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Tags: Spas / Primm / Off the Strip / Outside Vegas / Primm Valley Resort / → All Tags

Discovery of the Day: The Spa At Primm is Actually Very Nice

We haven’t been the friendliest people towards Primm in the past here at VegasChatter, but we’re always willing to admit when we may have misjudged stuff (hey Carrot Top, ‘ssup Vegas! the Show) so today’s mea culpa is coming straight at Primm. Or rather, the spa at Primm Valley Resort.

The week before last, we drove down to LA to catch a flight home to the motherland, when, as we were about to leave, we realized that we were sporting the feet of a warthog. Wanting to impress the motherlanders, we decided to get a pedicure on the way down. And we chose Primm, partly because we were intrigued, mainly because the new (it opened in January) spa at Primm Valley Resort was doing free taster treatments for Nevada residents in June.

And OMG. How nice was it? Not just in comparison to what we were expecting (a cupboard off the casino would have done that) but in comparison to Strip spas. Nice lighting, Aveda products, a cute Jacuzzi room, friendly staff, and vibrating-massaging pedicure chairs that gave us a rejuvenating back rub to set us up for the journey. Lovely!

The magic chairs

Best of all (for us, not them), we had it pretty much to ourselves. It was great.

The price, had we not scored a freebie, would have been $45 for a decent pedicure. More expensive than a shop round the corner, but less expensive than the Strip hotels (the Monte Carlo spa, which is crap, btw, charges $50; the Rio, $55). Waxing starts at $10 for eyebrows, $30 for body, and massages from $40. Or you can skip the treatments and get spa/gym access for $10, which definitely beats the Strip hotels. Watch out, though, because it’s closed Tuesday and Wednesday.

Now, we’re not going crazy and suggesting you stay there (although, erm, if you do book a room online, they’ll knock 50 percent off an hour-long spa treatment). And if you’re not traveling the I-15, it’s too out of the way to go there. But, if you’re making the LV-LA haul, it would make a rather good stop – we also found some nice pizza on the way out that set us up for the journey. Primm, although we still wouldn’t stay over, we may have misjudged you a little bit. Sorry bout that.

Tags: Adventure / Tours / Primm / Off the Strip / Dudes in Vegas / Groupon / → All Tags

We Got Whipped Around in the Desert And Liked It

Being fond of saving money, we’ve become fans of Groupon since it launched in Las Vegas. After seeing several restaurant, yoga, and cupcake offers, our adventure radar went off at something called Landsailing. Seeing the words “Blast across miles of smooth, wide open space at up to 55 mph” was enough to count us in.

WHO: We booked with Land Sailing Tours and marked our calendars “the day we might die or at least break something”. We were joking of course as we assumed there would be helmets, goggles, and plenty of other safety equipment (pads perhaps?).

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Tags: Cigar Bars / Man Caves / Man Cave Cigar Lounge / Off the Strip / Dudes in Vegas / → All Tags

A New Kind of 'Man Cave' is Now Open in Henderson

When most of us dudes hear about a “man cave,” we have visions of Jason Segal’s pad in “I Love You, Man,” a place where guys can watch sports, play video games, jam on musical instruments and, um, engage in other forms of self-appreciation.

Now, however, in the suburb of Henderson, the phrase is the name of a new cigar shop.

The shop, Man Cave Cigar Lounge, is located at 855 Seven Hills Dr., and opened sometime last month. In short, if you like cigars, it’s well worth the trip.

Inside, the joint feels like your basic frat house. It’s cavernous. It’s got dark colors. Oh, and cigars adorn just about every wall. All told, the collection rivals that of Caesars Palace's Casa Fuente (until now, the pre-eminent cigar shop in town). The benefit of the Man Cave, of course, is that because it has less overhead than its Strip-based competitor, just about all of the prices are lower.

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Tags: Drinking / Bars / Vince Neil / Off The Strip / DJs / Ladies Night / → All Tags

Feelgoods Makes Women Feel Good on Tuesdays

Note: Women in this picture are hotter than they might be when you visit Feelgoods

Ignore, for a moment, that the Tuesday night DJ at Feelgoods Rock Bar & Grill is named Neil Neil (yes, that’s his legal birth name).

If you’re a woman, the place is a great place to party, since ladies get free Miller Light drafts and chips & salsa all night long.

The West side joint, located at 6750 West Sahara, launched its new Ladies Night promotion earlier this month. As part of the weekly event, women also receive drink specials including margaritas, house wine and Feelgood martinis for as low as $3.

There also are T-shirt giveaways and the chance to win Feelgoods gift certificates through one of those put-your-business-card-in-a-fishbowl type of drawings.

The main attraction, however, is Neil (or is it Neil squared?) himself.

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Tags: Bars / Locals Vegas / Off the Strip / → All Tags

Beware of the Cellar Lounge, Its Charms Could Keep You There Through the Night

Serendipity--the feeling, not just the ice cream shop at Caesars-- can be a good thing, case in point - the Cellar Lounge. It’s the kind of basement bar just west of the Strip that you may have discovered while driving past it, curious of its interior, but may never had the time to step and take a look - and that’s where we come in. The bar's name states just what you’re going to get with this place - a cellar, an underground bar that gets to the business at hand, smart bartenders serving affordable cocktails in an atmosphere that we like to call...festive.

It’s a hideaway for sure, with a nice courtyard patio in the back of the building to grab some fresh air if things feel a touch crowded inside. The interior is sparse but still inviting and thankfully, they didn't go overboard with any sports memorabilia.

As for the mix of people here, there are tourists who took a 10 minute cab ride from the Strip, divorcees looking for a new lease on life, casino workers trying to unwind, or literature majors who just want to hang and observe.

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Tags: Off The Strip / Platinum Hotel / Casino-Free / → All Tags

The Platinum Hotel: Off The Strip Chic Without The Craziness

A scant two blocks east of the Strip on the busy Flamingo Road you’ll find a non-gaming, non-smoking resort that still has many of the upscale accouterments you’ll find inside the toniest places that line Las Vegas Boulevard.

The Platinum Hotel is one of a large number of condo-hotels in town whose entire residential roster consists of absentee owners who are more than willing to sell their pad to you for the duration of your Vegas stay.

An all-suite property, the Platinum ranks No. 9 in Vegas on TripAdvisor’s list of Vegas hotels. A majority of reviewers give it gushing exclamations like, “Best hotel in Las Vegas!” and “Awesome, awesome, awesome!”

The only downside? Um, yeah. There's no slot machines, craps tables, blackjack tables or roulette wheels. So you decide what's more important. Residential-style and smoke-free digs far away from the casinos or a smoky, cheap room with the "ding ding ding" of slots hitting you as soon as the elevator doors open?

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Tags: Off The Strip / Cannery / Hotels / → All Tags

Off-Off-Strip Report : The Cannery Casino and Hotel

Located in North Las Vegas, about 10 minutes from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the Cannery Casino & Hotel bills itself as “the Official Racers’ Hotel and Casino.”

It’s really a locals-oriented place, a la the outlying Station Casinos (Palace, Fiesta, Texas, Santa Fe), with, arguably, a teensy bit more style. Its player’s club is very much geared toward a locals audience, offering the potential to win freebies at neighborhood places like car washes and such.

With a location that’s also about 10 minutes away from Nellis Air Force Base, it gets its share of folks on official military business as well as race fans staying there. For most Vegas-bound, however, its location is too isolated and suburban to be a top choice.

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Tags: Food / Local Hangouts / Fine Dining / Off The Strip / → All Tags

Todd's Unique Dining :: Vegas' Secret Foodie Destination

There are six ratings of "28" in the 2009 Zagat guide for Vegas in the category of Top Food. Among them: Guy Savoy, Nobu, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. There's one name that isn't internationally recognized, however: Todd Clore, of Todd's Unique Dining. It's because Clore's bistro - a tiny affair, manned by him nightly, tucked away in the corner of a Green Valley strip mall, about ten minutes from the Strip - doesn't advertise, forgoes celebrity magnetism, and doesn't have the glitz, glamor, and pull-out-the-stops special effects that the other ones do. Instead: they have incredible food that speaks for itself, at ridiculously low prices. And they have a local following - ravenously awaiting Todd's return from vacation, tomorrow evening - to prove it.

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Tags: Bakeries / Bonjour Bakery / Desserts / Off The Strip / → All Tags

Take That Bouchon: Bonjour Bakery Has 'Boss Pastries' For Less

When you first hear the name, Bonjour Euro Bakery, you might be struck with flashbacks of the Swedish chef from the Muppet Show doing his thing (i.e. “oonda, oonda, oonda”), and in fact, self-deprecatingly, Bonjour has that on their website. Yet kidding aside, this is one of the better places in town for croissants, baguettes and croque monsieurs.

It is a small place, for if you were to include the seating for both indoor and outdoor, we could not imagine more than 25 people at max fitting in here, but Bonjour has what it takes - namely boss pastries in a variety of molds. We do not have that much column space to hold your hand and walk you through the entire menu, but we do insist that if you have to have a coffee eclair or a raspberry tartlet with a your cappuccino, it must be here.

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Tags: Happy Hours / Blue Martini / Town Square / Off The Strip / → All Tags

Tie One On At Blue Martini’s Daily Happy Hour

None of this weekdays-only happy hour nonsense, thank you. No, we’re thirsty, our nerves are a little frayed by this endlessly troubled economy and we’d like a premium cocktail at a semi-affordable price, seven days a week.

Thankfully, Blue Martini is there for us. Well, it’s way over there, anyway, on Las Vegas Boulevard south of the Strip inside the lively Town Square shopping complex. On the second story and across from Town Square’s movie theaters, Blue Martini is one of the valley’s fave spots for networking and burning off a little work-related (or job-hunting-generated) steam.

From 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. daily, you get half-price food and discounted drinks off of one of the most imaginative drinks menus in town. Why not try a “Sweet Tea” martin (Teka Tee vodka, pink lemonade and fresh-squeezed lemon), “The Good Life” (Bacardi Grand Melon, sugar-free Red Bull and a splash of cranberry) or a “Pear-Tini” (Grey Goose La Poire vodka, Amaretto, Rose's Pear, splash of pineapple and sour mix).

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Tags: Off The Strip / Green Valley Ranch / George Clooney / M Resort / Red Rock Resort / → All Tags

Escape the Tourists at The Green Valley Ranch

About 15 minutes east of the Strip on the I-215, you’ll find Green Valley Ranch Resort. It’s the older sibling of Red Rock Resort west of town, which arguably – along with M Resort - has established itself as the current leading resort pick among those who crave the atmosphere and a degree of the amenities found at a place like the Palms but couldn’t care less about the notoriety of staying on the tourist corridor.

Anyway, Green Valley Ranch has been around for a few more years than both Red Rock and M, and was perhaps the first far-flung resort to succeed in attracting the sort of high-profile name recognition brought be being associated with celebrity guests (George Clooney comes to mind; he used to hang at Whiskey Bar when it was still a Randy Gerber joint).

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Tags: Off the Strip / Station Casinos / Retreats / Lake Las Vegas / → All Tags

Three Reasons Why You Should Stay Off The Strip

Of course you come to Vegas to stay on The Strip. The casinos. The shows. The four-block taxi ride that takes 20 minutes and costs 20 bucks. If you can’t imagine why anyone would give that up to stay off Strip, let us enlighten you with three good reasons--serenity, serendipity and The Station Casinos.

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