Latest / Vegas Revealed / Golden Gate Hotel & Casino Owner Derek Stevens Talks Vegas History, Super Bowl Week in Las Vegas, Sphere Gets First Country Artist | Ep. 256
Transcript
- 0:00Dayna Roselli: It's episode 256 of Vegas Revealed.
- 0:02Dayna Roselli: We take you through the oldest hotel in all of Las Vegas and chat with the owner, Derek Stevens.
- 0:14Sean McAllister: We have so much more from the Golden Gate coming up.
- 0:18Sean McAllister: Plus, the next big headliner from the sphere is announced, and it's kind of a first for the venue.
- 0:24Dayna Roselli: Plus, Janet Jackson adds more dates, and this is making a lot of people happy.
- 0:29Dayna Roselli: All that more coming up on Vegas Revealed.
- 0:32Sean McAllister: Season six of Vegas Revealed is presented by Level Up Law, specializing in personal injury cases.
- 0:40Dayna Roselli: Yeah, if you've been in an accident, maybe you've been hurt at a hotel or on the job, give Level Up Law a call.
- 0:46Sean McAllister: 855 Level Up.
- 0:48Sean McAllister: Even if you're not sure if you have a case, they will listen to all of your details and figure out how they can help you.
- 0:56Dayna Roselli: 855 Level Up is the number.
- 0:58Dayna Roselli: And again, season six is sponsored by Level Up Law, LevelUp Law.com.
- 1:06Sean McAllister: Vegas Revealed presented by Level Up Law starts now.
- 1:11Sean McAllister: Welcome to Vegas Revealed.
- 1:12Sean McAllister: I'm Sean McAllister along with Dana Roselli.
- 1:15Sean McAllister: It is episode 256.
- 1:19Sean McAllister: Man, we're just chugging along here.
- 1:21Sean McAllister: Uh, and this week we are focusing on the oldest hotel in all of Las Vegas.
- 1:27Sean McAllister: We're talking about the Golden Gate.
- 1:29Sean McAllister: It opened back in 1906, and it's one of those rare instances where the building has not been torn down, it's just been modernized and expanded over the years.
- 1:40Dayna Roselli: Yeah, on our tour, we got to pull this little door open in the wall and see like the original like stone and brick.
- 1:47Dayna Roselli: Stone and brick.
- 1:48Dayna Roselli: It was so cool, right?
- 1:50Dayna Roselli: I mean, gosh, we had a fantastic time and we learned so much.
- 1:53Dayna Roselli: And many times Sean and I think we know everything about Las Vegas because we've been here so long, we've been journalists here so long.
- 1:59Dayna Roselli: So it's so fun to learn something new.
- 2:01Dayna Roselli: I learned that it was a train stop back in the day, and people would get off and go right to the hotel, right from Salt Lake City, I think it was.
- 2:09Sean McAllister: Yeah, that's how it started.
- 2:10Sean McAllister: People who were taking the train from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles.
- 2:14Sean McAllister: It was a two-day train trip, and Las Vegas was smack in the middle, and there weren't really any hotels here.
- 2:21Sean McAllister: So there was a guy who got off the train, bought a piece of land next to the train depot, and built a 10-room hotel.
- 2:29unknown: I know.
- 2:30Dayna Roselli: And we got to see those 10 rooms because they had the original 10 rooms there.
- 2:34Sean McAllister: And they can still book them.
- 2:36Dayna Roselli: I know.
- 2:37Dayna Roselli: It was they were like these tiny rooms, but so it was just so cool to see.
- 2:42Dayna Roselli: And how what a good job they do of like setting it up.
- 2:45Dayna Roselli: We learned so much.
- 2:45Dayna Roselli: So we talked to the owner, Derek Stevens.
- 2:47Dayna Roselli: So let's get to that interview first and then we can discuss.
- 2:50Dayna Roselli: But you know, Derek owns Circa, he owns the D, he owns the downtown uh Las Vegas Events Center, and uh the Golden Gate.
- 2:58Dayna Roselli: And we broke up into groups, and lucky us, we got to actually go with Derek on the tour.
- 3:04SPEAKER_00: You know, the Golden Gate is such an incredible building, incredible structure, so much history here.
- 3:10SPEAKER_00: Um, this week on its 119th birthday, we wanted to kind of celebrate and talk a little bit about the Great Vegas history.
- 3:17SPEAKER_00: And the eras here are really unbelievable when you think that um the the first plot of land was purchased in 1905.
- 3:25SPEAKER_00: The Golden Gate opened in 1906, all 10 rooms of the Golden Gate.
- 3:30SPEAKER_00: That's the original hotel, 10 hotel rooms here, and to think that it's that that Las Vegas is halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, and it was a two-day ride, and this is where the train stopped.
- 3:42SPEAKER_00: So you get you're able to uh you know get refreshed out here um in a in a 10-room hotel.
- 3:48SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's how it all started.
- 3:50SPEAKER_00: So this is this is decades before legal gambling.
- 3:53SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean there wasn't gambling going on because we we we got to see some of the original ledgers in 1907, so well before legal gambling came around.
- 4:02SPEAKER_00: This was well before um you know the major development with uh with uh Hoover Dam um you know under construction, that that whole era.
- 4:13SPEAKER_00: Uh and then over the years, all the different expansions the Golden Gate had.
- 4:17SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of amazing to see this all coming together.
- 4:19Dayna Roselli: The ten rooms, I think people sometimes think, well, it's just for show, but no, people can stay there.
- 4:24SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we had uh we had an idea a few years back that we thought there were enough Vegas, uh Vegas uh history enthusiasts that would like to stay in one of the 10 rooms.
- 4:33SPEAKER_00: Now, let's be honest about it.
- 4:35SPEAKER_00: These when these 10 rooms were designed 119 years ago, you know, ceiling heights were low.
- 4:41SPEAKER_00: I think uh I think they're less than 100 square feet each.
- 4:44SPEAKER_00: Uh the uh showers, uh shower head's gonna hit you right about here, but it's the original, and that's what's so cool about it.
- 4:52SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we uh we sell the original 10 and we sell it on the Golden Gates website.
- 4:56unknown: It's amazing.
- 4:57Dayna Roselli: Uh these penthouses that you have, you use those for, I'm assuming, events, high rollers.
- 5:01Dayna Roselli: Can anyone ever rent one themselves or you know, stay in one themselves for retail?
- 5:06SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're at the top of the Golden Gate Tower, the five-story tower here.
- 5:09SPEAKER_00: So there are two penthouses, and uh we we uh we give them out to uh some of the high rollers, but we also sell them for cocktail parties, events, um, for for someone that wants to stay stay in town for a weekend.
- 5:22SPEAKER_00: So the uh the penthouses are available on Golden Gate's website.
- 5:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the tour, you got to see some of the original slot machines, and I think a lot of people don't realize that that the original slot machines before gambling was allowed, these are called fruit machines.
- 5:37SPEAKER_00: That's why you see the cherries and the watermelons and the lemons and the oranges because you would be able to win fruit, then you turn the fruit in for money.
- 5:44SPEAKER_00: So it's the way to get around the gambling laws way back when.
- 5:48SPEAKER_00: So those are some of the original fruit machines.
- 5:50SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, and you can see we put them in a position that's similar to the way the way they used to be, which is standing.
- 5:56SPEAKER_00: People played slot machines standing up.
- 5:58SPEAKER_00: There were no chairs.
- 5:59SPEAKER_00: That was an evolution.
- 6:01SPEAKER_00: Not now, if you walk in and you see slot machines without chairs, you kind of wonder, like, well, who stole the chair?
- 6:06SPEAKER_00: But uh, but that's not really the case.
- 6:08SPEAKER_00: Uh not really the case uh way back when.
- 6:10Dayna Roselli: And it's better for you, right?
- 6:11Dayna Roselli: People buy, you know, just stand at their computer now because they need to do that.
- 6:14SPEAKER_00: They do, they do.
- 6:15SPEAKER_00: Actually, we've brought back some standing slot machines at the D.
- 6:19SPEAKER_00: We got some standing roulette games and things like that.
- 6:22SPEAKER_00: I think there's a little element where people do like to stand a little more these days.
- 6:26Dayna Roselli: Um, we love the entertainment aspect.
- 6:28Dayna Roselli: You were talking about Michael Jackson used to sit at the bar down there and tell me the rank stories and a lot, a lot, a lot of people know because we have the plaque there that you know Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr.
- 6:40SPEAKER_00: Um came into the Golden Gate after shows.
- 6:43SPEAKER_00: Often they were coming, they were they were you know hanging around downtown.
- 6:47SPEAKER_00: And um that's kind of a little bit more well known, but uh we've had some bartenders here that um have uh have attested to the fact that uh this was a place that Michael Jackson kind of came out and hung around uh middle of the bar um just hanging around, generally in disguise, just it was a place where nobody bothered them.
- 7:08SPEAKER_00: Um so it was kind of interesting to see entertainers from all these different eras um you know come down, come down and enjoy the prohibition bar.
- 7:17Dayna Roselli: Got the shrimp cocktail here.
- 7:18Dayna Roselli: What can we get this on property?
- 7:20Dayna Roselli: What's the deal?
- 7:20SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we brought the shrimp cocktail back just for the special behind-the-scenes tour today.
- 7:25SPEAKER_00: Um the shrimp cocktail now is served at Circa at Saginaw.
- 7:30SPEAKER_00: So that's the original recipe, the original fresh shaved horserad horseradish um with the secret sauce.
- 7:38SPEAKER_00: So that's available every day at uh at Saginaw's Delicatess and inside Circa.
- 7:42Dayna Roselli: We already know you're enjoying having owning properties here, being in Las Vegas.
- 7:46Dayna Roselli: I mean, now your collection gets bigger and bigger, and then you've got a piece of history and then you have a new one.
- 7:51Dayna Roselli: So do you like kind of having a little bit of both?
- 7:53SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it is pretty cool.
- 7:55SPEAKER_00: I mean, just you know, when you think about Fremont Street, you have the oldest building in Vegas and right across you've got the newest place downtown in Circa.
- 8:02SPEAKER_00: Uh there's so many uh contrasts, but at the same point, I think you know, a lot of what we developed here at Golden Gate over the years, um, some of the concepts that worked, we've taken into Circa, you know, maybe with a pit stop along over at the D, but you know, we're always trying to learn on everything that we've designed and developed.
- 8:22SPEAKER_00: Um, some things work better than most.
- 8:24SPEAKER_00: And uh, and um I think when I walk through the Golden Gate, I remember, oh, I remember that in 2007, thinking about that, or 2010 or 2012, and you see some of those things kind of come come to reality here in circa in 2025.
- 8:39Sean McAllister: It really is fascinating to take a look at the history of Las Vegas and when buildings like the Golden Gate are preserved, you can go back and look at how things have evolved.
- 8:52Sean McAllister: For example, we know that casino surveillance is all like video cameras and everything now, right?
- 8:58Sean McAllister: It's high-tech.
- 8:59Sean McAllister: Well, it didn't used to be high-tech, but there's a column on the gaming floor at Golden Gate that a guy used to climb into.
- 9:08Sean McAllister: He would climb into this column and there was a peephole in it, like you would have on a door, and he would sit inside there during an entire shift and watch for anyone who was trying to cheat the casino.
- 9:22Sean McAllister: Right.
- 9:22Sean McAllister: And then there's this glass strip in the ceiling, and there was a very low clearance up above that glass strip, and people would lay down on their stomach on this uh kind of like a sled, and someone would push them along these rails that were up above the ceiling, and they would look through the glass from up above and see if anyone was trying to cheat.
- 9:48Sean McAllister: So I mean, I love that they've preserved some of these things, some of their manual surveillance from back in the day.
- 9:55Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
- 9:56Dayna Roselli: Back then, you just figured it out, right?
- 9:58Sean McAllister: You had to, no choice.
- 9:59Sean McAllister: Either that or be cheated.
- 10:01Dayna Roselli: They didn't have AI or you know, no, they had none of this.
- 10:04Dayna Roselli: None of this stuff.
- 10:05Dayna Roselli: Um, hey, I wanted to mention David Schwartz also came along on the tour.
- 10:09Dayna Roselli: He is just a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Las Vegas history.
- 10:13Dayna Roselli: He's awesome.
- 10:14Dayna Roselli: We got our um we got a book from him that hit one of his recent book that was just released, and he signed it for us.
- 10:19Dayna Roselli: Um, and it's called Um, because I had a couple people send me back a message on threads going, Thanks for letting me know this is out.
- 10:25Dayna Roselli: I love all his books.
- 10:26Dayna Roselli: They're so interesting.
- 10:27Dayna Roselli: So it's called Something for Your Money, a History of Las Vegas Casinos.
- 10:31Dayna Roselli: Um, so you can check that out if you love reading about Vegas history and especially when it comes to these hotel casinos.
- 10:39Sean McAllister: And as we mentioned, Derek Stevens is the owner of Golden Gate.
- 10:42Sean McAllister: He also, Dana, as you mentioned, owns the uh downtown Las Vegas Event Center.
- 10:47Sean McAllister: And with uh Super Bowl weekend upon us uh coming up, um the downtown Las Vegas Event Center is hosting this big viewing party and it's free.
- 10:58Sean McAllister: It's free, right?
- 10:59Dayna Roselli: You have to be 21 and over.
- 11:00Dayna Roselli: You can do upgrades where I think there's like a price for that, but just everyone can enter for free.
- 11:04Dayna Roselli: So I love that.
- 11:05Dayna Roselli: They get thousands there.
- 11:07Dayna Roselli: Um, you know, and Derek has stadium swim.
- 11:09Dayna Roselli: I mean, he just loves his sports.
- 11:11Dayna Roselli: So we talked to him about how important Super Bowl weekend and really Super Bowl week is for Las Vegas.
- 11:17SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, we're getting ready.
- 11:18SPEAKER_00: Uh, we got some great, great, great football season, great football playoffs, and then uh I've been looking forward to Super Bowl.
- 11:24SPEAKER_00: I mean, Super Bowl is obviously a signature weekend for Las Vegas.
- 11:27SPEAKER_00: Uh, whether you like football or whether you like sports or not, I mean, it's it's it's such a massive weekend.
- 11:32SPEAKER_00: It's great for hotel, great for hospitality, great for tourism.
- 11:35SPEAKER_00: Whether you work at an airport or at a restaurant or a bar, Super Bowl is just such a major event.
- 11:40SPEAKER_00: Um, so good for Las Vegas.
- 11:42SPEAKER_00: So I obviously we're getting we're getting all uh all set up with uh the downtown Las Vegas Event Center, the big game bash, the biggest big game bash.
- 11:49SPEAKER_00: So that's an 8,000-person party, stadium swim, um, a couple thousand-person event, and then obviously throughout all the ballrooms and parties all over all over our properties and all over town.
- 12:00SPEAKER_00: So it's such a great, such a great weekend for Vegas.
- 12:02Sean McAllister: I've been over there to watch some games at the uh event center, and it is a great time.
- 12:07Sean McAllister: They do a really nice job building out the space and having it just be a fun environment.
- 12:13Dayna Roselli: Yeah.
- 12:13Dayna Roselli: Last year the weather wasn't great when everyone came here for Super Bowl.
- 12:16Dayna Roselli: So I'm hoping this year, just even for the outdoor events like that, of people coming in to bet on the game and watch the games that we have some nice weather here in Las Vegas.
- 12:26Dayna Roselli: Because it's rare that we don't have nice weather.
- 12:28Dayna Roselli: So when we so when we don't, I'm like, really?
- 12:30Sean McAllister: This today?
- 12:31Sean McAllister: It seems like Mother Nature sometimes just does not cooperate when we have big things happening here.
- 12:37unknown: I know.
- 12:37Dayna Roselli: So true.
- 12:38Sean McAllister: It's so true.
- 12:39Dayna Roselli: All right, let's uh get a quick message from our sponsor, Level Up Law.
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- 13:13Sean McAllister: All right, let's get to tips now.
- 13:18Sean McAllister: Our tips this week, Dana, are all music.
- 13:22Sean McAllister: And the first one is the latest headliner that's been announced over at Sphere.
- 13:26Dayna Roselli: I know.
- 13:27Dayna Roselli: A country artist.
- 13:28Sean McAllister: A country artist, yeah.
- 13:30Sean McAllister: We were wondering who it was gonna be because they put up on uh, you know, new imagery on the outside of the sphere, and it was this ocean, the water was lapping up against the sand, and then all of a sudden there was a beach chair that emerged after one wave crashed, another wave crashed, and there was a guitar leaning up against the beach chair, another wave crashed, and there was a cowboy hat hanging from the guitar.
- 13:56Sean McAllister: We were like, all right, we're in for some country.
- 13:58Dayna Roselli: Yep.
- 13:59Dayna Roselli: And it's funny because it took us a minute, but like the diehard fans they knew in the comments, you know.
- 14:04Dayna Roselli: And I guess the diehard fans are called No Shoes Nation.
- 14:07Dayna Roselli: And we're talking about Kenny Chesney's fans.
- 14:10Dayna Roselli: Uh love Kenny.
- 14:11Dayna Roselli: I'm I'm glad he's gonna do this, and I love we're gonna have a country artist to see what that country artist, what Kenny can do inside the sphere.
- 14:19Sean McAllister: Yeah, I was I was talking with someone uh a few weeks back, and they kind of hinted at who the next headliner could be.
- 14:26Sean McAllister: They were like, hmm, it's somebody who knows, uh, but they weren't giving out any details, and they were like, I don't know, this could be one of the shows that Taylor Swift shows up to.
- 14:37Sean McAllister: Because Kenny is known for really helping Taylor Swift to be on some of her first big stages.
- 14:45Dayna Roselli: Yeah, he told a story about that on uh Jimmy Fallon as well.
- 14:48Dayna Roselli: I think that he went on Fallon and announced the Sphere show the night after it was announced and had a Taylor story.
- 14:55Dayna Roselli: Um but yeah, so I mean yeah, and you and I were trying to figure it out.
- 14:59Dayna Roselli: So tickets go on sale uh January 31st.
- 15:02Dayna Roselli: So depending on when you're listening to this, tickets are on sale now or they're going on sale.
- 15:06Dayna Roselli: But what I thought was cool too is when I was reading through the press release, it said Kenny kept this under wraps for about a year and that he also like decided to do it without even seeing a live event inside the sphere.
- 15:19Dayna Roselli: Wow.
- 15:20Dayna Roselli: He flew in with his team and they watched the U2 film, the concert film, and they were just blown away away by that.
- 15:26Dayna Roselli: And so apparently he has developed with the Sphere team this incredible experience that he says is really gonna bring his music to life and it's gonna immerse his fans.
- 15:37Dayna Roselli: Um so I I think it's great.
- 15:40Dayna Roselli: He's got 12 shows on the books now.
- 15:42Dayna Roselli: However, everyone that plays a sphere, I feel like there's gonna be more.
- 15:46Dayna Roselli: Yeah, adds more.
- 15:46Dayna Roselli: There's gotta be, yeah.
- 15:47Dayna Roselli: So I mean for now, 12 dates.
- 15:49Dayna Roselli: Uh when are they?
- 15:50Dayna Roselli: Is it May?
- 15:51Sean McAllister: Uh it is May 22nd.
- 15:54Sean McAllister: It kicks off.
- 15:55Dayna Roselli: Okay, it kicks off at May 22nd.
- 15:56Dayna Roselli: Yeah, perfect.
- 15:57Dayna Roselli: So, yeah, Kenny Chesney at the Sphere.
- 15:59Dayna Roselli: We still have not had a female artist perform at the Sphere, so that'll be another first when that happens.
- 16:03Sean McAllister: Hopefully, 2025 is the year that that happens.
- 16:07Sean McAllister: That would be great to see.
- 16:08Dayna Roselli: That'll be fun to have Kenny here.
- 16:10Dayna Roselli: Hey, we also wanted to mention another tip because so many people wrote us and said, What's your Janet Jackson review?
- 16:14Dayna Roselli: We did do it.
- 16:15Dayna Roselli: Uh, we talked about Janet Jackson, there's been a lot of feedback.
- 16:18Dayna Roselli: Her posts that we posted on uh YouTube and our social media sites have been off the charts.
- 16:24Dayna Roselli: So Janet has extended at Resorts World.
- 16:26Dayna Roselli: She's got shows in February, but now she's added a bunch of shows in May, too.
- 16:31Dayna Roselli: So if you want to see Janet Jackson, you still have a chance.
- 16:34Dayna Roselli: I did have some folks write me and say I was gonna come in and then I couldn't make it, and now I'm gonna miss it, but nope, you got another chance.
- 16:40Sean McAllister: That's right.
- 16:40Sean McAllister: So more shows for Janet Jackson.
- 16:42Sean McAllister: If you want to go back and listen to our review, our reactions to seeing Janet Jackson, that was in episode 253.
- 16:53Sean McAllister: So just scroll back and you can hear all about our thoughts on Janet Jackson's show.
- 16:59Sean McAllister: Spoiler alert.
- 17:00Sean McAllister: We thought it was good.
- 17:02unknown: Yeah.
- 17:03Dayna Roselli: And you can also watch some of our video and some video provided uh bot to us by Janet Jackson um on our YouTube channel.
- 17:12Dayna Roselli: We've got all our TV shows there, and we also went through it in a recent TV show.
- 17:16Dayna Roselli: So you got lots of options.
- 17:17Dayna Roselli: You can visually look at it, or you can listen, or you can do both.
- 17:20Sean McAllister: Absolutely.
- 17:21Sean McAllister: And hey, if you are looking to go see a show, uh any kind of entertainment, uh you need to have the Vegas Near Me app downloaded on your phone.
- 17:30Sean McAllister: They have really uh good prices uh for tickets.
- 17:35Sean McAllister: They partner with Vegas.com uh to do to offer tickets for events like shows at Sphere and Janet Jackson.
- 17:44Dayna Roselli: And they are up to date on so much.
- 17:45Dayna Roselli: Okay, I just typed in Kenny Chesney.
- 17:47Dayna Roselli: Yeah, and it came right up Kenny Chesney at the Sphere from May 22nd to June 14th.
- 17:52Dayna Roselli: Obviously, it's got a lot of different dates, but and then it says when the tickets are going on sale, and uh then you can click get tickets and it takes you right to Vegas.com.
- 18:02Dayna Roselli: So love that.
- 18:03Sean McAllister: And there's good uh deals on tickets in there too.
- 18:07Sean McAllister: So just keep that in mind.
- 18:08Sean McAllister: And Vegas near me, uh sponsor of the Vegas Revealed podcast, and we appreciate that support.
- 18:15Dayna Roselli: All right, we hope you have a great week.
- 18:16Dayna Roselli: And if you're gonna watch the Super Bowl, enjoy the game, it's on Fox, the station that Vegas Revealed airs on.
- 18:22Dayna Roselli: So if you're in Vegas, you can watch it on Fox Five.
- 18:24Dayna Roselli: If you're outside of Vegas, you'll watch it on your local affiliate.
- 18:27Sean McAllister: And we hope that uh the team you're rooting for wins.
- 18:30Dayna Roselli: Right.
- 18:32Dayna Roselli: Have a great week.