The Strange Case Of The "Sports Bar For Women"

The latest mini-trend in Las Vegas seems to be restaurants and bars specifically targeted for the ladies. Eva Longoria's SHe by Morton's is a hip and intimate Steakhouse complete with DJs, dancers on elevated catwalks, and stilt-walkers that's already targeting groups of female friends heading out for a lady's night. The trend will continue with Heraea, a sports bar opening soon in The Palms (if the resort emerges from recent troubles unscathed) designed to appeal to the fairer sex from hip restaurant and bar gurus The One Group.

That's right, a sports bar for the ladies.

On first glance, the idea seems incredibly stupid. By no means am I arguing that women don't like sports or sports bars... in fact, that's what makes it ridiculous. Many, many women love sports, but I've never met one who went to watch a game and wished they had a more girl-friendly option at which to enjoy the Football game. I don't know any women who feel that Nachos and Beer are for boys, and wish they had better options Kale Salad and Cosmo options while they watch the game. The whole idea sounds like it could be potentially sexist even as its intended to be "for women." But then again, maybe The One Group people are onto something.


In an interview with The Las Vegas Sun, One Group CEO Jonathan Segal described his vision in two paragraphs that only sorta traffic sexist stereotypes:  “A couple are planning to go out in Vegas. The guy says, ‘Will you watch the game with me?’ The girl turns around and says, ‘OK, I want to go to Heraea at the Palms.’ And the guy says, ‘OK!’ He thinks he’s making the decision, but he’s not!”

Segal then added  "we have done the research, and 75 percent of all househould decisions are made by wives or girlfriends... and 100 percent of guys think they are in control, so women have learned exactly how to make the decisions while making us think we're making them. This hits exactly to the point of what we're aiming to do here."

Statistics like "100 percent of guys think they are in control," sound awfully unscientific, insultingly portray women as the ultimate manipulators and men and easily duped simpletons, and are basically as believable as stories of Manti Te'O's dead girlfriend (topical! and a sports reference!), but I can see his point. From what I can gather, Heraea will feature upscale food, chic design, and a bit of the restaurant as nightclub vibe that made The One Group's STK at The Cosmopolitan such a big hit. Despite a slogan that teases Heraea will be "where girls go to play," (a tag that might imply the place is the most expensive Lesbian Bar in a major Vegas resort, though if it becomes successful at that I'm sure The One Group will nto complain) the concept seems to be more of a sports bar that ladies who DON'T like sports will be okay with visiting with their husband/ boyfriends. and not an answer to the prayers of women who love sports but hate sports bars... because, again, I'm not really sure that's a demographic that exists. A Portlandia book store like place that is a "safe space for women" this will not be, I'm assuming.

But who knows? Perhaps The One Group is evolving the Sports Bar into something new, something that Sports Bars of the future will have to respond to. Personally, I think a place that pours cold Beer and serves giant plates of cheesy Nachos with your Football is a perfect thing, a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," but The One Group's experiment in upscale and feminine friendly Pubbery works, then I'll be happy to say I'm wrong.

And it's also possible it will succeed simply because in bringing in more dudes who would go to a sports bar anyway but choose Hereae because they expect to find more ladies to chat up while they watch the game. In which case, well played, One Group. Well played.

Could an Ace Hotel Make it in Vegas?

Just over a decade ago, Downtown Los Angeles was a wasteland. When The Staples Center opened and brought The Lakers and Kings Downtown, things began to change, and just over ten years later, DTLA is on its way to becoming the hippest part of Los Angeles, with interesting new bars and restaurants opening there seemingly every weekend (if you haven't had the burger at Lazy Ox Canteen or an Old Fashioned mixed at Seven Grand yet, you're missing out). AEG is close to completing their evil master plan of building an NFL Stadium in Downtown, which will (in addition to downgrading Sunday traffic on the 110 from "pretty-rough" to "an endlessly horrific Lynchian/ Kafkaesque waking nightmare state from which the only escape is death or madness") bring even more people flooding to the area. A less publicized but equally important sign that the hood is becoming the hippest segment of Los Angeles is the fact The Ace Hotel chain have chosen the old United Artists building in Downtown as the site of their first Los Angeles location. The LA Ace will undoubtedly draw in hipsters by the droves looking to check out the cool bars, trendy restaurants, top DJs, eclectic films playing in the restored movie palace, and coke fueled hotel room parties that will inevitably be part and parcel of its raison d'etre.


For those not in the know, the first Ace Hotel opened in Seattle in 1999 in a converted halfway house and was designed to appeal to "the creative class" (sound familiar to anyone?). The quirky original hotel became a runaway success with Seattle's proto-hipsters in the early 00's, and now there are locations in Portland, New York, and Palm Springs (which seems like a strange location for a hipster-bait hotel until you realize its proximity to Indio makes it the number one choice for concert goers looking for a place to party and crash during The Coachella music Festival). The various Ace locations feature diners that serve organic foods and locally sourced Coffees while you eat at communal tables, lobbies that play indie rock and obscure classic cuts as background music, bars that serve Craft Beers and labor-intensive Cocktails, Hotel Rooms with bunk beds and animal murals, Green-friendly design, Spas that feature natural and organic treatments, "Swim Clubs" where you can enjoy DJ sets, concerts from hip indie bands, Yoga classes, and "impromptu dance parties," and a vibe that is just generally (and self consciously) cooler than any other hotel you've ever been to.

There is something inherently ridiculous about The Ace Hotels' calculated obsession with coolness, a ridiculousness exploited to perfect effect in a hilarious sketch from the first season of Portlandia. But there is also something irresistibly awesome and fun about them, as the hotels generally pull off their goal of being the heppest place to stay and play in every town in which they're located. I've had amazing experiences on the weekends I've partied at an Ace Hotel, which has led me to contemplate the question at the heart of this very blog post: could an Ace Hotel thrive in Las Vegas?

The obvious place to put the Las Vegas Ace would be in Downtown, preferably on or as close to Fremont Street as possible. Downtown has clearly become the center of Hipster-Vegas culture, as its the location of The First Fridays art walks as well as hipster approved watering holes like The Griffin and Beauty Bar. It's also a perfect location for an the chain since all of the previous (and future) Aces are located in refurbished hotels that build the classic style of the previous occupant into their design. Surely, there is an aging Casino that could be converted and face-lifted into an ultra-cool Ace location somewhere on Fremont Street?

Obviously, no other Ace Hotel has a Casino on its premises. The Ace Vegas could be a non-gaming boutique, but I actually think that if they teamed up with someone who knew how to manage a casino, they could do well... especially if they put more thought into their gaming floor than the owners of The Cosmo have. And if the Casino had an interesting theme, a cool vibe, minimum bets that were as low as the rest of the places in Downtown, and cute cocktail waitresses passing out free PBRs, you might end up seeing plenty of mustachioed gentlemen and glasses sporting women sitting around gaming tables and losing their money to The House.

The real question is if The Ace opened in Downtown, would people come? I certainly don't think an Ace Hotel that cost $2 billion to build and was the size of a Strip mega-resort would survive in Vegas. But if the owners of the chain could find a smaller old hotel to renovate in Downtown, they could do very well. If the theoretical Ace Las Vegas played its cards right, it could become the cultural center of the young and artsy, throwing First Friday after-parties with cool DJs spinning deep cuts, hosting up and coming bands that might not play in Vegas otherwise, showcasing alt-comedians who wouldn't feel at home sharing a stage with burlesque dancers, pouring the best craft brews and mixing the most creative cocktails in town, displaying interesting work from local artists, hosting indie film festivals, and  becoming the hotel equivalent of The Double Down Saloon. Hipsters are everywhere, even in Las Vegas. Isn't it time they got their own hotel in Sin City?

Perhaps the whole idea is just a crazy dream... I'm sure the operators of The Ace chain are planning on expanding to cities with well established hipster populations like Austin or San Francisco before opening a hotel in the consumer capital of America known as Las Vegas. An Ace Hotel opening on Fremont Street it could be just as positive a sign that Downtown Las Vegas has been fully revitalized as it was for DTLA. If they took a gamble on a venue in Las Vegas, I wouldn't bet against the owners of Ace Vegas hitting a hipster jackpot.