Las Vegas Weekly

Half-baked thoughts about Half Shell

How Bette Midler taught me to stop worrying and love the bar

Photo: Jacob Kepler

The sunset was a dud. In my rearview mirror, I watched the golden disk dip behind the mountains with as much fanfare as Pac-Man bopping off the screen. My plan had been to catch the evening’s colors from the rooftop bar of Half Shell Seafood and Gaming II. A friend had told me to check it out for the view, his final wish before moving to California. I felt relieved to know I wasn’t missing anything (or sullying his memory) while I sat in traffic and the sky darkened around me.

Finally, I pulled into the Half Shell on Eastern (there’s another location on Horizon Ridge). I’m embarrassed to admit snobby disgust at the animated sign with decorative fire on top. I don’t want to be the kind of person who considers fire to be tacky. I’m the people’s bar columnist, damn it! I took a deep breath, channeled Bette Midler (the people’s diva, who also just happens to famously perform a clams-on-the-half-shell routine) and held my judgment until I actually entered the bar. That lasted about 30 seconds.

No way this place could have the promised good view, I thought to myself as I walked from the parking lot, past the sign and to the door. There were so many buildings around. This was Henderson. Suburbia! Stop. WWBMD? (What would Bette Midler Do?) I took another deep breath and walked inside.

Two hostesses guarded the entrance in a fortress of a hostess stand. From what I could see beyond the sentries, the inside looked cavernous and unwelcoming. I imagined a sign posted above their hostess window: Abandon-All-Hope-Ye-Who-Drink-Beer-Here. The girls looked up from their boredom to eye me quizzically. As if I somehow didn’t belong and they were trying to figure out my purpose.

Full disclosure: I had come alone. (Some consider it weird for a girl to bar-crawl solo. Sexist!). And to protect my new computer from the heat of my car, I was also lugging a laptop. Perhaps they thought I had gotten lost on the way to the library. Actually, I was lost on the way to this mythical rooftop. Honestly, I couldn’t find the stairs. The hostesses seemed relieved when I declared my purpose. One even volunteered to escort me upward.

You know that one episode of The Simpsons where Lisa becomes a vegetarian and goes to a secret Eden on the roof of the Quickie Mart? And Paul and Linda McCartney are there, and it looks like paradise? Well, the rooftop bar of the Half Shell is almost as good as that. Almost. Then again, theirs is a cartoon. And ours is real. They got a Beatle and we got a view of the Strip. Guess it depends on how much you’re a fan of the Fab Four. But in comparison to the downstairs bar, the upstairs is another world.

The roof is a shabby-chic beach paradise, complete with straw hut bar. But instead of ocean, you look out over the great black expanse of Las Vegas. When the sun goes down, the view has just begun. I’m not talking neon. After a certain hour, the waitresses don black bikini tops and micro skirts. Doubtful if the two are connected, but that incredible Strip view was pretty much ignored.

I sat at a wooden picnic bench and smiled at the restaurant’s punny slogan: “It’s off the hook.” Here, Bette would break into song.

Instead of singing, I people-watched and listened to classic rock morph into fast alternative rock. The crowd was mostly young, middle-class locals of the laid-back sort, A group of guys sat around a bucket of Red Stripes. They waved. I ignored them. Two ladies sat behind me and talked abut how they would never go to a bar alone. I ignored them.

Then it hit me. WWBMD? If I didn’t want to be a snobby outsider, I’d have to mix with the Hendersonians. So when the group of guys waved again, I joined them. Bette would have been proud.

By night’s end, the outdoor roof bar was still blazing, despite Cool Zone fans blowing a mechanical monsoon. Judging by my sweat, I realized my computer was no cooler on the roof than it would’ve been in my car. The metaphorical fires of that damn sign were probably burning my hard drive. On second thought, what the hell; it was too late. I was having fun, and, obviously my computer wasn’t too damaged considering I used it to write this.