- Boyd Gaming has announced a September 8 reopening date for the Main Street Station hotel casino in downtown Las Vegas.
- The property has been closed since March 2020 when the Nevada gaming industry was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The only Boyd property that remains closed in the Las Vegas Valley is the Eastside Cannery on Boulder Highway.
Boyd Gaming has announced that the Main Street Station hotel casino in downtown Las Vegas will reopen at 6 AM PDT/9 AM EDT on September 8, 2021. At the time it reopens, the property will be been closed nearly 18 months since it was originally mothballed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The property will be open 24/7 though the two restaurants will initially operate limited hours. The Triple 7 Restaurant and Microbrewery will open Thursday through Monday from 5 PM to 12 AM. The Garden Court Buffet (or in Boyd Gaming parlance ‘an all-you-can-eat experience’) will be open daily for brunch from 8 AM to 2 PM and open for dinner on Friday and Saturday from 4 PM and 9 PM.
Steve Thompson, Boyd Gaming’s Executive Vice President of Operations, is excited to be fully operational in downtown Las Vegas once again:
“We are thrilled to announce the reopening of Main Street Station, and to welcome back our team members and guests who have been eagerly awaiting our return. We are counting the days until Sept. 8, when Boyd Gaming’s complete trifecta of Downtown Las Vegas properties – California, Fremont and Main Street Station – will once again be fully open and ready to welcome our guests.”
Last October, Boyd Gaming indicated that the Main Street Station property would come back online by the end of 2021 though the ultimate decision would be contingent upon demand. A Boyd spokesman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the company’s California and Fremont properties downtown had been ‘running very busy’. In addition, a reduction in travel restrictions has made it possible for Boyd’s longtime base of Polynesian travelers to return. Boyd will also resume its Hawaiian charter flights program with three flights a week beginning on September 3.
Boyd President and CEO Keith Smith reiterated the importance of the Hawaiian market in a July 27 earnings call while giving the reopening criteria for the Eastside Cannery–the only one of the company’s Southern Nevada properties that remains closed. Smith also emphasized the importance of The Orleans for meeting and convention business:
Sure. So on the two closed properties, Main Street Station, Downtown and the Eastside Cannery out next to Sam’s Town in the locals market. Main Street’s future is all about downtown business and the Hawaiian business returning on each side will just depend on volumes. But in terms of kind of the midweek business meeting and conventions, it really is about the Orleans.
They have the significant portion of that. We do get a little bit of that business at our other properties, a Suncoast and the Sam’s Town, but it is not significant once again. So it really is about the Orleans. Now the Orleans posted very strong results, even without that business, largely on the back of locals play, play from people living here in the state, not from destination. Destination was up in Q2 over Q1, it was building but not back to where it was pre-COVID.
So I think there is great upside at the Orleans as meeting conventions return, and we’re able to utilize that meeting convention space that we have, plus the arena, remember, we have a 9,000-seat arena in the back that was largely occupied most days of the year. So I think there’s still great upside at the Orleans, but that is where most of the upside occurs. It won’t be — you won’t see anything significant at the other Las Vegas properties.
For now, there’s no ETA for the reopening of the Eastside Cannery. Boyd spokesman David Strow gave this assessment to the LVRJ:
Strow said the company has “seen good business trends” at its other Boulder Highway property, Sam’s Town, “but we’re not yet at a point where we need to open up a second property on the Boulder Strip.”
There’s still a chance that something else could happen to the Eastside Cannery including a sale or closure. I got the vibe that the Boulder Strip had too much capacity even before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
