Las Vegas Weekly

May 4, 2009 · 2:02 PM

Bye-bye, bottles: It’s time for keg service

By Sarah Feldberg

Leather chaps + keg = party!

Bottles are too expensive. Vodka goes down too fast. For table service that’s in it for the long haul you need something more leisurely, less shot and more sip, that won’t drip your wallet dry before midnight. What you need is a keg.

Until recently, kegs have had a single place in the bar: in the back, in the fridge. But Dixie’s Dam Bar inside Hooters Casino Hotel is taking the lowly keg out the shadows and giving it a turn in the spotlight. The bar’s new keg service puts beer on demand, offering quarter-kegs of Budweiser, Windermere Hefeweizen, AmberBock and Michelob Ultra for $200 that fit into your table and come with a personal beer-tender, an attractive server whose sole job is to tap and pour for your party late into the night.

“Anyone can do bottle service,” said Gary Gregg, Chief Operating Officer of Hooters Casino Hotel. “Only Hooters Casino Hotel could upgrade to keg service.”

Upgrade? While setting up shop with 60 12-ounce beers for less than half what a bottle of Goose would run you certainly sounds like a fiscally responsible way to party, it’s hard to call anything that evokes a college frat party much of an upgrade. That being said, it really comes down to basic math: If five friends each fork over $40 for the quarter keg, they can each drink 12 beers before the well runs dry. That’s approximately $3.30 per beer, or about $1.70 less than they would pay for that Widemere Heff if they were buying it bar-side at most Strip watering holes. Which means they’ll walk, or rather, stumble away with $102 saved that can be put towards something more important, like breakfast or a sober cab ride home.

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