How a 29-Year-Old Became a Vegas CEO | Jonathan Jossel DSH #1256

Well, by promoting downtown as a blank canvas, right? Come downtown, walk the streets. Oh, and by the way, you're going to watch The Killers, Imagine Dragons, some of the biggest bands in the world playing in the streets of downtown.
And what a better way to advertise the area to people. So it was pretty amazing to see how that worked.
But as a business, festivals are tough business. All right, guys, a vegas local on today jonathan ceo of the plaza hotel downtown thanks for coming on man thank you for having me this is awesome yeah appreciate the setup over here i appreciate you yeah i appreciate your time i know you're quite busy with that role no uh not really i enjoy doing this stuff it's good to meet people in the community good to meet vegas uh locals like yourself and uh like yourself.
And that's how we get the plaza on the map by talking about as much as we can. I love it.
Yeah, you started as CEO at 29. That must have been a record for youngest at the time, I'd imagine.
Yeah, I was the youngest, not CEO, but gaming licensee. So to run a hotel casino in Vegas, you have to have a license.
I went through that licensing process and became the CEO when I was 29 years old. That must've been a rigorous process, I'd imagine.
You know what's funny is it is, but when you're so young, you don't have trusts and different investments and kids and all these other things that typically they would investigate. So I didn't have other properties.
I was 28 when I started the process. So it was a pretty straightforward process, but they still investigate everything.

Your bank accounts.

I'm originally from England.

Oh, wow.

So you got to submit your bank records from the UK

and they go through everything.

It took nine to 12 months.

Nice.

I got citizenship out there.

In England?

Yeah.

My dad was born there.

You've been out there at all?

Been to Ireland.

Okay.

I need to get out to England though.

You got to use your citizenship.

I know.

Well, I might have to claim it

because he was born there. So I don't know how it works, but he said I could claim it whenever I wanted to.
Oh, you haven't claimed it? Okay. I need to get out to England though.
You got to use your citizenship. I know.
Well, I might have to claim it because he was born there. So I don't know how it works, but he said I could claim it whenever I wanted to.
Oh, you haven't claimed. Okay.
Yeah. That makes sense.
You should probably do that. Yeah.
If you want it. If I want it, yeah.
If you're never going to go, then we'll. It's hard to beat America, man.
You know? I agree with you. I was born in South Africa, grew up in London, England, been 17 years here in Vegas and nowhere else in the world I'd want to be.
Wow. And that's not just America.

Vegas is the best.

You've seen a lot of growth here.

That's the place to live in Vegas.

Yeah.

It's mind-blowing.

I mean, I've been primarily in downtown Las Vegas.

To see the growth down there has been awesome.

But as a city, it's just completely evolved.

And wow, is it just only going to grow more in the next decade.

Yeah, with the sports teams coming in from real estate.

Yeah, real estate, sports teams, everyone in California wanting to move here. Especially after the fires.
Yeah, it was happening before that, but even more so now, I feel like I'm speaking like the mayor now, promoting Las Vegas. But yeah, the growth is amazing, the development, and just the diversity just was only casinos.
Now, like you mentioned sports, but there's also tech moving here. There's other investment companies.
Hollywood. Hollywood's here, Mark Wahlberg's here.
It's pretty diverse. You're here.
I'm here. Social hours here.
I'm four years here and it's been the best city I've ever lived in. I'll say that.
Where were you before? I was in LA for a bit. I was in Jersey City and Bridgewater, New Jersey.
And do you always wear your face on your shirt? Always. I just order new merch.
How many things do you have? I know I have a hundred of these actually. So people think I wear the same shirt every day but I just swap them.
Okay well I put on a tie for you today. I don't normally wear a tie but.
Oh I'm honored. No I'm joking.
I was at the gaming control but we'll just have a fight. I'm sure that was a fun meeting.
It was a great meeting. No I just ordered new merch though because people in the comments are like is that kid wearing the same shirt every day? Yeah.
I almost went full Mark Zuckerberg and just bought a hundred white shirts. Why don't you? I feel like the branding's a better look than just white shirts.
As long as they're just plain white shirts, not the Kanye West white shirts. Yeah, well, Kanye's been going crazy.
I don't know if you've seen that. I've seen it.
Man. Yeah, I'm Jewish.
I've seen. I'm sure all your friends are talking about it, Ben.
All his tweets got deleted, right? He just deactivated his Twitter. As they should.
As they should. Yeah.
Did you see a Super Bowl commercial? I actually missed that.

I don't know how much

I was busy at the hotel

so I did hear about it

but I didn't actually

see the commercial

but I'm going to have

to check it out after this.

Actually, I don't really

want to watch it.

I want to pretend

this guy doesn't exist.

It's horrible.

Yeah.

Horrible.

A lot of hate

coming towards Jewish people

especially on X.

Yeah.

Man.

Yeah, although I think

a lot of it is just

the algorithm finds people so like I don't see a lot of that but it's definitely out there. It's a pretty scary time.
How big was the Super Bowl event for you for the hotel? It was good, obviously, hard to compare to last year. Last year, we had the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, so it was packed and a different type of busy.
But Las Vegas is always one of the busiest, Super Bowl is always one of the busiest times of the year in Las Vegas. Top three, I'd say.
It was very good. It wasn't as busy as previous years.
There's a lot of rumors as to, or rumblings as to a lot of underperformance in hotel rates and ticket sales for the parties. But I think it's pretty simple that the fires in California, uh, definitely put a dampener on the mood.
And, and as it should, I mean, there's what, I think 30 to 40% of the business that comes to us vegas comes from california and arizona i didn't know that those two states so when you consider that it's uh you know you take a huge chunk of that market out of it it's going to put a dampener on the mood mixed in with obviously a an uncertain political climate searching for the perfect job can be overwhelming you know what's out there you just don't know how to find it. The good news, you don't have to do it alone.
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Take the next step in your career today at srgpros.com. In some ways, and some people think it's the pricing on the strip has just gone out of control.
And maybe that's an element, but that's not a new thing. The fires in California seem like a direct correlation to the slowdown in the last couple of weeks.
Plus stocks tanked that week. Crypto market was down.
Everything was, it was just bad timing all around, you know? Yeah. But it was still great.
We still did really good. Still want about better weekends.
And the Monday after Super Bowl is always a great day as well. People forget that.
They think the game is Sunday, but Monday after Super Bowl is still super busy. Really? Oh, I didn't expect that.
Yeah, it's great. Thought people would be hung over and giving up on drinking.
No, no. So what happens is all the people that won all their big sports bets now gamble that.
Oh, smart. Speaking of gambling, I saw Vegas PolyC make a video about how the profits were down this quarter, 40% on the strip.
For the euro. Oh, was it for the euro?? Okay.
Where did you see that? Vegas policy. Oh, okay, fine, yeah.
I feel like he's pretty accurate with his reportings. Yeah, real sources of information, yeah.
Yeah, well, he's very numbers-driven. He sure is.
I don't check his numbers, but I'm sure he is very accurate. You haven't banned him yet, right? I haven't banned him, no.
He calls me the next Steve Wynn. How can I ban a guy who says I'm the next Steve Wynn? It's wonderful.
Because Resorts World has banned him. I saw that, yeah him no he calls me the next steve wins how can i ban a guy who says on the next steve win it's wonderful as a resource world has banned him i saw that yeah i heard that i i you know i think there's an element to how much you you you hate on a place and it's a tough industry it's a tough thing so uh but he speaks his mind and i give him credit for that and and he's you know he's certainly entertaining people people like what he's doing and we haven't banned him in fact he comes and plays this game called pop craps at the plaza he loves traps you know unlike other influences and other people we don't pay him we don't do anything he just comes there as his own as a customer and so it's i like getting real life feedback from customers so he gives me real life feedback and uh he's a good guy he's a good guy and uh like i said he calls me the next steve winn so i can't hate him for that was ste win someone you studied when you were starting out in this industry yes a lot i mean my one of regrets i never got to work for him i never got to learn directly from him i met him many times dozen 20 times or so but um over dinners and stuff and you realize how brilliant the guy was yeah uh so i studied him and and tried to learn from him as much as i could without having the direct uh influence from him but we we had dinners and you know at dinner he would he could express how good he or how knowledgeable he was about bingo and we share a love of bingo we're the only game we're the only game bingo in downtown he he started in bingo halls really he could talk about wine he could talk about art he could talk about wine.
He could talk about art. He could talk about sport.
I mean, the guy was so intelligent. He could talk about literally anything and eloquently, intelligently.
It was pretty amazing to see. That's impressive.
Because as a CEO, you got to know a little bit about every single game you have at the casino, right? Right. But he knows a lot about everything.
That was what stood out to me. I can speak a little bit about bingo and I i'm passionate about all like american football he can remember plays and games he can remember he called it you know to call a bingo game is a certain skill set he explained to me and how b15 like the the the sound of your voice as you call out the game is a skill to that and he went through a whole he called a game bingo over at dinner one night what it was pretty that's super impressive it was pretty interesting what was your biggest i guess takeaway from those dinners with him what did you um there's a few things but uh he taught me the idea of cause and effect which is that you know casinos aren't uh or gambling isn't the effect uh it's it's the sorry isn't the cause it's the effect the cause is everything that goes into the experience it's the the guest experience from the site the smell he understood more than anybody else what people want and he explained once you give them that they're going to spend more time in your casino they're going to play more of them their wallet with you and he really understood what people wanted more than anybody i've ever uh come across and and and to be honest with you you look at the strip today the best properties are still the ones he built and that's i was at uh spargo last night fountains were going there was tons of people watching it he did that 26 years ago and it's still relevant today it's still interesting today you know when when you think about some of the newer developments on the strip they lack that brilliance and touch not to say that they're they're not amazing.
They're beautiful. They're nice.
They're amazing. But for whatever reason, what Steve Wynn built, people crave.
They came from all over the world to see it. And some of that's lacking today.
I'd say maybe the sphere has that effect. You travel.
Wherever you go in the world, people are like, the sphere is cool. The sphere is interesting.
People want to see it from all over the world. I think that Steve Wynn had the ability to build things that people gravitated towards, felt comfortable in.
And even now, the Wynn is the best property. I agree.
People can debate that, but the Wynn is the best property in the city. And it's because of him, he built it.
And so, yeah, he's a legend. A legend and very impressive.
And frankly, the guy who made the city what it is, if you really break it down in that way. And shout out to his nephew, Blakewin, who's a good friend of mine.
He's been crushing it out here too. That's right.
He's partners with Oscar Goodman's... Yes.
They work together. Yeah, on the Celebrity Poker Tournament.
Yes, exactly. They've been crushing it.
What they're doing is incredible. Yeah.
But yeah, I agree with you. I got wind number one, Venetian number two.
Okay. Yeah.
Venetian's solid and they just did renovations. Hey, no surprise that the two best operators in the history of the city, Steve Wynn, Sheldon Adelson, built the two.
Yeah. Yeah, no surprise at all.
I mean, people build the right way. They understand what people want and they give people what they want want it'll be successful uh long term so yeah he he they were both maestros in different ways but steve win really understood the the human connection of what people experience from the site the smell the taste everything when you walk through that building the customer service yeah even now the guys that are working there they will not not still all of them but many of them were trained by ste, learned through Steve Wynn, and that's how it's able to continue some of that excellence.
Yeah, the energy in that hotel, they've just done a phenomenal job of making you feel important when you're walking those halls. Yeah.
You know, I used to film my podcast at the Wynn. Oh, really? I felt like a savage every time.
Was that the studio thing that they have there? Yeah, it's next to the Lafayette. Yeah, yeah.
Have you seen that one? I have, yeah. It's a $5 million studio.
That studio that's what i mean they just they're willing to invest well and who uses it now uh series 6 emulins it now so they film their shows out of there okay but it was a different company but my show though yeah you should man get signed to serious where do you film yours now at the plaza yeah so we started a podcast five years ago at the bar in oscars oh yeah even in the studio at the bar yeah and the idea was you know we'd have people come in have drinks whatever hang out and uh i didn't think it was going to last i think we've done about 140 episodes now well done i'd love for a podcast right it is not a lot of shows get to episode 10 right i read that i read most people give up long before that yeah uh no we're at 140 and we've been able to my goal with it is um i hope that one day people look back at a snapshot in time from like 2020 to the next decade of what was Las Vegas like and who told the story of the history of Las Vegas. So we've had historians on, we've had business operators.
It's not a commercial for the plaza. It's really just a way to tell the story of Vegas, who's doing what.
We've had probably 10 casino owners on the on the podcast general managers people just in the

industry and and then we've had you know local influences other celebrities but just trying to

tell the story of the people that contributed to vegas for that period of time yeah maybe my kids

will listen one day be a class at unlv i hope i hope with my kids they listen to a few my episodes

too yeah you know legacy is important how old are your kids 20 uh i don't have them yet oh oh i was

gonna say i'm getting married this year though so So soon, soon. Congratulations.
Thank you. So casino owners have been on the podcast.
So how do you view competition in Vegas? Is it, is it pretty like your friends or like, is there actual competition with other casinos? You know, I really think of downtown as its own sort of sub-mark, right? I don't see us. we obviously compete with the strip in different ways, but on the whole, my main focus is with the other casino owners of downtown.
I think they've all realized, along with myself, we're better if downtown's better. So the best thing that ever happened to the, one of the best things that ever happened to the plaza is circa being built across the street.
In traditional logic, you'd be like, no, that's going to be competitive. That's not going to be good for you.
But it doesn't work that way in the

casino world. Having that building across the street has meant more people coming downtown,

higher spenders coming down, better quality customers coming downtown. And so it's changed

the perception. Same as Golden Nugget, same as every property that's upgraded in the last decade

has only helped downtown. The Plaza has been one of the biggest reinvestment stories.
We've done a lot with the property. So to see that come back, sure we compete with each other for market share, but the idea is it's much more important that the market grows.
And that's what's been happening in downtown is the market's been growing. More and more people coming downtown means that we do better as a result of that.
And so that's really been the story I talk about as the neighborhood effect. When you looked around where I was in downtown called a decade ago you had a greyhound bus station you had the jail shout out to the people in the jail that are watching my firework shows i didn't even think about that that's cool uh i learned that about 10 minutes ago yeah um you had a jail you had the greyhound bus station you had the train tracks you had empty parcels today you have 800 apartments to the west you have circuit to the east you have the new parking garage we were able to evict the greyhound bus station you have so much development and improvements that the neighborhoods truly cleaned up in in uh i had read a stat in 89101 which was our zip code was the poorest zip code in the state wow in the city.
I didn't know that. It was.
I can't imagine it is anymore because of all the developments and development and all these people living down there now has changed so much. Yeah.
Yeah. You're part of a much better neighborhood.
Your business is going to do better. And so, yes, there's a competitive element, no doubt about it.
But I think we all work together. You know, when we do our fireworks every Friday, the other casinos promote it because they want people on their patios their rooftops their pools to all experience it when life is beautiful used to happen it was good for all the casinos the the f1 we did something called the neon city festival oh i saw that we all work together we all brought new uh events together to make downtown a better place it benefits all of us together so So there's a, I'd say it's 10% competitive, 90%.
Let's work together to make downtown a better place. Yeah.
Whenever my fiance's family visits us, they prefer downtown over the strip. Really? It's interesting.
Yeah. That's great.
Because you never know what you're going to see there. Yeah, that's true.
I mean, there's still an education process. I talk to people when I'm out at restaurants on the strip and they'll be like, oh, downtown.
But once they get down they're like oh wow this is not what i expected it's cleaned up it's not grimy anymore it's not yeah so there's still elements of uh uh probably the crowds that you're referring to but it's getting better and better every and that's been my philosophy with the plaza you know we could have knocked it down and started again but i was like no let's let's uh let's revitalize this thing one piece at a time and improve it and that's what we do we went through every hotel room every fmb opportunity the casino the entertainment we have a new show there called mavericks nice it's been amazing i love it i'll check it out gotta come see the show yeah i'm gonna try the steakhouse tonight too oh cool yeah i haven't been there um have you been on the zipline downtown i have i love it there's the one where you sit in it and then there's the one you fly the flying one is what i'm talking about i haven't tried it i'm scared man yeah you didn't get stuck i didn't get stuck but probably i'm too heavy so i kept flying flew down yeah i just kept going no i didn't get stuck what are your predictions for circus circus they just listed it for sale right i heard that um i i imagine uh i i don't know i don't i'm skeptical that it actually sells although i did go in there there a spend, I don't know if you've seen these vending machines where you get sports cards and Pokemon. Oh, I saw it on Instagram.
Yeah, yeah. I went in there to see one of them at Circus Circus.
We have one at the Plaza as well. They're pretty cool.
You'll see it tonight at the Plaza. They are cool.
And the property needs some new life and some new energy. I think, again, what I was just speaking about with downtown, if it got revitalized, re-energized, it would really help Fountain Blue, Sahara, Stratosphere, everything down the north end of the Strip.
But I also heard that they wanted $5 billion per return. $5 billion.
That's a lot of money to pay for something that, I don't know what it makes, but it was pretty quiet the last time I went in there. Yeah, I will say I've been to their steakhouse.
It's not bad. They've got a good reputation for the steakhouse, but I feel like, you know, we used to have the same thing said about the Plaza.
We had Oscar's steakhouse, but, but there's no point having a good steakhouse if everything around it isn't the same or similar. It doesn't have to be as high end or as fine dining, but you've got to be able to keep the people that are comfortable.
You don't want them just to park, eat a steak, and then leave. That's not good for anybody as business operators.
So yeah, they need some TLC there. Although my kids love the, when you have kids one day, you'll see they love the Adventure Dome, the place in the back of Circus Circus where the roller coasters are.
Oh yeah. All that stuff.
I could see that. Well, they're old.
They were built in what? The 50s, 60s Circus Circus? I don't know when that Adventure Dome was was but that can't be that old i don't think but the circus probably is the hotel yeah i think they're one of the oldest um but even yours was built in uh 71 right yes that's one of the oldest it has to be it was built in 71 it was uh one of the largest hotel casinos in the world uh so a huge amount of history and what's really cool about it was that it was at one main street it was located where vegas began wow address in the city it's on the back of the train tracks if you've studied the history of vegas and you've heard how the train used to come into the city uh and drop off the workers for the hoover dam that was the spot right there that was the train the amtrak train station was at the plaza and so we um that the plaza was built. That's where it was called the Union Pacific, uh, UPR, um, is the Union Pacific Railroad.
And that was called the Union Plaza, um, when it was built. So that was 71.
And then they added the second tower. Uh, so it's a thousand rooms and it sits on the biggest piece of land in all of downtown.
It's 17 acres. Wow.
Biggest privately owned piece of land in the whole city, in all of downtown. I didn't know you guys had that much.
That's impressive. Yeah.
Well, we have an equestrian center out there now. Oh.
So like during the rodeo, we do rodeos. I'm definitely the only Jewish-English guy throwing rodeos.
Downtown that's the biggest. NFR is always a blast, man.
I love NFR, man. Best people, best time of year.
It's fun. Best people, I'll agree with that.
Yeah. Those are the greatest, most pure and innocent people I've ever met.
Love it. They love it.
They come to Vegas for 10 days and everyone has a good time. Yeah.
I went the first time last year. Oh, you did? Thomas and Mac? Yeah, Thomas and Mac.
It was packed. Every night sold out.
Oh my God. There's nothing like it.
I couldn't believe it. There was more people there than like an NBA game.
Yeah. No, it's a big deal.
And by the by the way those tickets are valuable people go nuts really oh wow shout out to tyson durfee for hooking me up then i didn't know they were valuable oh yeah no you those tickets are like gold dust that time of year everybody wants to go to the uh to the nfr yeah i was excited for the bull riding man can you imagine what those guys do to themselves dude i think the longest one i saw was five seconds those guys just fall off instantly that's and then the ball attacks them yeah it's it's wild it's uh so we we threw our own rodeo as well in november called helderado oh wow you have to come down to that i'd love to it's fun so we do that and then the nfr is in december so we have an equestrian center out there we also had life is beautiful there this last summer uh we did a festival out there so we we've got ideas for that 17 acres to develop it down the road. Smart.
Yeah, Life is Beautiful did really well, right? I saw that everywhere. Life is Beautiful did well.
It was for 10 years. Tony Shea started it.
He was the founder of Zappos and then invested in downtown and really did an amazing job, not running a festival, but promoting downtown as a blank canvas, right? Come downtown, walk the streets. Oh, and by the way, you're going to watch the Killers, Imagine Dragons, uh, some of the biggest bands in the world playing at, you know, in the streets of downtown.
And, um, what a better, what better way to advertise the area to people. So it was, it was pretty amazing to see how that worked, but as a business, festivals are tough business.
And so when he passed away, I don't think there was the appetite to continue running it the way that he he was yeah a vision that he had for downtown yeah they are tough i know we got the edc stuff here not as well but well edc is another animal it's the biggest festival in the one of the biggest festivals in the world and they have no problem selling tickets and they could probably sell no matter who was playing that festival but that's that's a one-off as opposed to some of the other festivals that makes sense sense. Did you get the opportunity to learn anything from Tony's show? I did a lot, a lot.
I mean, I got to know him really well. He, amazing mind.
And really what blew my mind about him was he just thought about everything a little bit different. You know, we all think of things in the same way.
He interpreted everything in a different way. And I remember sitting in a meeting with him and there there was a bunch of downtown developers and owners, and they were all talking about how do we communicate that downtown's different.
This was probably in 2012, 2013. And he just sat there in silence, listening, listening, and then finally said, look, it doesn't matter what you communicate.
If they come down here and the experience isn't good, they're not going to come back and they're not going to talk about it. You're going to waste that money.
And that really stuck with me with the hotel business as well. There's no point in marketing something where you're not proud of the experience and you're not delivering on what you say you're going to deliver on.
And he was spot on with that. And we've tried to carry that through with the plaza, but he told me a lot of things.
Also, just the idea of he was open to everything. He never shut down ideas right away, no matter how crazy they were or weird they were he listened he he processed it he thought about it and staying staying open-minded especially in today people are very close-minded oh yeah he was always open-minded listening and didn't always do it but at least would flush everything out and give it a chance and it's easy to just dismiss ideas some of those are the best ideas that's That's true, right? Steve Jobs.
Yeah. It makes you, it makes me wonder because you said you did renovations, right? Yeah.
So Tony might've played a role in that idea. Yeah, we had done a few before that and we had helped.
He had really come into downtown about three years after I had moved out here and we had worked together very closely to try to change a perception of downtown and he was he was a big part of uh everybody increasing their appetite to improve downtown and he really he he didn't actually do much but he changed the perception real quickly everyone's like oh that's tony shea he's doing this and he had this book at the time called delivering happiness which is amazing book if you've not read it um i recommend it. And he invested in downtown and put downtown on the map in a much quicker way that would have otherwise happened.
Yeah, I'm a fan of downtown, man. It's cool, isn't it? I'm not just saying that because you're here.
You could have a fun night there and not spend too much money. Yeah.
And you could see all sorts of performances. Sometimes someone cool is singing there.
Yeah, it's great. We're really proud of it.
And I think there's a lot more potential. You see there's a high-rise being built down on Symphony Park right behind us.
There's a new contemporary art museum being built by Elaine Wynn. There's a lot of good things happening down there.
I just think that we definitely made a big start, but there's a long way to go until downtown can continue to evolve into and become. And it's the's the gambling mecca i think it should be you know you talk to poorly see but when you talk about better gaming odds people want to have their money last a bit longer right so instead of playing triple zero roulette playing single zero triple zero instead of playing six to five blackjack you should be playing three to two blackjack instead of playing two times or three four five times odds on craps you should be playing 10 times odds on craps and right a lot of people don't know that but they feel that they feel their money's gone much quicker and i think that downtown has a chance to really stand out by differentiating on that yeah because you guys have lower minimums too which is good lower minimums but better odds yeah that's the key because if you go to the win on a busy night oh my gosh 50 blackjack 50 blackjack yeah i only gamble personally with like maybe 500 bucks.
So like, I'm getting wrecked quick if I go there, you know? You go on a bad streak, you're done right away. Yeah.
There's a couple of double downs. Yeah.
There's some good restaurants downtown too, man. It really is.
What's that Italian spot? Esther's Kitchen. Yeah, Esther's Kitchen.
I go there once a month. Esther's Kitchen is great.
And they just moved to a bigger spot, right? They just moved about, eh, about a year maybe. Oh, that was a year ago? Okay.
Soul Belly, the barbecue place downtown is amazing. A couple of great steakhouses, Oscars.
Went to Vic and Anthony's the other night at Golden Nugget. Very good.
Yeah, no, there's great restaurants downtown. Latai was my first project in town when I moved here.
Oh, but that was you? Yeah, we don't own Latai, we own the building. Oh, okay.
So we bought Latai the tie downtown i ordered that like once a month it's great some of the best time to see the the the turnaround but but you know a lot of people always say to me what's your favorite restaurant on the strip favorite like the best restaurants are not on the strip agree good restaurants on the strip there are some amazing restaurants on the strip but if you say best i probably go off the strip right yeah well if you ask a that, they're always going to say off strip spots. But there are some great places

and the experiences are pretty cool.

Like you go to SW,

you sit out there on the lake there

and the show's great.

Yeah.

But it's more than just the food,

it's the whole experience,

but just pure, good quality food.

There's some great places off the strip as well.

Is there still that negative stigma

around the old strip?

Like do people still think

it's kind of grimy and stuff?

I think Fremont Street,

there is a little bit of that

and they've been challenged because it's a public street. It's really hard to control some of the elements that come out onto that street some of the buskers are a problem um we we've sort of taken the view of look people are going to come downtown to see fremont street experience because of the history the neon the light show the zip line whatever it is but when they're done with that and for some people that might be three minutes because they're like no and for some people that might be an hour we want to create an environment where they can go afterwards like so we built uh the carousel bar pink box donuts an outdoor patio at our steakhouse all because when people are done with the fremont street they should be able to go to a place where they're like oh okay i'm removed from that it's crazy it's cool i saw it now they want to go somewhere somewhere else.
And so we've tried to elevate some of our experiences exactly for that. And there's still an element of the griminess to the street, but it's getting better.
That's good. And there's more places to go when you're done with it, whether it's the Arts District, East Fremont, the other casinos, it's tons of other places to go to.
I love it. Well, Jonathan, what's next for you? What's next for the hotel? Where can people keep up with you and watch the podcast and everything? So our podcast is called On the Corner of Main Street.
We do it about once every two weeks. We release an episode, always obviously Vegas related.
I'm on Instagram at Jonathan Jostle. I put my email out everywhere.
On Twitter, I talk to customers if they need anything with the hotel. Again, you you got to be guerrilla marketing grassroots, right? You got to take care of one person at a time.
Um, and then, you know, for me, I think we, like I said, we just scratched ourselves on the plaza. We're going to continue to remodel the hotel.
We're doing two new restaurants this year. We're going to open up.
Nice. Um, last year we did the carousel bar, the pink box donuts, uh, the sand dollar bar was

two years ago.

So we keep every year we take our new projects to upgrade the property and really a longer

term.

We got that 10 acres.

I'll show you tonight when you come down there, we're out on the roof.

I'll show you an overview of some of our ideas of what we're thinking for all that development,

you know, taking the Plaza, making the Plaza the best place in downtown.

Let's go.

Can't wait to stop by tonight.

Check out the Plaza hotel guys.