The PT’s pub chain expands throughout the LV valley

The valley’s largest tavern operator is getting bigger.

The PT’s Pub chain, which has operated in Nevada for more than 40 years, will exceed 70 locations by the end of the month with a new strategy that includes using new brands.

“Last year we made a couple of acquisitions of alternative operators, something Golden had never done before,” explained Blake Sartini II, who oversees Golden Entertainment Inc.’s tavern group and some of its casinos. between 80 and 100 taverns in the city, we thought we needed other brands in our portfolio.”

Sartini explained that adding brands has several advantages: It allows the company to offer new tavern concepts, saturate a successful neighborhood with different brands and prevent competitors from gaining a foothold in a specific neighborhood.

Golden’s range of brands has always included the venerable PT’s Pub and its improved PT’s Gold, as well as the subsidiary PT’s Ranch.

The company went for a luxury flagship brand by introducing Sierra Gold and SG Bar. It has also added Sean Patrick’s Pub & Grill.

Sartini says that while there are some variations on the menu – Irish specialties at Sean Patrick’s, for example – the winning formula will always include high-definition televisions behind the bar and a dozen or two types of beer on tap behind the bar. .

As Las Vegas has become the sports capital of the world, the PT’s family is committed to being a gathering place for fans of the Raiders, Vegas Golden Knights, Aces and UNLV.

New brands

The latest additions to the family of brands are Lucky’s and Great American Pub, which Sartini describes as having an East Coast feel.

“I think Las Vegas is constantly evolving,” says Sartini. “I think we’ve been very fortunate that people from all over the country continue to come to the city. “I think this brand, Great American Pub, offers a little bit of that nostalgia for anyone who is from the East Coast and wants to venture into the pub industry.”

The food will be different too.

“The Great American Pub menu will be very different from what we currently have at PT’s or Sierra Gold,” Sartini said. “We’re offering a little more of a different option for people who may be looking for something different” from traditional burgers, wings and fries.

Another difference with the new location, which will open in late June at South Buffalo Drive and West Badura Avenue near the 215 Beltway, is that it is new construction rather than a site conversion.

“It is the first newly built establishment with the Great American Pub brand,” he says. “Aside from Sierra Gold or PT’s, this is the first time we’ve built a new location without the PT’s or Sierra Gold brand. So this is a new adventure for us that we are very excited about as we continue to expand this brand throughout the valley.”

Bound by the game

Although there are new brands in play, the PT’s chain shares many common ties. The most obvious is that each pub represents an opportunity in the gambling sector, although Sartini insists that pub customers are very different from those in traditional casinos.

“Each of these stores, whether they have the same brand or not, has its own personality,” he says. “We try to make it that way. Even though they have the same PT logo on the outside and the same food menu, we allow certain neighborhoods in the city to really embrace the personality that their clientele offers them. That’s why we try to make it work as a big corporate brand, because in these places you lose that intimate, local, ‘Cheers’ atmosphere. Again, the tavern business is unique and nothing like the casino business.”

That is the challenge for Sartini and the company’s estimated 900 employees.

Although Sartini says the clientele and personality of each tavern is different, they are all united by a common player loyalty program that allows customers to accumulate and spend prizes at Golden’s casinos, including the two Charlies of Arizona, southern Nevada, and the Strat on Las Vegas Boulevard, home to the tallest observation structure west of the Mississippi River.

True Rewards

Golden’s Players Club’s five-tier True Rewards program offers jackpots and special bonuses for playing slot machines. Higher levels offer VIP check-in services, room upgrades, priority seating in casino restaurants, priority valet parking, free resort rates and car rental discounts at National, Enterprise and Alamo.

Since PT rewards can be redeemed at the Strat, Sartini says loyal players will find their way to the Top of the World restaurant, where diners enjoy some of the best views of the valley while they eat.

Although Sartini considers the tavern environment to be a different type of local gaming environment, it is not lost on Brendan Bussmann, a gaming industry analyst at Las Vegas-based B Global, that 71 venues with restricted gaming licenses can be as lucrative as a casino with more than a thousand slot machines.

“The local market has always been robust and the different customer segments that exist in it,” Bussmann said in an email. “Local casinos have their place and their clientele, just as local taverns have their place and their clientele. As the valley continues to grow, those same bases grow that will end up at a PT’s versus going to a neighborhood casino or the Strip.”

Bussmann said one telling factor is that the tavern model used by Golden and PT’s is proving to be a sustainable model and is being replicated in other parts of the country as a local place to play while offering good food and drink and entertainment experiences.

“While those unfamiliar with the Nevada market focus on the Strip, the entire gaming ecosystem is important to Nevada,” Bussmann said. “This includes local casinos as well as local taverns that provide entertainment and customer convenience.”

Late last year, Golden abandoned a portion of the local business when it sold its gaming distribution operations — the slot machine routes that served bars, taverns and convenience stores — to Oak Tree Capital Management, J&J’s parent company. Ventures Gaming, Effingham, Illinois. J&J, which also acquired Golden’s slot route in Montana, paid a total of $322.5 million, plus $39 million in purchased cash, in a deal first announced in March 2023 and closed in December.

The cash purchased is the amount that was in the machines on the route at the time the transaction was closed.