LAS VEGAS: After nearly two decades in hibernation, the world's
naughtiest bunny is ready to get hopping again.
The Playboy Club, a legendary brand that once defined hip
but lost its cachet and disappeared in the 1980s, is about to
rise again - this time to the 52nd floor of a new tower at The
Palms Casino Resort here.
The new $15 million hutch, which opens Oct. 6 with 80-year-old
Playboy icon Hugh Hefner in tow, has nine blackjack tables and
a roulette table and greets visitors with a Playboy sign made
of 10,000 diamond-shaped crystals.
The dealers, all buxom women, will wear traditional bunny
costumes, their male pit bosses will be draped in Hefner-style
smoking jackets, and cocktail servers will don Roberto Cavalli-designed
bunny outfits.
A dance club with a retractable roof is above and an Italian
restaurant is below, and all three floors are connected by escalators.
And they all offer sensational skyline views.
The appeal? To Palms owner George Maloof, it's obvious: "Playing
blackjack surrounded by incredibly hot girls is fun."
Unlike the Playboy Clubs of yore, no membership "key" will
be required; a $20 to $50 cover charge gains admittance. At
its height, there were 22 clubs around the world and 1 million
keyholders, but changing tastes and economic hardships led the
last club to close in 1988.
The Playboy brand is enjoying a resurgence with its Internet
and cable offerings, particularly the E! reality show The Girls
Next Door, about life at Hefner's Playboy Mansion.
Playboy Enterprises CEO Christie Hefner vows she'll be cautious
about multiplying these bunnies. Two possible future sites:
Macao, China, where major Vegas companies are building lavish
resorts; and London, site of one of the old club's most successful
ventures.
"This is the beginning of an effort to find five or 10 locations
to do these multifaceted entertainment venues," says Hefner,
Hugh's daughter.
Las Vegas Adviser newsletter publisher Anthony Curtis says
The Palms, which made its mark by hosting a season of MTV's
The Real World, "gives Playboy currency to today's trendsetters,
and Playboy will draw older, moneyed guys" to the hotel who
"remember the older mystique."
