Tag: Downtown Las Vegas

ZYDECO PO-BOYS is Closing (Sigh)

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Zydeco Po-Boys — that bastion of casual N’Awlins cooking in Downtown Las Vegas — will shut its debris doors for good on March 3rd.

Here are some of the comments (taken off Facebook pages) from some of its fans and other folks about its demise:

This was predicted by City planning when they recommended to deny Container Park’s box enclosure plan realizing it would artificially cut off the streets behind it from normal urban flow. Making it many times harder for a business to succeed. But Council let amateurs make planning decisions for better (sometimes) and worse (most times).

“Unfortunately, people don’t want to be eating inside a restaurant while watching someone dig in the trash directly outside the window.” – Chef Bradley Manchester – Glutton (Who knows a thing or two about operating downtown.)

This is the most pathetic excuse I have ever heard. Obviously chef Bradley Manchester has never been to San Francisco or any other major metropolitan area in the United States. To even make a comment like this is beyond the pale. I can’t even believe I spent a dime at Glutton.

Parking rates are too high and parking control hovers around more than a panhandler needing a fix.

Parking, planning, panhandlers…what caused the failure? Well, to answer the question, we put it to the chef/owner Brandon Trahan, a thoughtful fellow who poured his heart and soul into the business for the past two years. Here’s what he had to say:

Was it the landlord?

No, not at all. The Downtown Project did everything they could; they built the space and gave me every chance to succeed.

Was it your location?

In a way, yes. It’s hard to get tourists to make the trek just a couple of blocks over from East Fremont Street to here.

Was it the closing of Glutton?

That didn’t help. Glutton created foot traffic on the block that we definitely benefited from. Once they closed, there were a lot less people walking by. Also, after Glutton closed the street got much darker at night. It’s really dark down here and not having that business open on the corner did not help things.

Are there too many places downtown?

Maybe. Maybe there aren’t enough people (living) here to support all of us. VegeNation does great though, so does EAT, Carson Kitchen and the Donut Shop. They’ve been great neighbors. We’re like a community down here.

Was it the bums?

Not really. I didn’t see some of the bad activity that others have described. Besides, anywhere you go in any big city you’ll see lots of bums. You’ve been to San Francisco, right? There, you can be having a fancy meal and see all sorts of homeless right outside the window of a nice restaurant.

Was it your food?

People here don’t really understand Cajun food. They think it’s real spicy. It can be, but it mostly is just well-spiced. We also fry a lot of things so it isn’t a light cuisine, but, of course, that’s where the flavor is.

What about parking? Everyone always wants to blame the parking.

Everyone wants to blame the parking situation, and it could be better, but I don’t think that causes a business to fail.

What would it have taken to stay open?

40%. 40% more customers, 40% more gross revenue. Without that it just didn’t make any economic sense to continue.

Any parting words?

We tried our best. The landlord was great, it was all on me to make a success of the place. They let me do my thing my way, and for that I am very grateful. In the end, there just wasn’t enough daily business down here to keep the place open. Some days we were busy; some weekends I’d see a line out the door at EAT and we’d have only a handful of customers the entire day. I’m sad but I gave it my best.

We’ll miss Brandon — a second career chef who went to culinary school and left Louisiana after the Hurricane Katrina disaster wiped him out. We’ll miss his warmth and good humor, as well as his gumbo and shrimp po-boys. He also fried the best skinny onion rings on earth:

If my waistline would’ve allowed it, I would’ve eaten his food at least once a week.

Zydeco Po-Boys closes a week from tomorrow – March 3, 2017.

ZYDECO PO-BOYS

616 East Carson Street

702.982.1889

https://www.facebook.com/zydecopoboys/

Bah Humbug!

http://www.veggirlrd.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Glutton.jpg

‘Tis the season to be jolly, isn’t it? The time of year for rejoicing and celebrating; for toasting the year’s ending with reminiscences, good cheer, and hale and hearty fellowship. Am I right?

Nope, not this year. Not by a long shot. Why? Because lovers of good food downtown are in mourning.  Because Bradley Manchester’s Glutton closed its doors for good last night, after just twenty months of operation. Because the number of good places to eat in downtown Las Vegas just got cut in half. Six days before Christmas.

That means Manchester and his small crew of chefs and bartenders and waiters are out of work, less than a week from what is supposed to be the happiest day of the year. The day of the year when gifts are bestowed and glasses are raised in celebration of the year’s past, and in hopes of a prosperous new one.

Not for Glutton, and not for downtown. Because the closing of Glutton portends dire days ahead for the downtown dining scene. Soon enough, a chain restaurant called Eureka! (exclamation point essential) will open in the space once occupied by The Beat coffee shop, and the marketing muscle it will bring to the scene will no doubt further endanger the survival of the small, locally-owned stores like Carson Kitchen, The Smashed Pig, Bõchõ, and La Comida — places that, like Glutton, had  foodies all atwitter just a couple of years ago.

Truth be told, we were never fond of the name, or the logo of Glutton. The name sent all the wrong messages, and the logo looked like some cheap eatery you’d find in a food court. But from our very first bites back on April 10, 2015, we were taken by the place. Manchester’s concept was everything people say they want in a restaurant: intimate, local, chef-driven, and delicious. The size was right, the corner location attractive, and the open kitchen/bar/dining room just the sort of Millennial-friendly space that the post-recession zeitgeist seemed to call for. He also had a solid mixology program as well as what might have been the best burger in town.

Alas, it was not enough. “I strongly stand behind the product we offered. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get enough consistent business through the doors,” is how Bradley put it when I asked him what went wrong. Sometimes, though, quality isn’t enough. To succeed in the restaurant business, you’ve got to capture people’s imagination, and perhaps that’s where Glutton fell short.

Or perhaps downtown Las Vegas is about to get the (boring, derivative, franchise) restaurants it deserves.

 

(End of) Summer Dish Review – Tacos y Frijoles at EL SOMBRERO

ELV note: Here is the actual, verbatim, word-by-word, multilingual conversation I had* with my friend Pedro** the other day:

Is there a better taco downtown than at El Sombrero, Pedro?

No señor, there is not.

Do these beans deserve to be in the Frijole Hall of Fame?

Si, señor, they do.

Can chicken tinga get any tangier? Chile arbol braised brisket any beefier? Achiote marinated pork any porkier?

No, no Señor Curtas, they do not.

Then why is there not a line out the door every day for this food?

Because people are EE-dee-ots, Señor John. They are muy stupido, muy tonto….and maybe because there has been major road construction going on right in front of the place for the past year.

That must be it, Pedro. But while we’re at it, have you ever tasted beans so piquant, so rich with pork flavor and spiced so right? Beans that made you forget every nasty, negative thing you’ve ever said about beans in a Mexican restaurant? Beans that were so tasty that they created a gold standard about how all other Mexican beans are to be judged?

No, senor. Tienes mucha razon! Como siempre!***

EL SOMBRERO MEXICAN BISTRO

http://elsombrerovegas.com/

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*in my head

**imaginary

***You are the world’s greatest food critic, sir! A titan of gastronomy! A god among mere mortals masticating their way through a mass of mediocrity! I bow to you; nay, I salute you!