When I first started to go to Vegas for CES, one of our favorite places to go eat was at a place called the Bootlegger in the Village East Plaza at the corner of Tropicana and Eastern in Las Vegas. My old boss, Mike Cannady, and my colleague, Kevin Leja, and I would eat some pretty good Italian food, drink cheap Chianti wine and generally have a great time.
The Bootlegger was owned and run by Maria and Al Perry. Maria is the cook, Al the manager. They had owned a couple of pizza places around the town since the mid-50's. In 1972, they opened the Bootlegger Ristorante with the help of their daughter Lorraine, who was somewhat of a famous nightclub entertainer in Las Vegas. In fact, today, Lorraine - Lorraine Hunt - is the Lt. Governor of Nevada.
Lorraine Hunt. She's running for Governor of Nevada this year. Check out the "Hunt for Governor" web site.
Because of Lorraine, Bootlegger was kind of a hideaway for some of the old guard Las Vegas entertainers. The food was good, the place was cozy and Al always held court at the bar.
Well, Mike, Kevin and I had all gone on to other jobs by the early 90's. We all stayed in touch and finally decided that we had to get together for dinner in Vegas when we went out for CES. Prior to the 1999 CES, we made a date for dinner at Bootlegger.
We met up and drove out to the place where we remembered Bootlegger to be (it had been about 10 years since we'd all last been there). We got out and went into the place. Except it's this ratty friggin' bar. No Bootlegger. Turned out they closed the place down, but we were told they were thinking about opening another restaurant somewhere else. We were kind of bummed.
Four years ago, I believe it was Kevin who found out that Bootlegger had opened in a new location on the far south side of the Las Vegas strip. Now called "Bootlegger Bistro", we knew we had to try it out.
We met up again in 2003 and went out to Bootlegger. The place was nice. Much more room and much more ornate than the old Bootlegger (which was in a strip mall). The old time comfy booths were still in use. The bar area was nice and large. We had about a 25 minute wait for a table because it was a Friday night.
I had the Veal Piccata - I'm a sucker for Veal Piccata. It was cooked perfectly and the lemon cream sauce was wonderful. I can't remember what Mike and Kevin got, but I do know that we drank a lot of wine and had a lot of laughs.
Along about 10 p.m., the "entertainment" started. The performer was a guy by the name of Sonny King. I found out later that he was Jimmy Durante's partner for nearly 30 years. He opened Durante's shows for him. Actually, I didn't know Jimmy Durante had a partner. Before that, King was the manager and a singer at the famed Copacabana in New York starting in the mid-40's.
Sonny King with Dayle D'Ann and Laurie Brady - the Astrologers to the Stars! Seriously!
The show was a loose 60's style Las Vegas review where Sonny sat on the stage, kibitzed with the crowd, sang a couple songs, told some really stale jokes (so stale that we were laughing our asses off wondering how in the hell he could get away with telling such bad jokes), and just sort of hung out. We sat there and listened to this schlocky entertainer for a half hour or so and suddenly a lady gets up to sing with Sonny. Turns out it's the Lt. Governor of Nevada - Lorraine Hunt, herself!
She sang a couple of old standards with Sonny and she did have a nice voice. But this was definitely for the over 60 crowd and we began to see that we were probably the youngest people in the place.
Other than the tired entertainment, the Bootlegger was worth the trip.
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