LAS VEGAS (AP) - Former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman was known to swill gin and bring showgirls everywhere while he was in office. Now, the booze and girls are back as he opens his namesake steakhouse Dec. 15.
Sin City’s colorful ex-mayor tells The Associated Press that Oscar’s steakhouse at the Plaza Hotel and Casino downtown will have the tagline “Beef, Booze and Broads” and will feature good-looking hostesses hired to chat with diners about topics like sports, wine and politics.
They’ll be experts in Las Vegas, he says, and will eat and drink with guests.
“I want everyone to feel very comfortable,” Goodman told the AP. “I want them to drink so much that they won’t even care that the steak is prime _ which it will be, I assure you.
“It’s all going to be first-class,” he said.
The bar will feature a “No-bama” whiskey cocktail, playing on a flap Goodman stirred in 2009 when he sought an apology from President Barack Obama for comments Goodman thought hurt the country’s perception of Las Vegas.
Goodman said it’s all tongue-in-cheek _ and that the president is welcome at his joint.
“If President Obama wants to come in, I’ll buy him a drink,” he said.
Goodman, who is licensing his name to the restaurant, left office earlier this year as term limits ended his run as the self-proclaimed “happiest mayor of the greatest city in the world” after 12 years. His wife, Carolyn Goodman, was elected in June to succeed him.
Oscar Goodman, a former lawyer for reputed mob figures who played himself in the movie “Casino,” said the restaurant’s “Beef, Booze and Broads” tagline comes from one of his cases in the 1970s.
Goodman was representing three casino executives who were indicted for illegal bookmaking. He said the case involved wiretapped conversations where the executives could be heard talking about dalliances with women around town who weren’t their wives.
The executives decided to plead guilty rather than letting their wives hear the tapes played in public.
“The defendants are in the courtroom, I’m by their side, the wives are in the audience to support their husbands, and the judge says, `Oh, this is the booze and broads case,’” he said. “Ever since that time, I figured if I was ever going to have a speakeasy as I dreamt about, it would be called the Booze and Broads speakeasy.”
Adjacent to the steakhouse will be an Italian grill called Simpatico.
___
Oskar Garcia can be reached at https://twitter.com/oskargarcia.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.