Bars
Sidebar |
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Sidebar Details
- Hours: Sunday - Thursday, 5 p.m. - midnight; Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. - 2 a.m.
- Average drink price: $9. Happy hour from 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. nightly.
- Payment info: Cash, major credit cards.
- Parking: Valet parking is available in front of the bar. Additional parking is available in the Lady Luck parking garage, which is free with validation from sidebar.
- Special events: Every second Wednesday of the month, enjoy wine tasting, appetizers and new friends at "winebar at Sidebar." Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door.
Sidebar Review
Long known for glowing neon tubes and flashing incandescent bulbs, Downtown Las Vegas also has a newer, more softly-lit side. And the new drinking establishment Sidebar -- just off of the Fremont Street Experience -- is a tasteful, urbane part of a growing movement of understated elegance in Glitter Gulch.
Sidebar takes its name from its arm-in-arm link with the popular, adjacent Triple George Grill. Sidebar is an intimate joint that recalls a clubby San Francisco watering hole. It is swathed in deep mahogany and tawny tan tones -- all offset by white vinyl booths. With subtle, evocative illumination that plays on the bar's sumptuous woodwork, sidebar is a modern update on mid-20th century Left Coast elegance.
The Sidebar is a sophisticated getaway for swank cocktails and compelling conversation. The drink menu features classic libations as well as new variations such as the "Sidebar sidecar" (Hennessy and Cointreau served with a fresh lemon and sugar rim), along with fine wines and beers. A limited, but tantalizing, appetizer menu includes oysters Rockefeller, satay skewers and fried calamari, as well as sweets such as truffles and perfectly crusted crème brulée.
Sidebar also features an extensive selection of quality-rolled cigars to please newbies and connoisseurs alike. Choices start at A. Fuente and Hoyo de Monterrey and move upward to higher-end options such as Macanudo and La Aurora Preferidos.
Of course, this is still Nevada, and the carved wood bar has the requisite sunken video poker machines. However, this is the only aesthetic detail in the entire place that is patently of the garish Vegas variety. The rest of Sidebar is sedate -- but eminently sociable.
-- Review by Greg Thilmont
