October marks the start of festivities that will last through the end of the year. The holidays can be a chore (or a bore), but lots of Las Vegas bars have pop-ups to help get patrons in the holiday spirit. They hang up the spiderwebs/tinsel, offering a low-hassle place for a party … where you can show up whenever you like. Here’s a handful of my favorites.
The Silver Stamp, near the Arts District, is a feast for the eyes on an ordinary day. For holidays, “we decided we were going to go all-out,” co-owner Andrew Smith says. “We love kitsch, we love camp.” The bar puts on an egg hunt at Easter and a hot-dog-eating contest on the Fourth of July, but their biggie is Halloween. With creepy mechanical dolls, skeleton “bartenders,” and mock electric chair executions, it’s a veritable Haunted House — that you can take in while enjoying a beer. “We have so many people think we’re just a Halloween-themed bar,” Smith laughs. But a couple months later, the decorations go winter wonderland, and the Silver Stamp hosts a potluck dinner on Christmas Day. “Every year we’re trying to one-up ourselves,” he says.
Themes also rule the season at the Sand Dollar Lounge, in both its Downtown and Strip-adjacent locations. The latter will hold a Nightmare on Spring Mountain pop-up throughout October, breaking out the skeletons and blacklights, as well as themed cocktails and weekly costume parties. After Thanksgiving, it becomes the “Miracle on Spring Mountain,” while the Sand Dollar in the Plaza Hotel adopts a Sippin’ Santa theme, with decorated trees, stockings hung above the bar, and hundreds of yards of Christmas lights.
A shrunken-head collection and pirate décor put the Golden Tiki halfway to spooky season throughout the year; additional decorations and themed drinks make for even more weird whimsy. However, the Golden Tiki does have a unique twist to its Halloween vibe: resident ghosts. Operations manager Nicholas Brinks says the bar is “a favorite haunt of some of the most active otherworldly spirits in Chinatown.” Mysterious events have included “items flying off shelves of their own accord, hearing someone call your name when no one is there, or seeing something out of the corner of your eye,” he says, adding, “some guests have even left with pictures photobombed by a spirit or orb.”
Also in the spirit of the season is Evel Pie on Fremont Street, which collaborates with creepy pop-up specialists Black Lagoon for a monthlong celebration including themed decor and glassware (skeleton mermaid tiki mugs), Halloween cocktails, and ultra-hot “reaper” wings. If you want to combine the October and December holidays, then put Màs Por Favor Taqueria y Tequila in Chinatown on your list. It celebrates The Nightmare Before Christmas by re-creating the movie’s Halloween Town in the speakeasy bar during the month of December. Feel free to raise your glass twice — for the naughty and nice.