The End of an Era: Vegas’s Downtown Cocktail Room Is Closing

Downtown Cocktail Room. | Downtown Cocktail Room

“I don’t deliberation astir radical get to consciousness that benignant of restitution successful their full life,” says proprietor Michael Cornthwaite

On an mean Saturday night, the agelong of Fremont Street conscionable eastbound of Las Vegas Boulevard hums. Twenty-somethings successful municipality for the play zigzag crossed the street, ducking beneath the twinkling garlands of Lucky Day and glowing tentacles of Discopussy, slamming shots connected the rooftop of Commonwealth, and swarming the DJ booth astatine We All Scream. It each makes for a large and glossy whirlwind of a nighttime for Fremont East’s demographic of the infinitesimal — and a acold outcry from what Michael Cornthwaite, the proprietor of Downtown Cocktail Room, describes arsenic “the glory days” of the neighborhood.

With Fremont Street’s locals-first ethos and the frenetic and spendthrift Tony Hsieh days down him, Cornthwaite sees the champion years of his barroom successful the rearview mirror. He tells Eater helium volition adjacent Downtown Cocktail Room and its rear-room barroom Mike Morey’s Sip ‘n’ Tip successful November — a closure that, successful galore ways, marks the extremity of an epoch for the glittery block.

Cornthwaite remembers seeing an country rife with “untapped potential” erstwhile helium opened Downtown Cocktail Room successful January of 2007. “It was the halfway of the metropolis and if you went each the mode backmost to the ’60s and the ’70s, it was similar Main Street USA,” helium remembers. At the time, neighboring businesses took the signifier of the Fremont Medical Center and the Metropolitan fingerprinting building. Commonwealth was a spot called Hollywood Fashion. Discopussy was a luggage store. To unfastened DCR, Cornthwaite needed to get a peculiar licence since, astatine the time, bars could not unfastened wrong 1,000 feet of each other. “It efficaciously prevented immoderate benignant of bar-hopping amusement benignant district,” helium says. “And that’s wherefore it was truthful special.”

A elemental marquee affixed to the ceramic partition astatine the country of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard marks the entranceway to DCR. First-time visitors clumsily paw astatine the windows earlier uncovering the 1 that gives mode to a dimly lit barroom swaddled successful heavy reddish tones and angled spotlights. Most of the seating is lounge-style with padded sofas crowded astir tiny tables. At the rear, bartenders enactment down a barroom pouring classical cocktails and mixing signature drinks from a seasonal menu. Drinks instrumentality the signifier of the Killa Kiwi — a blend of vodka, kiwi puree, vanilla syrup, and lemon; oregon the Downtown Dill — a riff connected a bloody Mary with gin and cucumber. It’s besides 1 of the lone bars successful municipality that tin reliably marque a banging Ramos Gin Fizz — assuming the nighttime is aboriginal capable (and the extremity is sufficiently generous) to spend bartenders the requisite 5 minutes oregon truthful to adust shingle the premix until frothy.

The bathrooms are amazingly memorable here, with stalls partitioned with two-way mirrors. In 2017, Cornthwaite converted a rear lawsuit abstraction into Mike Morey’s Sip ’n’ Tip. The adjacent spin-off skews concern alternatively than sexy with constrictive booths that request to beryllium piled into and an extended barroom for regulars who similar to chat up longtime bartenders.

Soon aft opening, the trio of the Griffin, Beauty Bar, and DCR led to an uptick successful ft postulation — Cornthwaite, who besides co-owned Emergency Arts and the Beat Coffeehouse & Records, estimates 90 percent of customers astatine that clip were local. He opened DCR without immoderate bartop gaming machines, a rarity astatine the time, 1 helium hoped would redirect attraction to a section and cocktail-savvy clientele.

As a Chicago native, Cornthwaite remembers feeling, erstwhile helium came to town, that Las Vegas was truthful laser-focused connected tourism and gaming that the section was a “second-class citizen.” Inspiration for Downtown Cocktail Room struck him connected a travel to New York aft visits to speakeasy-style cocktail bars. Cornthwaite had hoped to make a coagulated blessed hr successful the aboriginal years, catered toward the adjacent metropolis employees and instrumentality firms. “But the contented was to spell to your car and spell location astatine 5 to Summerlin oregon Henderson,” helium says. The 2007 opening predated the colonisation density that would travel with the coinciding openings of the Soho Lofts, Newport Lofts, and Ogden residential buildings.

Chelsea McManus Downtown Cocktail Room successful 2014.

Then came Tony Hsieh. In 2010, the former CEO of Zappos relocated the institution to downtown Las Vegas and invested $350 cardinal successful his caller neighborhood. “For a batch of radical that were successful the vicinity and taking risks and moving truly hard to get a small spot of a boost, that was truly fantastic,” says Cornthwaite. With the infusions of existent property investments and Zappos employees, concern became dependable for the cocktail bar. “To me, that was the existent renaissance,” says Cornthwaite. “That was the Gilded Age of downtown.”

He says helium remembers it arsenic a clip erstwhile 1 could locomotion down Fremont Street and walk Harry Reid, Andre Agassi, and Morgan Spurlock successful 1 day. As anyone who was remotely Hsieh-adjacent successful the aboriginal 2010s knows, shots of Fernet-Branca flowed freely. Cornthwaite developed cocktail recipes with his tenured bartenders George, Kevin, Jackie, and Amber, sharing the excitement of making thing innovative and special. “Things were breathtaking and they were happening truthful rapidly and it was happening wrong my walls,” says Cornthwaite.

While Fremont East prospered, the broader downtown country began to change. In caller years, the Las Vegas Arts District became a nightlife hub successful its ain right, drafting imaginable customers from the Fremont area. New businesses acceptable up store adjacent DCR. The Beat Coffeehouse abstraction was bought retired and replaced by a determination of the Eureka edifice chain. Corner Bar Management began its overhaul of the block, opening vibey and sheeny bars with DJ booths and Capri Sun-style drinks and vessel service. “The bigger, flashier, much recognizable, shinier objects person emerged,” says Cornthwaite. “In a batch of ways, it’s astonishing for downtown. For an underground locals’ speakeasy, it’s not the aforesaid thing.”

Corner Bar Management Fremont East District.

Like different businesses, Cornthwaite besides faced challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic with changing lawsuit behaviors and outgo of goods increases that would request raising cocktails prices implicit $20 to stay viable. Nearly 20 years since helium archetypal took retired a lease connected the gathering and 3 years aft relocating to Colorado, Cornthwaite says helium conscionable isn’t portion of the neighborhood’s people demographic anymore. “I don’t see myself to beryllium connected the cutting borderline of nutrient and beverage and entertainment,” helium says. Ultimately, the DCR closure has been a agelong clip coming, helium says.

The pioneering cocktail barroom was 1 that firmly established itself arsenic a stalwart of Las Vegas’s drinking civilization wrong the past decennary oregon so. It was a reliable determination for archetypal dates, an casual archetypal halt connected a barroom crawl oregon post-dinner nightcap, and a regular haunt for the city’s movers, shakers, and cocktail fiends. Cornthwaite says it ne'er rather reached the romanticist heights it knew successful those years betwixt 2010 and Hsieh’s decease successful 2020. “It’s conscionable arsenic overmuch amusive for maine present arsenic it was 5 oregon 10 years ago, to cognize the past and to spot however things person changed, and to consciousness that satisfaction,” helium says. “I don’t deliberation astir radical get to consciousness that benignant of restitution successful their full life.”

Downtown Cocktail Room and Sip ‘n’ Tip volition adjacent sometime betwixt November 8 and November 13, depending connected staffing and inventory considerations. Cornthwaite hopes that locals who person made it successful implicit the years volition halt successful again earlier the past nighttime of work — possibly adjacent for a changeable of Fernet and a Ramos Gin Fizz.