Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Final notes being played at famed Center Bar in Hard Rock Hotel

Center Bar

A rendering shows a renovated Center Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel.

Click to enlarge photo

An outfit worn by Elvis Presley heralds the way to the Center Bar in the Hard Rock Hotel, Monday, Nov. 30, 1998.

It seems everyone who has frequented the Hard Rock Hotel has a favorite story about the Center Bar.

Such as, the night I met Steve Emtman.

And maybe that is the concern. The night I met Steve Emtman at the Center Bar at the Hard Rock Hotel, it was a big deal to meet Steve Emtman anywhere.

It was a night in the summer of 1996, or thereabouts, and sightings of such newsmakers as Emtman were commonplace at the Hard Rock Hotel. A sizeable sort with an agreeable grin and massive biceps, Emtman was a famous defensive tackle who starred at the University of Washington and was a first-round draft pick of the Indianapolis Colts.

He could have been one of the greats had injuries to both knees and a ruptured disk not cut short his career. Emtman moved on to play with the Miami Dolphins the night I introduced myself, the conversation itself lost in the din and fog of the Center Bar’s ebullience.

On the night Emtman was hanging out at the Center Bar, we also spotted actor David Schwimmer of “Friends” and Emilio Estevez, both of whom were surrounded by revelers. Point here is, in that period, stars of stage and screen and AstroTurf were commonplace at the Center Bar.

But that was a very long time ago. That bar and the signature sunken casino floor at Hard Rock is long overdue of an overhaul, and this week hotel officials announced plans to redesign that space beginning June 29. The bar will be ripped out along with the existing casino floor, and plans are to reopen the entire space Sept. 4.

“We’re renovating all the flooring and carpeting, going with stone and tile, all of the hard wood is going,” Hard Rock COO Jody Lake said in a phone interview over the weekend. “We are adding a lot LEDs that are going to be a lot more advanced than what is there.”

The Center Bar opened in 1995 and has not been changed in any significant manner since. The Joint has been closed and reopened, Vinyl has been built, the sports book torn out and moved, Ainsworth and Culinary Dropout among the restaurants added, and an entire tower built on the Harmon Avenue side of the property. But that Center Bar, and its lowered casino floor, has remained static.

“It really is a feature bar and always has been a cool place to hang out,” he said. “We want to keep it circular, still, and the perimeter will have almost the same footprint. We’ll have another area that shoots off as its own lounge.”

The working title, and likely the formal title, will be the New Center Bar. Also in the plans in a $30 million overhaul is to raise the floor of the casino itself. Ditched will be the current design of the lowered gaming area.

“It’s unique, but our thought is the casino floor needed to be raised because it was a tough design to walk downstairs, then upstairs,” Lake said. “It never made much sense. There was not a natural traffic flow.”

To trumpet the advancement in design and technology, Hard Rock is hosting a “Last Call” drink promotion and “Final Toast” party leading to the closing of the Center Bar. The promotions are $5 shots (including commemorative shot glasses) of such offerings as “Surfer on Acid,” “Purple Hooter,” "Scooby Snack,” “Red Headed Slut” and “Cosmopolitan Shot.” The promotion runs through June 28.

And, lastly, the “Final Toast” party is set for 7 to 10 p.m. June 28. The Ubiquitous Robin Leach will lead that final toast, fittingly, serving as the last “sighting” ever at the legendary Center Bar. Unless we can find Steve Emtman, of course.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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