Station Casinos changing names, menus at 24-hour cafes

Station Casinos is shaking up its 24-hour dining operations. The Grand Cafe locations in Red Rock and Green Valley Ranch resorts will be converted to Lucky Penny Cafes, effective Wednesday. The remaining Grand Cafes, at Boulder Station, Sunset Station and Santa Fe Station, also are set for a name change, becoming Brass Fork Cafes sometime in April.

There won’t be any redecorating or redesign, however. According to Joseph Kudrak, director of culinary operations for Station Casinos, changes will be limited to “the food, the quality and the creativity.” He says the switch is intended to “refresh and improve the quality of the products that we’re offering.”

The Lucky Penny brand may be familiar to Palms customers as it was developed at that still-shuttered resort. Kudrak says the company had “really great success” with the Lucky Penny there and “wanted to bring that creativity and some of that food style up here to Red Rock and Green Valley Ranch.”

So what will the change mean for the menus?

“We wanted to make sure we kept the dishes that we were known for, with our classics and our cafe classics,” Kudrak says, but those familiar dishes will feature higher-end ingredients such as “a greater-quality prime rib, better-quality eggs, those kind of things.” They also are adding new items including “some brunch style stuff, some Southwestern flavors” and “some health-conscious dishes, whether it’s a garbanzo cake Benedict or an egg white enchilada dish.”

While the official changeover at Red Rock and Green Valley Ranch takes place Wednesday, marked by the replacement of the signs at the restaurants, the culinary changes will be gradual, with the complete new menu available starting Feb. 24.

“We’ve had this extensive five- or six-week training program at the cafes, where we’re teaching the team 10 dishes a week, testing them daily, and then rolling them out every week on Wednesday to make sure the team is dialed in and comfortable with them.”

Brass Fork also should be a familiar name to some Station customers. The company first rolled out the concept at Palace Station in early 2019.

Contact Al Mancini at amancini@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlManciniVegas on Twitter and Instagram.