In 1959, the Golden Gate hotel in downtown Las Vegas began offering a shrimp cocktail for a paltry fifty cents. That was a tremendous bargain. Fifteen years ago, they raised its price to a buck and it was still a tremendous bargain…a loss leader, of course. Like anything free or cheap in Vegas, you have to walk to the back of the casino to claim it, passing hundreds of slot machines and table games. They may lose a few quarters on the freebee or bargain but they know enough people will be enticed to play a little — which means enticed to lose some money — on the way in or out. They'll more than make back whatever they lose on the shrimp.
But oddly enough, it's never been the best bargain at the Golden Gate. The shrimp cocktail of which I write comes in a tulip-style dish and they stick a little shredded lettuce in the bottom, then fill the glass with tiny bay shrimp. Then the server ladles a big glump of cocktail sauce onto it unless, like me, you ask them not to. I find theirs too spicy so I ask for just a tiny amount. Actually, more often, I order their other shrimp cocktail, the one few people ever buy. They call it the Big Shrimp Cocktail and it has much larger, tastier prawns. An approximation of it in a good seafood house would set you back at least ten, maybe fifteen bucks. Last time I was at the Golden Gate, it was $2.95.
And like I said, very few people buy it. Because the whole point of going in there is not to get good shrimp. It's to get shrimp for a dollar. The outrageous bargain is the appeal, not the shellfish. This is why Vegas visitors around the world are being shocked to hear that the cheapo shrimp cocktail at the Golden Gate has just doubled its price.
That's right. It's now $1.99. You want proof the economy is in trouble? Look no further.
In truth, it's not quite that bad. If you sign up for the Golden Gate's slot card club, you can still get your shrimp for a dollar…but how long do we think that will last? It's obviously a way to ease the new price tag into place. A few months from now, the members' price will be $1.49 and it'll still seem like a deal. Then, one chilling day, it'll be two bucks for everyone. (No word yet on the Big Shrimp Cocktail but I'm guessing it's four bucks now or soon will be.)
I guess at two bucks, the basic shrimp cocktail is still an outrageous bargain. Still, there's something sad about the increase…sad, the same way it's sad when they tear down an old, classic hotel. The Golden Gate, by the way, is not an old, classic hotel, just an old one. It evolved out of the Hotel Nevada, which was built on that location in 1906. The Hotel Nevada actually had the first phone number in the state. The number was 1.
In 1931, when gambling was legalized in the state, the Hotel Nevada expanded and was renamed Sal Sagev, which someone thought was a cute name, it being "Las Vegas" spelled backwards. I don't know why anyone would want to stay at someplace called the Sal Sagev but people did…until 1955 when a change of ownership brought in a San Francisco-based company and the new name. I gather the building has not changed an awful lot since those days. It's a rather dreary place with nothing to recommend it but the shrimp. If they closed it down tomorrow, that's the only thing people would miss.
Which is probably why they've kept it so long and why, until someone gets the "bright" idea to gut and rebuild the place, they'll always have a shrimp cocktail at an astonishingly low price. It's just sad that it's not quite as astonishing as it used to be. Almost nothing in Vegas is, these days.