Las Vegas Weekly

July 3, 2009 · 8:33 AM

Counter Intelligence Exclusive: Restaurant and club closings and openings

By Robin Leach

Social House inside Treasure Island.

Photo: Courtesy of Treasure Island

It’s a hot-off-the-grill exclusive! Vegas DeLuxe has learned that new Treasure Island owner Phil Ruffin drops the boom on Social House there come Monday morning, according to wicked whispers and racy rumors last night. The Asian-themed celebrity hotspot is, as we reported weeks ago, being booted, and Christian Audigier the Nightclub, also managed by Pure Management Group for the French fashion designer, follows within a week.

Christian Audigier the Nightclub.

Phil is reportedly planning to build a Gilley’s country western-themed bar, grill and dance hall in the two-floor space. Construction and a facelift will begin immediately during the summer tourist season so he can reopen for the Labor Day holiday weekend in September.

From Trader Vic’s to Cabo Wabo

Informed sources also say that Trader Vic’s at Planet Hollywood will shut in the next few days when management reveals that it will be changed over to rocker Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo restaurant and funhouse. I’m reliably told that former Pure partner Steve Davidovich will be involved with the new concept. Sammy’s south of the border playpen is a monstrous hit in Lake Tahoe, and Harrah’s execs had been apparently trying for more than two years to bring it to the Strip.

Photo: Courtesy of Planet Hollywood

Trader Vic's at Miracle Mile in Planet Hollywood.

From Forty Deuce to The Rose

Finally, Hollywood entrepreneur Ivan Kane has shut his plush Forty Deuce burlesque bar at Mandalay Bay. Inside word is that it will reopen for Labor Day weekend as The Rose, an edgy, risque, pushing-the-envelope striptease lounge. There will be five dancers involved with an Eyes Wide Shut motif from the erotic Stanley Kubrick film starring then-husband-and-wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. “This will not be even close to your mother’s burlesque show,” I was reliably and teasingly told. “It will be the wildest show of its type ever created for Vegas and exactly the fantasy of what everybody thinks happens here anyway.”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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— From Vegas Deluxe

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