Speak Easy & Drink Up at Mob Museum's Underground Bar
A Vegas bar with no slot machines or gaming tables, but lots of cool Jazz Age vibe.
The best bar to have a drink in Las Vegas? There are obviously lots of contenders. But for my money, one place to consider is the Underground Bar and Distillery at the Mob Museum.
One reason I like it is all the beautiful dames that hang around the place—
Among its many virtues the Underground Bar has a bunch of historical photos adorning its walls, all of them showing scenes and celebrities from the Roaring Twenties and the speakeasy era. This one is of the dancer and singer Josephine Baker, in her radiant prime.
Hipsters in those days danced the Charleston, ballin’ the jack, and the shimmy at private, after-hours clubs that served liquor illegally. Nobody shimmied like Baker. Emerging from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, her star shined even brighter when she took her talents to Paris where the French and Europeans fell in love with her.
And really, looking at her from the perspective of a century later, who could not?
The Underground Bar is in the bottom floor of the Mob Museum, which we covered in Friday’s piece. Prohibition was a prime reason why organized crime exploded in this country, so it’s fitting that a bar with a speakeasy theme serves drinks there. People back then were going to party it up and have a good time no matter what the law said—
Buying a ticket to the museum grants you access to the bar. But if you care to skip the museum entrance fee and just have a drink, go on its website, get the password for the day, and they’ll let you in a side door just like a speakeasy of old. (Today’s password, btw, is “Everything’s Jake.”)
This fun little gimmick is what captured the fancy of Tilting West contributor David Nelson. “We were actually there before hours, in the late morning,” says Nelson. “We had the password but they hadn’t opened yet. We saw the bartender and asked if we could still come in to get a drink. She said sure, and let us in through the side door.”
Nelson had his usual, a Belvedere vodka martini, and with his wife they had cocktails with one of their best friends, Jack Woodruff. It turned out to be a sentimental occasion. It would be the last time the three of them would be together before Jack’s untimely passing.
“The speakeasy theme is a clever use of that space,” says Nelson. “Most of the bars in Vegas are not like that. They’re bigger and splashier, that sort of thing.” Nor are there any slot machines or gaming tables, a welcome relief from the usual Vegas scene. Gambling, after all, was illegal during the Prohibition, too.
Three blocks away from the museum, on the far southern end of South Las Vegas Boulevard, is the “Fremont Street Experience.” It is an “experience” all right, although it may or may not be the kind of experience you’re looking for, even in Vegas.
Fremont Street is a sort of low-rent covered mall that features live music, gambling, bars and restaurants, street performers, and other amusements occasionally of a seedy nature. The best thing about it is the colorful light show that plays above your head as you walk about.
Binion’s Casino, named after Texas gambler Benny Binion, is on Fremont. Five decades ago Binion and a few of his friends came together for regular poker games at his place. These informal affairs grew into one of the most famous gambling events on the planet, the World Series of Poker.
Dave Nelson strolled over to Binion’s to see if that old poker magic still thrived. There is a special room set aside for bigger poker games but no, not so much for him. The World Series of Poker still exists but it has moved on to another locale.
When you buy a ticket at the Mob Museum they give you a wristband that lets you go in and out, so you can stroll down to Fremont if you wish and then come back to the dark and cool atmosphere of the Underground Bar. There you can sit and mingle with the likes of Jazz Age author Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda…
Fitzgerald’s best and most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, was published in 1925, two years before Clara Bow became the very first “It Girl.” You know why they tagged her with that name? Because she starred in a movie called It.
Clara was “a flapper,” like Zelda and Josephine. All were sexy and spirited females who did not fit the conventional norms of how women were supposed to act in those days. This may be why Taylor Swift recorded an admiring song last year entitled “Clara Bow.”
The sound track of that age was jazz, which was jumping, get-out-of-your- chair dance music. Naturally the Underground Bar plays the tunes of virtuoso jazz cats such as Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong who emerged as musical stars during that era.
Another elegant, super-talented musical cat fronted a swinging band up in Harlem. They played a lot at the Cotton Club. He led the band on piano and also happened to be a genius composer, writing “Take the A Train,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” and many more hit songs. His “Black and Tan Fantasy” debuted at the Cotton Club the same year Clara Bow became the It Girl.
When you go, tell the Duke I sent you!
