El Cortez mixes retro with modern in marking 70th year
Linda Button began answering telephones at the El Cortez in 1973.
Button, then 23, worked across the street at a telephone company when a girl on her bowling team told her about the job opening.
"It was $1.25 more an hour, which back then was a lot of money," said Button, now 61.
She has worked at the casino ever since.
Las Vegas’ oldest continuously operating casino is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. Mobster Bugsy Siegel owned it for a year before handing it back to original owner J.K. Houssels in 1946 to build the Flamingo. The El Cortez’s early owners and employees are long gone, but many staffers, including Button, have worked at the property for decades.
Some of its customers are also fixtures from the ’70s. Executive Manager Alexandra Epstein, daughter of majority owner Kenny Epstein, said the El Cortez is striving to give regulars the vintage Vegas treatment that former owner and gaming legend Jackie Gaughan was known for while still attracting the newcomers who visit downtown for the East Fremont nightlife.
The 91-year-old Gaughan, who owned the El Cortez from 1963 to 2008, is still a physical presence — he lives in the penthouse suite and spends his days playing poker with customers. His old Vegas emphasis on customer service also informs the current owners’ business philosophy.
"What we’re trying to do is move forward while still maintaining the integrity of our past," Epstein said.
A FRESHER LOOK
A key part of moving forward is updating the 70-year-old property. The El Cortez has invested about $32 million in renovations in the last four and a half years.
One of its biggest projects was the 2009 transformation of the Ogden House, an overflow motel on the corner of Ogden Avenue and Seventh Street that cost $750,000 to build, into retro-modern Cabana Suites.
The $7.5 million renovation set off a wave of downtown investment that continues today.
"That was a big change for us in terms of stepping up our game. It showed the El Cortez was taking a really active role in the future," Epstein said. "We were making a decided step: OK, we are going to do something, to be a part of the East Fremont movement and the things that are happening."
The Golden Nugget, Plaza and Gold Spike have remodeled in recent years, and Fitzgeralds and the Golden Gate are undergoing renovation.
Since the Cabana Suites opened, the El Cortez has made smaller, more gradual changes to its main facility, from refreshing the hotel’s 364 rooms and installing a new air filtration system to giving its casino-floor bar, now called The Parlour, a makeover and painting the casino’s exterior.
The Flame steakhouse was also "gently refurbished," and offers a vintage Vegas menu with classics like oysters Rockefeller and hearts of palm Tuesday through Thursday nights for the rest of the year in honor of the casino’s anniversary.
"We’re constantly investing. Anything that’s 70 years old requires constant renovation," Epstein said.
Workers are now wrapping up the paint job, coating 30-year-old shades of brown with a red reminiscent of the property’s original look.
Next up: a pool in what is now a parking lot at the Cabana Suites.
SERVING TWO MARKETS
All of the changes are designed to appeal to the casino’s devoted customers, typically on the older end of the age spectrum, as well as the 20-somethings who flock to downtown’s new bars and lounges.
"We have our core customer, who’s here early on in the day and midweek and 300 out of 365 days a year. Now on weekends and later at night, we’re seeing a completely different demographic. We’re trying to tap into that as much as possible," Epstein said.
Diversifying the casino’s customer base is helping the El Cortez thrive in lean economic times.
"I think (the renovations) positioned them pretty well, because they’ve been able to refresh the rooms, they’ve been able to do a lot of stuff in the casino to keep people interested and bring new people down there, which is the key," said David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
El Cortez General Manager Mike Nolan said people are still gambling, but their budgets are smaller. The property is still offering the promotions it’s always been known for in hopes that good customer service will keep people coming back.
"We don’t have shopping centers, we don’t have bowling alleys, we don’t have movie theaters," owner Kenny Epstein said. "All we have is a good value for drinking, eating and gambling."
The El Cortez is also becoming something of a downtown community center. The casino has encouraged the local creative community by leasing what was once a vacant medical center to Jennifer and Michael Cornthwaite, who in turn created Emergency Arts.
The casino has also hosted suite-design and cinema competitions to show off local talent.
The casino has watched 70 years fly by and seen the urban core around it rise and stagnate, but for Button, who became Gaughan’s executive secretary in 1981, not much has changed.
Sure, J.C. Penney is no longer an El Cortez neighbor and the 1971 opening of the Plaza prevented Button and her friends from cruising down Fremont Street.
But the spirit of the El Cortez is still the same, she said. The same customers call.
"Every so often I’ll get a phone call," Button said, " ’Oh, Linda, you’re still there. I was hoping you were still there.’ "
Contact reporter Caitlin McGarry at cmcgarry@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273.
