\nBy John Katsilometes Las Vegas Sun<\/p>\n
\tHaving worked as an executive at MGM Resorts International and Station Casinos, Scott Kreeger understands the Las Vegas market.<\/p>\n
\n\tHe also knows about struggling resorts, having taken over SLS Las Vegas after leaving the now-closed Revel in Atlantic City. SLS, which opened in August 2014, lost $35 million during the first quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
\tWith financial support from majority owner Stockbridge Capital, hotel executives are working hard to try to turn a profit. Kreeger recently spoke with The Sunday about his plans, vision and challenges.<\/p>\n
\tEvery hotel in Las Vegas has a \u201cramp period\u201d for success. What is the ramp period for SLS?<\/p>\n
\tWell, it starts the day you open, and my sense is this is an 18-to-24-month ramp. It may be a little bit elongated compared with others, but every property has its ramp, and they generally are 12 to 18 months. Two years is not uncommon.<\/p>\n
\tThe elongated timeline is so the neighborhood can build around you?<\/p>\n
\tYes. We don\u2019t have the benefit of foot traffic that the center Strip does. We have great access through Paradise Road and the Monorail. But at the end of the day, we have a little bit tougher ramp than what you would have on center Strip.<\/p>\n
\tWhy pull back the DJ programming at the nightclub Life and refocus your entertainment strategy at Foxtail?<\/p>\n
\tLife originally was built as a theater. What I want to do is put nightclub events in there where we can bring in couches, electronic dance music DJs or the new open-forum, hip-hop DJs, but at the same time, I want to go and do a live-music concert or comedy. It allows me more options and flexibility to broaden whom we speak to because the SLS brand is a behind-the-velvet-ropes type of a brand. It was a little bit more exclusionary than it was approachable. I\u2019m trying to loosen that up a bit, because Las Vegas is a mass-market experience.<\/p>\n
\tYou are pleased with the performance of your restaurants? It was reported that SBE sold Cleo and Katsuya to the One Group, owners of STK at the Cosmopolitan, which is not expected to change the model at SLS Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\tOur food component on our property I would put against anybody in town. Bazaar Meat is one of the top restaurants in the country. Cleo, Katsuya and Umami are all great products. But what I want to do is create layers of experience. I want you to come and have a great meal, but I want you to be entertained, too. When we opened, it was basically restaurant- and nightlife-oriented. I want to diversify and be more flexible and talk to a larger audience.<\/p>\n
\tLocals love a good buffet, which Station Casinos has proven for decades. But you\u2019ve closed the buffet at SLS. Is it coming back?<\/p>\n
\tIt\u2019s not one of my top priorities. The business concept was that we needed the buffet to drive locals, which I would have tended to agree with had I been at the blueprint stage of the development. But then when we programmed it, it was $31 and we had five different kinds of curries. What we intended to do with it and the execution didn\u2019t match.<\/p>\n
\tAre there any design plans to help improve business?<\/p>\n
\tWe\u2019re right next to the Las Vegas Convention Center, and I\u2019d like to have at least twice the banquet and convention space we have now, and we\u2019re looking into that. We need the property to be a legitimate convention hotel. There is enough space to more than double where we are now.<\/p>\n
\tFred Segal Jewels recently closed. Are you assessing your partnership with that company?<\/p>\n
\tFred Segal is a phenomenal brand, and we\u2019re happy to have them here. Would it be on the table to make changes in retail? Yeah. But there\u2019s nothing that is off the table for us. And that\u2019s a good thing because you\u2019ve got to be nimble in this market and, especially in your first year, you\u2019ve got to listen to your customers and what they want. So, you know, could we augment and are we looking to augment our retail? Yes, we are.<\/p>\n
\tHow do you attract Las Vegans to come to SLS to gamble?<\/p>\n
\tGive them a good value. You stay honest. There\u2019s nothing more honest than a Las Vegas local gambler. So we\u2019re giving people a really, truly, good value with their play time. Our new club program, from a play-to-point-redemption ratio, is more attractive than Station\u2019s or Boyd\u2019s. We undercut them both. Your chances to win a drawing for a car here are so much greater than they would be at the big local corporations. I think we\u2019re set up to be a great locals casino.<\/p>\n
\tDo you feel like you\u2019re under heavy scrutiny here at SLS?<\/p>\n
\tI know people are watching us. Everybody is watching this property closely.<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> getagrip on July 13, 2015, 7:31 pm<\/p>\n \tWent to SLS once by monorail last time we were in Vegas. Not really convenient to anything else but we wanted to see what they had done with the remodel. Got there about 11:30 AM and we wanted to grab some lunch as we had been up playing for some time. Really hard to find any where to eat before late afternoon there. A coffee shop with little choices in the way of food and a cafe. Really no choices in restaurants or food types to speak of although the cafe food turned out OK . Not what I expected after all the write ups about the great restaurants at SLS.<\/p>\n \tTable crews were pleasant and we had fun but no where I would care if I played again. If I did play —fine if not fine too.<\/p>\n \tThe bathrooms were just weird! Lots of dark black everywhere and you practically needed a miners helmet to find your way in and out! Almost walked into a black tile wall because I turned the wrong way—both ways were dark black so who knew! \ud83d\ude06 <\/p>\n \tMaybe the young crowd likes it and if they do that is great! Not on my radar anymore for any reason.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By John Katsilometes Las Vegas Sun Having worked as an executive at MGM Resorts International and Station Casinos, Scott Kreeger understands the Las Vegas market. He also knows about struggling resorts, having taken over SLS Las Vegas after leaving the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}