This unassuming plaza is well south of the Strip, but you can still see people pulling their suitcases along behind them in search of the northern lights. My friend and I stop to admire the mural that adorns the Antique Mall of America, the reason we came here. Complete with an American flag and a bald eagle, the wall depicts Vegas at its early 2000s best.
Before we step inside the mall’s 43,000-square-foot expanse, getting lost in time and space, we walk its perimeter, which is, by all appearances vacant of people, business, even tumbleweeds. We begin to feel like the last people on earth, peering through windows and guessing, from the effluvia, what once was. Highlights include a vacant storefront with a banner inside reading, “Opening Summer ’07, Stoney’s Las Vegas, Biggest Honkey Tonk” and Romper Room 24/7 Learning Center, with colorful walls and rows of wooden beds. It looks as if all the babies got up and left; then, we notice one teacher sitting at a little table in the corner.
Vegas Pointe Plaza also has a barber shop, a tattoo shop, and three churches, one of which we pause outside of to listen to the Sunday chorus. We decide not to enter, though, being scandalously dressed (by church standards).
Inside Bangin Ballz Billiards Bar we are surprised to find — people! “Nothing really goes on here,” Nick Chang says, sitting behind the counter by a large selection of bottled beer, soju, and soda. He’s talking about the mall in general, because this place itself is full of families playing pool. This is a family business, and Chang is a relative of the owners. “They were longtime pool players, and they wanted to start a pool hall because in Las Vegas we don’t have that many,” Chang tells us. We order coconut water and Funyuns, a strangely good combination, and play a round on a big table — $12 per hour, or $10 on a small — which I win on a technicality.
At Honors Brand, a clothing company that started in Hawaii, we get a tour from owners Raleigh Robertson and Sublu. The storefront serves as a fulfillment center and studio, rentable for photoshoots, podcasts, and events. After peering into all the gutted vacancies, we can imagine how much work they put into the place, built out so that every wall is a photo op. We’re impressed.
And last: Antique Mall of America itself. It’s grand, disorienting, and packed full of the kind of kitsch and hidden treasures I would hope for and expect at a Vegas antique mall with only six people in the parking lot on a Sunday afternoon. The prevalence of the word “firm” on signage convinces me that haggling is a solid option here, and the remnants of what used to be a checkered floor food court make me wish I had seen this place when it opened 19 years ago. In another time, this mall might have been crowded with life, but it gives us a place to take a breath and find a few gifts from the past to take home today.