this is an area to go check out. I have some dinner at Esther's Kitchen or another one of the restaurants down there. Have a few drinks at some of the bars or the breweries. Walk around. It's beautiful. And I feel like this is the nicest area of Las Vegas as far as that type of stuff goes. East Fremont, for me has jumped the shark a little bit. It's just a little bit too rowdy down there. Still very nice. But this is what I think maybe East Fremont was when it started to develop. And I hope it kind of retains this character long term. Yeah, I've only spent a couple days, you know, a few hours in Arts District and I loved it. It gives you more of like a city vibe you expect when you go visit other towns and they have like this little pocket neighborhoods that you can just walk around and check out different bars. Which I mean, you can do like on the strip and stuff going from Casino Casino, but you don't really get that local vibe. And a lot of people like to say Vegas doesn't have an identity. It doesn't have a vibe. It's just, you know, all these chain restaurants or famous chefs bring it in. And I think this is that spot that you can go if you want more of the authentic local independently owned places. And you know, the Silver Stamp looks amazing. I definitely got to check it out. They have pickle and chips for $3 on the menu, which is like my favorite snack ever. You put the pickle in the middle of the two chips and it's like, oh, blow your mind. So I got to go check that out. But yeah, I just, if I'm going to go bar hop, that's kind of the area I would want to go. It'd be fun. And you get to hang out with locals and see some tourists, but you get to check out all these independently owned places that have unique spirit. So I can't recommend it enough for people to head down there. And one more last note on Esther's kitchen, the prices are definitely lower than you would see on the strip. So for especially when you're considering everything is like markets a table, freshly made, you know, entrees, you're looking at like 18 to $30, which pretty good for all of that. So definitely check that out. It's a slice of pizza at your local food hall. Yeah, exactly. All right, Mark, in the big story of the week, the Las Vegas athletics, the A's have announced that they're coming to Las Vegas, or at least they've come to agreement on a 49 acre parcel to build a stadium, a $1.5 billion stadium. And they're buying this now. This isn't the site of the Rio. This isn't the Las Vegas festival grounds. It's not the Tropicana. It's not the old wind west site. It's not any of the other sites. It's the old wild, wild west site on Tropicana where Red Rock resorts tore down Wild Wild West. So they're going to redevelop it. They have about 100 acres there. So they're selling about 50 acres. The team has the option to buy another eight acres in the future. But that means that Red Rock resorts is going to retain 40 to 50 acres to build something pretty smart, you know, get them to build a stadium and then you can build a property next to it. There's a lot to be said about this, not a big surprise, but they've come out. The A's have confirmed this. The Oakland mayor came out with a scathing response, but they basically said after 20 years of trying to get a stadium done in Oakland, they're done. The Las Vegas is it. Yeah, and that the Oakland mock up that we showed a couple months ago on the river in Oakland looked pretty amazing. So that would have been cool if they pulled it off. But this is great for Vegas. I really was hoping for the Rio spot. I thought that would have been a really unique, cool fit to have and then Rio right there. But hopefully they end up building something with that extra land. So you have a property attached in. I know they talked about walkways from T-Mobile over. They got a bit like that should be demanded by city council that that gets put in, you know, because you have this foot traffic, Allegiant didn't do it so well. So I'm hoping that they do something here when they build it like build the walkway first and then build the stadium so people can easily access it. But yeah, I think this is cool. You know, the one worry is convega support all these sports franchises. They've done well so far, but you know, as you add more and more, it's tough. And once the newness of a stadium wears off, you know, what kind of support do you see? I know you have outside support coming to visit Vegas all the time, which helps prop it up. But where does that look in five years, you know, between these three teams? Yeah, it'll be interesting. I do think this site is probably the best. I mean, they're rebuilding the Tropicana interchange right now, which will be able to handle more traffic. To your point, it's not a great pedestrian solution. With Allegiant, they had Hossi and Avenue. They already had a bridge there and that they just closed that during games and it serves pretty good. You can walk out of Mandalay Bay and walk right or Luxor and walk right over the bridge. So that made sense not needing a pedestrian bridge since they're using basically a car bridge for that. But you can't really use the Tropicana overpass. It's so busy. It's not going to be it's not going to work. And, you know, building that pedestrian bridge from T-Mobile, it connects the stadiums and the park and all of that stuff there. So I think that would be a great idea. And to your point, I think it's required absolutely. So yeah, the A's land is going to be bordered by Dean Martin Drive to the East, Tonkin's Avenue to the North, Crockon Street to the West and Tropicana to the South. So that's exactly where it's going to be. Like I said, Red Rock resorts will retain some of the land there. And, you know, all these stadiums are going to be about a mile apart from each other. This is about a mile north of Allegiant Stadium. So it's creating sort of a stadium district. But the big question mark, how do they pay for it? Governor Joe Lombardo said that he will not raise taxes to do this. So what are they going to do? They're just going to give them about $500 million in tax breaks. Or at least that's the proposal. That's the proposal. Well, raise taxes for everybody else. Yeah. So they're going to it's going to come out of your guys' pocket at some way, you know, or somehow a similar way to get it done, I guess. But hopefully you make the money back, you know, and jobs and new businesses and all that stuff that builds up around it. They always sell that never works that way. But we shall see there. Now, are you surprised like that neither team changed names? Would you have liked that? I mean, I understand with the proximity to California and, you know, you're still trying to get those fans to come. You don't really want to change the name. But we've seen it like when the Browns went to Baltimore, they changed the Ravens. But then the St. Louis Rams went to LA, didn't change. So it's always curious, like, would you have rather had like a homegrown team that has their own name, like the Knights? Or do you not really care? Yeah, this is an interesting question. I think they should change the name. Now, with the Raiders, they had all that baked in history and a lot of fandom. The A's aren't as well supported. I would like to see them change the name when they come to Las Vegas. I don't think they've announced what they're going to do yet, but that would be a good solution. And I hope that they do that. I mean, the Rams sort of made sense. The Rams were in LA before, so they were already a team. But, you know, Las Vegas, I feel like we need our own identity. We have the right to have a team. I mean, athletics is a great generic sort of name. It's not like it doesn't really fit. It fits anywhere, right? But yeah, I'd love to see a new name there. And, you know, this is going to be a retractable roof stadium or partially retractable roof. So state of the art. And like I said, I think this location is probably the best of all the ones that they mentioned other than maybe the Tropicana site. But I'm glad that the trop is getting a reprieve. And maybe Bally's will start working on that redo soon. The Vegas gamblers with an old school G on the hat. There you go. There you go. So, yeah, let us know what you guys think. Are you guys excited about the athletics finally coming out and saying Las Vegas is it? I have to think they have some backroom deals or they have some assurances that they'll be able to get that, you know, that tax rebate thing done. They also want to get a special district. So some of the sales taxes generated go back to the stadium district. So they're going to get a sweet deal, even though we're going to call it something different. Allegiantly raised room rate or room taxes. We seem desperate to get these teams. So all we have left is the NBA to come. I guess Major League soccer. Some other ones. Yeah. All in that arena is still going to get that shovel in the ground so we can get the NBA team there. I still like you think NBA would have been the easiest because you have T-Mobile. Everybody does multi-use arenas. I know for whatever reason, NBA doesn't want that, which is stupid. And they could have just moved the team right in. Would have had no time. They could have started it next season. It just blows my mind that that's the one that's to hold up. Thank you for listening to this episode of the MTM Vegas podcast. Don't forget to check us out on YouTube, youtube.com forward slash miles to memories and MTM Vegas.com for all of our Vegas content. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time. .