“Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas”—the peculiar kingdom of extravagance, decadence, and reinvention. Th iconic signage that boasts this message was erected in 1959 during Vegas’s golden years, and has since become both a tourist magnet and a rare trace of the city’s storied roots.
As someone who visits Las Vegas several times a year, I’ve spent my trips scouting the city’s vast array of indulgences, growing increasingly entranced by its unapologetically and distinctly evolving landscape. But with every visit, I often find beloved establishments either decimated, or refurnished with more captivating interiors, the newest celebrity it-chef dining spots, and marquee residencies. The city’s kaleidoscope of change can be both exhilarating and bittersweet. Vegas’s cycle of demolition and redesign is a fascinating canon: a microcosm for a culture dictated by an insatiable demand for novelty and spectacle, whether that be fantastical and aspirational to some, or disillusioning and profligate to others.
So in this world where yesterday’s freshest attraction is today’s demolition project, finding traces of Vegas’s historic roots feels like uncovering buried treasure. Beneath the city’s ever-evolving facade, Vegas’s distinct brand of culture endures—and there are places that have withstood the city’s penchant for reinvention, over decades and despite the Strip’s evolution. From restaurants and bars to casinos and museums, below are 10 of the spots that have kept Vegas heritage intact. In the rarest cases, what happens in Vegas actually stays in Vegas.
Golden Steer Steakhouse
I owe much of my Vegas history education to the Golden Steer, Las Vegas’s oldest continuously operating steakhouse. Opened in 1958, the Golden Steer is a relic of Vegas’s Golden Age (which spanned from the 1930s to the 1960s), tracing the city’s transformation from a frontier settlement to an entertainment capital. The walls of the main room, The Armory, for example, are adorned with old menus listing game meat like rattlesnake, and loyal patrons’ rifles beneath an original popcorn-style ceiling. Booths commemorate celebrity regulars—Sinatra, Elvis, Monroe, and the Rat Pack, to name a few. The restaurant even lived through the city’s mob-era heyday: In addition to the Gambler’s Room, one of my favorite rooms is the Mob Room, a trusted, secluded desert gem where mob families would once convene and hold business discussions away from crowded casinos and entertainment venues. The room is still decked with mafia literature and portraiture.
The tuxedoed servers, flaming desserts (don’t miss the bananas foster), and a wide range of beef cuts honor the finest Vegas-style dining. For seafood lovers, there’s also an impressive selection of market-fresh catches like king crab legs and salmon. The best part, though, is sitting in the Marilyn Monroe booth, which is effectively a shrine adorned with her favorite bottles and memorabilia. Heads up: the booth is so coveted that reservations are sometimes booked up a year in advance.
El Cortez Hotel & Casino
Opened in 1941, the El Cortez Hotel & Casino is one of the most iconic Fremont Street treasures. As the longest continuously operating casino in Vegas, it’s the only one listed on the National Register of Historic Places featuring its original Spanish ranch-themed facade and neon signage that are downtown landmarks to this day. The casino’s original barber shop, Speakeasy Barbershop LV, still resides behind a sprawling floor of craps tables and sports books on the second floor. But my favorite speakeasy in the building is by far The Laundry Room. Accessed through Commonwealth, a swanky two-story cocktail bar with a rooftop dance floor overlooking downtown Vegas, this ambient reservation-only bar is hidden in the hotel’s former titular facilities room. It’s a nostalgic haunt embracing a pre-prohibition era-theme and a highly-exclusive admission process, offering an artistic selection of cocktails to less than two dozen guests a night. My favorite “mother cocktail” is Foreshadowing, a spicy reinterpretation of an Old Fashioned.