Hot Hipster Bar Update: ELV returned to Frankie’s Tiki Room last night (12.09.08), was there for almost an hour, sat a table, table hopped, saw and conversed with good friends at the bar (for a good 15-20 minutes), and still couldn’t get a drink! At first we sympathized with the single barkeep, trying as he was to keep up with the modest-sized crowd in the joint. But after standing and conversing at the bar for a good ten minutes, right in front of him, while he mixed a drink, and then witness him walk right past us to take an order from a just-arrived group; we lost all sympathy and decided he was just a putz…or a very bad barkeep…or both. The good news is we went home sober as a judge. The bad news is our clothes smelled just as foul as they used to under Frankie’s prior ownership.

…opened yesterday on West Charleston (just a block from UMC). It takes the place of one of the nastiest, sorriest, smokiest, lamest little video poker bars in town (also called Frankie’s). The original Frankie’s had been there for decades, and we never saw more than two cars in the parking lot in the twenty years we’ve been driving past the place.

Bad as it was, (the original) Frankie’s was a good place to grab a nasty, lame, cigarette-smoke-infused, boiled hot dog at 4 in the morning.

Of course ELV, being the person of taste and distinction that he is, would never have deigned to debase himself by entering such a joint; but certain friends of ELV had been known to hang out there on occasion.

The new owners have created a theme, cleaned the place up, and turned it into what is sure to be a neo-retro-hipster haven. Since it’s within stumbling distance of ELV’s house, and since the classic-umbrella-bedecked cocktails looked mighty well-made last night (even though it was too crowded to actually get one from the harried bartenders); we expect to make this our regular watering hole.

Frankie’s Tiki Room

1712 W. Charleston Blvd.

Las Vegas, NV 89102