Friday, Sept. 28, 2001 | 8:56 a.m.
Jerry Fink's lounge column appears on Fridays. Reach him at jerry@ lasvegassun.com or 259-4058.
The historic Golden Gate sits with quiet dignity at the western end of Fremont Street.
The 106-room hotel and its 9,500-square-foot casino could almost fit snugly into a baccarat room at one of the mega-resorts on the Strip.
In a city where excess rules, the Golden Gate has survived for 95 years touting its small, cozy atmosphere.
The hotel was famous for being quaint when a group of investors from the San Francisco Bay Area, led by the late Italo Ghelfi of Oakland, Calif., leased the bottom floor of the facility to open a casino in 1955.
In 1959 Ghelfi made the casino famous for shrimp cocktails. Originally the cocktails were 50 cents, but what with increasing costs of shrimp the price was raised a few years ago to 99 cents.
Mark Brandenburg, Ghelfi's stepson, is a managing partner in the Golden Gate. To quaintness and shrimp cocktails, he has added piano music to the mix that sets his hotel apart from the glitz on the Strip.
Seven days a week, beginning at noon and ending at midnight, live piano music can be heard above the din of 400 slot machines and the chatter of diners.
The place is too small for a major restaurant, but it does have a deli. A baby grand piano sits on a platform near the deli and the 17 card tables in the casino.
Brandenburg explained how he decided, in 1993, to make live piano music the only type of performance entertainment in his casino:
"When we renovated it back to its historical look (in the early '90s) we wanted to add some entertainment. We experimented with a couple of things -- a trio, small bands -- but we realized that was too much for us. It was too small a space and too much music, too much noise.
"We found ourselves saying, 'Wait a minute, we know who we are. We are Las Vegas' most historic hotel and casino. This is our look and feel. We have a warm, friendly look and a kind of feel of the '30s. If we're going to have some music, let's do something that's appropriate for who we are. Let's put a piano in there.' "
He said that it may seem odd to have a piano between a deli and the casino pit, an idea his stepfather was less than enthused about.
"I remember him saying, 'What the hell are you doing? You've got to be out of your mind,' " Brandenburg said.
But the idea worked.
"Customers like it," he said. "It's a little entertainment for the deli and the casino as well."
The baby grand, he said, adds to the classy ambiance.
And of course there are the piano players who take their turn at the keyboard.
"We have a variety of players," Brandenburg said. "An Italian gentleman, Cesare Poggi, has just been here a few weeks (full time) but he has been coming in and playing for four or five years. He used to come to Las Vegas to play at the World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe. He would be in town for three weeks, and he would come here just to play for fun. He is very well known throughout Europe for his ragtime and jazz."
Moses Hazan has been playing piano here since Brandenburg first started the program. Bob Long has been at the Golden Gate for several years, alternating between the casino and cruise ships.
"He plays what he calls happy music," Brandenburg said. "He sells tapes called 'Happy Piano.' "
Danny Sands is one of the most recent additions to the piano rotation. My favorite is David Morris, who has been here four years. It's hard to miss Morris. He's the one in the tuxedo and the derby.
Morris is from South Philadelphia.
"Born and raised there, in Little Italy," he said. "I worked there for years. I always had a group. We played at really high-class places, till they tore them down and started building shopping centers."
His group broke up, and in 1988 he came to Las Vegas, where his first gig was in a Chinese restaurant.
"I stopped in the Chinese restaurant to pick up some Chinese food and I heard piano music coming from the back," he said. "I saw a little lady playing. I asked her if I could play a couple of tunes and I stayed an hour. They asked me to work on weekends, then they asked me to work Wednesdays through Saturdays. I was making $20 an hour, pocket money."
From there he went to other restaurants around the city.
Today Morris splits his time between the deli at the Golden Gate (Tuesday-Thursday noon-6 p.m.) and the lounge at Piero's (Thursday-Saturday, 7 p.m.-midnight).
Piero's is an exclusive restaurant just off the Strip across from the Las Vegas Convention Center that attracts the city's rich and powerful.
At Piero's, a bourbon and water costs about $10.
For that price, you can get 10 shrimp cocktails at the Golden Gate.
Lounging around
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