Reviving a Vegas Icon: Inside the Plaza Hotel & Casino's Overhaul with Jonathan Jossel

Welcome to Vegas Circle podcast with your hosts Paki and, Chris. We are people who are passionate about business, success and culture and this is our platform to showcase to people in our city who made it happen. On today's podcast, we're going to be discussing what it takes to be a CEO of a hotel and casino. We've got the CEO of Plaza Hotel. We've got Mr Jonathan Jossel. Welcome to the Circle, brother. Great to be with you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm glad to have you, man. I've been wanting to do this for a while. We got a chance to connect back on 4th of July. I got a chance to see what the Plaza is all about. You gave me a tour of my family and everything and it was just awesome hospitality. But we wanted to just kind of jump right in, man. So you originally are from South Africa and you grew up in London. So how did you end up in Vegas?

And you were just in London, from my understanding, yeah, I just got back from London last night, okay, and then I was there with the family for some holiday time right after July 4th, after I saw you and we had to talk about the fireworks. For sure, we'll talk about that a little later on, but to answer your question, I was born in South Africa. My accent is all over the place, so good luck to figuring it out, but I was born in South Africa, lived there for six years, then, with my family, moved to London, lived in London until I was 23. Went to university in London, just outside of London, facebook, birmingham. You ever been there.

I'm gonna give punch to my wife, but I dated somebody from UK for a little while. Okay, in Hertfordshire actually, oh, okay, so yeah, but South Africa is like in just Africa in general is one of my number one places I want to go to. I've never been. You gotta get there. Yeah, I just want to go see Black Coffee, if you know who Black Coffee is.

I know Black Coffee. I want to see him. In fact, I was just talking to one of my friends. He was just performing in Cape Town.

Wow.

When we were there last year he was performing there and then someone's downstairs was just saying they went to see him Anyway, Okay.

Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, he's amazing. Doesn't he play in Vegas? Yeah, he's got residency at Wynn. I've seen him multiple times.

He's amazing, amazing. So anyway, I moved to London and went to university in Birmingham and I always loved gambling. I enjoyed sports betting, poker If you could bet on it. I was interested in it Just as a kid. I don't know where it came from, and the psychology of that and the business behind that was always interesting to me. And so when I was at university, I was doing my thesis on the gambling industry in the UK and what would happen if, from a business case study, what would happen if it was literally called, what would happen if Las Vegas Star Casinos opened up in the UK, and that was 2003. And then I was writing that thesis and during that process one of my family friends, one of my parents' friends, was at a luncheon that they were at and I was talking to him and said what are you doing? I told him what the name of my thesis was and he said, oh, I just bought six casinos in downtown Las Vegas. And I was like holy shit.

Go ahead, go ahead.

Not every day you meet someone who says that. So I was like, what are you talking about? And he told me what he had done and his idea was he knew nothing about gambling and casinos or the business of them, I should say. But he had invested in Times Square in 1990 with the same idea of the area is neglected, it's bad. I'm going to invest there and wait for the area to clean up. And Times Square was super successful. He had the same vision for downtown Las Vegas. I don't know if you ever went to Times Square in the 80s.

I didn't go in the 80s, no, in the 80s, in the 90s it was a bad place Not that I avoid it, but allegedly and got cleaned up and now it's arguably the center of America in terms of tourism. So his model was let's do that in downtown Las Vegas. So I asked him for a work experience, came out to Vegas in 2005 and I was barely 21. And I lived in the plaza and lived in the plaza. Oh wow, in a, let me tell you wasn't well.

It was rough.

It was rough and not just the plaza, downtown as a whole, 2005,. There was nothing going on and as a 21 year old, as a kid, basically, I was living in the plaza, nothing that I could. I didn't have the vision.

I have to say I didn't have the vision he had and I thought, well, at least as a 21 year old, I thought, no, this is an interesting project, but I can't live here. I did it about four weeks and then I called him. I said thank you, but no thank you and I left. But the people I worked with for that four weeks I had stayed in touch with that of his other offices and at the end of university he ended up offering me a job.

Okay.

But I was working them in London, new York, basically for two years. And one day he walks into the office and he says downtown Vegas has changed. You need to go back out there because you're the only person who works for me that isn't married, doesn't have a house, doesn't have kids. I need someone on the ground there. It's not doing well at all. We need someone out there. And I was 23, just broken up with my girlfriend, thinking what can I do with my life, and I was like what have I got to lose?

Two years ago. It wasn't good, but I rolled the dice.

So came out here and day I landed here. I ended up at a bar called the downtown cocktail room. I'm not familiar with it?

No, I'm not familiar with it. Really, downtown cocktail room.

Yeah, it's a staple of. It's basically, with that and beauty bar, the only two bars that existed in Vegas, disappointed.

I'm disappointed as well. I feel horrible. Vegas Circle we don't even know he goes to the downtown cocktail room.

But, to be fair, I haven't been there in many years, but back in 2007, it was that and beauty bar were the only places in downtown, so I ended up there the day I landed. This guy said hey, at the hotel I didn't know one person. When I landed in Vegas and someone who was working at the plaza said hey, there's this bar called downtown cocktail room just opened last month. We should go there. They do a happy hour. No-transcript go there. And there's two guys in the bar and I get talking to them. And one of them was the owner of the downtown cocktail room and his name is Michael Cornthwaite. For anyone that's familiar with Vegas and downtown, they'll all know who Michael is.

And another guy called Sam Cherry who built Soho Lofts, the high-rise in downtown yeah and I was like you're the two young guys involved in downtown and the three of us started meeting there every day having drinks and we were like, how do we make downtown better? That was all it was. It was just. But it gave me hope that there was a vision for what this area could now become, because there was no one down there just two years prior and and I saw an opportunity and then I had the vision. Two years before I didn't, but as a 23 year old, I started seeing that this actually could become an area and in London, everything is so established here I felt like, yeah, I can make a difference here and there's an opportunity.

What an exciting time to be. That's the foresight that he must have had to do that, because we all see the way downtown is now. It definitely has changed considerably since you know at that point in time, that foresight and that investment, I'm sure, paid off like tenfold and patience you got to be patient.

It wasn't an overnight success but I think for me the thing is that you know comes without stories, like the confidence right to be able to come in, to hear a new city, a new location going into a new avenue you know, just thought a fresh out of college but to be able to establish that vision and come in and, you know, deal with that excitement in a new market. You know and have the confidence to establish those relationships of new people. Like you know what, what was kind of like an inherent in you just from a conversation, to make that move and really go all in on it. Like that's a pretty, pretty intimidating mindset to be in at that time it is.

But also, as a 23 year old, you have a lot less to lose. Very true, and and I didn't know where it could go, and I've I've stuck by this mantra, which is you never know day to day how. You don't think too far ahead. You take a day by day, you give it everything, and I saw this opportunity. I thought, if I keep working at this, what could it become, whereas I knew in London it was a very concrete path of what was available to me, whereas here was, it's like the last frontier, vegas, and it still is to a degree. There's still so much opportunity here, but in other places you just don't have that. Here you would in many ways, we're still creating a city. We're still defining a city.

You look at what's happened here in the culture of Vegas and the development of it. It's, it's unbelievable. In the last decade, downtown was the same thing, but it was an even less of a, it was more of a blank slate. It was just nothing there. And so, yeah, I, yeah, I think it did take courage, but I think that the biggest lesson to to anyone really is it doesn't happen quickly and you have to give a time to evolve. I see a lot of my friends and a lot of family that if they don't feeling like it's happening for them in three months, six months, nine months, the jumping ship, what's next? What's next? Instant gratification, instant fame. It doesn't work that way and and this project took keep in mind, in 2007, when I landed that was July 2007, by the way you you don't know, but you were celebrating my 16th anniversary with me in Vegas at the roof.

I didn't know that rooftop that day. That's beautiful.

I landed July 5th 2007, so but around November 2007 was the mortgage crisis and the big recession. Yeah, that was the worst town in three, four years you could ever have been in Las Vegas. Yeah, and my wife still says to me I can't believe you stuck through that time here, but it's.

I did believe that there was something here and an opportunity, but it was a bad, it was a rough time yeah and actually that recession, which was terrible for everyone, afforded me the opportunity of learning those businesses in the worst times, because we had six casinos at the time and they were not doing well, plus all the real estate we had, so there was a lot of learning. That was that I used that time to do.

I moved to Las Vegas in 2007. And what's even better for me is I know the downtown, so like, for example, a cut above the rest of Barbershop. I know the owners there. They've been off Carson 7 since like 98, 99.

Still there.

Still there. You know, tim, kurt, mike Jones, I know all of them. They're great people. I was getting my haircut from them starting in 2007. And I'm like what is going on down here? Because it was rough, you know, extremely rough, but I didn't know the backstory that you were just talking about, where you guys were meeting. I also wanted to piggyback on Tony Shea. What Tony Shea was doing, you know the downtown project. Were you guys part of that too? Just kind of having the insight to see what does the real estate look like and kind of have you know your perspective and kind of insight and thoughts on that we're a big part of that.

So, 2007, we start meeting at downtown Coctroom. Two years later, tony comes along. He meets Michael Cornthuy and it was downtown Coctroom that Tony fell in love with. That was his first insight into wow, there's a community here that I hadn't felt in Vegas before and we started hanging out with him on a regular basis, going to we had at the time we had Firefly at the Plaza.

Oh yeah, yeah, John's been on our show too. John's a great guy. Oh okay, yeah, John's a great great guy.

We had Firefly back in like 2009. And so Tony started coming there and we just became really good friends. He came to my wedding in South Africa. But what Tony did for downtown and I say this a lot is he gets a lot of praise or criticism, whatever you want to say he brought a lot of attention to downtown. And what happened instantly? So those first two years that I was living down there, people would say to me are you crazy? What are you doing down there? You're being harassed, you're being molested. Are you nuts? What are you doing there? It was really like people couldn't get their head around it. And then, two years later, when Tony started coming down there and I would say, oh, I'm living downtown, they were like, oh, that's what Tony Shae's doing, all this redevelopment. And people in New York started paying attention People all over the country. This guy's developed. He branded it as the startup, as a city and all these things, and it was unbelievable what the attention he brought to downtown.

Yeah, it's amazing, it's great. The Plaza Hotel I think it was 1971, they were the biggest hotel in the world at that time, which tells you the vision of what was going on.

We didn't build the Plaza. Okay, the Plaza was built by Jackie Gorn and. Sam Boyd, alex Burr and Frank Scott. Okay, so they built the Plaza and have Jackie Gorn. Are you familiar with that name? Yeah, yeah.

So his son is Michael Gorn, who built the South Point. He still owns the South Point. Jackie Gorn's probably the biggest legend in downtown history and one of the biggest legends in gaming. In my opinion, he really was the first guy who created culture in the casino industry and he treated his teammates like his family. He would sit there every day and have lunch with the team. He was just a part of the. He was just a really good operator.

That's awesome, and he built the Plaza, the Las Vegas Club, the Western. So it was his portfolio, in fact. He built the Al Cortez and lived in the Al Cortez until he died.

Wow yeah. Yeah, we're going to go chop some gems on this.

Yeah, you know what's kind of you see these culture shifts that happen almost in phases in downtown. You know, when I first moved to Vegas in 2011, that's where I spent the majority of my time, I loved it. I loved the atmosphere. It was like a real local community environment. But then you kind of see it shifting, with more like the institutional investors coming with, like circa, and you're getting a lot more of that. You know, strip, I would say, tourism.

That's coming over there a little bit more. Do you feel like that kind of shift in the downtown culture is leaning more towards that like strip emulation, or are we going to be able to maintain that kind of local culture that's been there for the past? You know 10, 15 years.

No, I totally disagree. I think downtown's completely independent. If you look at all the operators, circa actually is just privately owned and their owner's very hands-on. He's downtown all the time, there's me. There's Golden Nugget, which is one guy, tillman Fatida it's a massive company. Four Queens Binions are separately owned, so all the casino El Cortez is privately owned. Downtown Grands privately owned, so all these casinos are very much, and then Boyd is the only one that's a corporation.

But no, I think downtown's special for that exact reason People can walk from place to place, get to know people, meet people and if that ever goes, it would be sad, and I don't think it's going to, because I think we all recognize that that's what makes us different and if you look at downtown's growth over the last 10, 15 years it's been outperforming the strip in terms of growth. It's not outperforming the strip by any measure. But its growth is greater than the strip's growth, which is a big boon to the area.

I would say that's definitely my favorite place to party. Just to go out there, like you said, just to hang out. Like the strip is, everybody's always moving somewhere to go somewhere. There you could just sit and people watch, which I think is the most exciting part about it.

There's a lot to do down there. There really is A lot of options that didn't exist 15 years ago. For sure there was a lot of good gambling and cheap food, but now there's actually good entertainment, good bars, good restaurants.

So much to do, excellent. Let's talk about some of the enhancements you guys have done there. You guys have done some huge enhancements from now. You guys got Pink Box inside there. You've got Oscar's Steakhouse there, the Pickleball Court, which I'm very disappointed. I didn't get a chance to see that, but shout out to Colin Fukunaka from Fuku Berger, who's the first person to tell me about it, but I think he's there every day playing but let's talk about some of these enhancements that you guys were doing to bring people down there and obviously some of these franchises.

Yeah, well, there's a lot of different things, but the concept is, when I took over the plaza as the CEO, I was 29 years old, it was 2015. And the idea was really that a lot of people thought it needs to be knocked down. It needs to be knocked down, rebuilt and take it, build something new. And I took a different approach. I felt like, no, we can actually, piece by piece, improve this place and really put it back on the map, and so we set about doing that. Obviously, 2011, there was the remodel with the fountain, blue furniture, oh, that's right.

Yeah, when they went to the first time.

Yeah, so we got all their furniture. So we did a big remodel then, but it didn't do very well. I think the management mis-underestimated downtown in some ways. But the first thing we did was we redid the pool deck and when we redid the pool deck, we put in these pickleball courts and that was 2016. Now today, pickleball is all the rage.

Yeah, wait a minute. 2016,. People told me 2016,. The pickleball court was there, oh yeah, okay, I'm embarrassed to even say that I thought it was brand new. It shouldn't be embarrassed.

Okay, people told me you're literally insane. Jonathan, what are you doing? Putting in a pickleball court? There's makes no sense. What is pickleball?

Yeah the fact, you've heard of pickleball. Why do you know pickleball less than a year ago, to be honest.

I didn't know what it was either in 2016. Some guy told me what are you doing with those old tennis courts? I said I don't know. No one plays on the map but they're always empty. He said you got to hear this thing called pickleball so I started researching it. I went with him to see this place in Siena and there was like 30 people playing pickleball and he was like it's going to become the biggest sport in America. And I was like why? And he explained to me his concept. I said I think I think you're right, I think you're onto something. I don't be the biggest sport in America, but I think it's gonna be big.

Yeah, and the pandemic certainly helped pickable Take it to another level. But we put those 16 courts there and so we started doing we own the Las Vegas Pickable Open, which is a tournament that we had all the pros come and play in back in 18, 19, 20 and it just started growing. And so we did the pool deck. We remodeled that. Then we did the convention floor. We remodeled that, then we did another 150 rooms with brand new hotel rooms that are like a nice higher level product than we've ever had before. And then we opened the sand dollar. You're familiar with the sand dollar the bar and spring mountain.

So they opened a second one downtown with us sand dollars, just a great bar, live music, pool tables, sort of a dark, that speakeasy kind of feel more like a dive bar, I guess. And then we did obviously Oscar steak houses there. And then we did this idea of the front of the hotel Used to be a driveway and it was just empty real estate. And a friend of mine said have you ever seen this bar in New Orleans called? It's called the carousel bar, but it's at the Montefiore hotel? Okay, I said no, no, I've been to New Orleans I don't want to talk about. Started researching that. Looked at it as like this would be perfect in the port of Cache and get rid of the taxi cab line because that doesn't make any money.

And it's just annoying because everyone tries to take videos and pictures under the lights. You ever seen the music videos by the weekend or any of those are off-filmed under the lights at the Plaza right.

Yeah, yeah, and I was like, let's build this bar right there. And so then we were started planning this bar, but it was before the pandemic and it got delayed. But during that time I said I think you know, we can't just build the bar, we need to do more. And that's when the idea of pink box came around. Then their good friends of mine Agree to open the doughnut store in the one corner, and then we're partners. We're in partnership with this youtuber called Brian Christopher. He plays slot machines on YouTube. Okay, half a million audience for each video. It's pretty unbelievable actually. And so we partnered with him to create a smoke-free area, casino area, right on the other corner of the carousel bar, and above that is the outdoor patio of the state house. Oh, okay, yeah, that you saw. And that's when we looked down and saw the house.

Okay.

Okay, and so all of that just opened in June, about three months ago. So we've got this new toy and now we're finishing the construction up, all the Little issues that have that come along with that. But it's been great to have the front of the hotel open, all these new amenities, this new energy, and when you come to the end of free monastery and you see the giant pink doughnut, the carousel bar, it's where you want to be. So why? It's not really why we built it for free Monstreet. We built it because of we wanted the amenities in the hotel. We have a thousand rooms, one of those people to have a great couple of bars to go to the doughnuts, the coffee. So it's been a great addition.

Yes, you know, you're kind of like the CEO seems like a very daunting job. Right, you're overseeing, you set a thousand rooms, I'm sure countless. I don't know the number of employees, I'm sure the numbers up there, and especially in an environment like casino and hotel, where every day is different, it's 24 hours. You're dealing with the authorities, the gambling. It just seems like a lot to have to navigate through. But then when it comes these little nuanced decisions to try to grow the business On top of all of those things, you know what sort of like autonomy do you have to to say, hey, I want, I want a pink box here, I want to care, a cell bar here. Is there, like, what is the process to get from point a to point B when you have the foresight to kind of implement some of those decisions?

so it's a great question and we're really lucky because we don't have multiple investors and Abored we have one guy who's the guy who sent me out here in 2007. His names for you Zabla da beach. He was the guy who invested in downtown in 2005 and had that vision and Basically it's a call to him and because he's not a he's he comes out to maybe twice a year, we have really a huge amount of autonomy and and and to be fair to us, me and my team here we've done well with it and we've proven ourselves. So that gives him more credit, a bit more confidence in and us more credibility to execute. So when we have those ideas and listen, pink box with that giant pink donut at the entrance Got a lot of flak for me because a lot of people said you're crazy, what are you doing?

You're gonna ruin the integrity of these famous lights and the history and the culture. Yeah, but I just thought it would blend perfectly and create this energy and feeling in the front of the hotel that, although a little risky would would be something that people would would gravitate towards. And so he, we have that autonomy now. It's one of the reasons why we're successful in recruiting people, because a lot of people get frustrated at bigger properties that they have an idea. It has to go through 15 layers the corporate, this, the general counsel, that then to the board. For us it's really simple it's me and a close-knit group of people and we make those decisions and then we move pretty quickly if we like it.

Yeah, that's like a huge benefit, especially in an area like downtown, because it gives you nimbleness, like it gives you the ability to rapidly change the kind of Adapt to the times a little bit. I see that just seems invaluable for where the area is kind of heading towards.

Yeah, I agree with you. I love all these visions to this would have been able to put together. And were you part of bringing the rodeo down? Is that? From my understanding it was was kind of your spearhead?

No, listen, like pick, like pickleball as well. I can't take credit for rodeo. To me, okay is the most amazing event in Las Vegas. Okay, two weeks in December, whether you like rodeo or not, the two weeks in December are mind-blowing. What happens here, the amount of business the NFR brings to this town, it's, and it was a dead period without it. So we were always really slow in December and I was so. Well, how's everyone else busy? And they had the rodeo events. So we started sponsoring Las Vegas events, which is a subsidiary of the LBC, va, and they host the events. And they host all the big events that come to Las Vegas, like EDC and that kind of send NASCAR. So so they do NFR. And I said, well, how do we get involved in the city? You have to sponsor us. So we sponsored them and absolutely nothing happened.

That wasn't very. That was a waste of money.

Yeah, yeah but while you need to not activate, like I'm English, I know nothing about rodeo. Yeah, like what?

do you want me to do? Oh, nothing about rodeo either. Yeah, yeah, so that's all I ever do.

So then, they sent me this girl that worked for them and she sits down and she starts talking and she's from like a okachobi and and she basically I she came to be known as the rodeo queen to me and she taught me what little there is to know about rodeo. She taught me so a little I know. She taught me and she convinced me to build this arena and that if I built the arena she could fill it with all these other events. And I was like you're crazy, but I'll take a shot, because I needed the rodeo and I wanted to believe it could be good. And now we have an arena and we have we have all these rodeo events and it's pretty amazing.

You're gonna have to come to the rodeo in December.

I put my son pretty cool I put my son, when he was five years old, on a mutton busting and they ride the sheep. Oh yeah little kids ride the sheep.

It's crazy, I'll tell my kid, you know, my kids all over that.

Yeah, they'll be into that, they'll be to but, but again, it's that, firstly, it's this idea that I promise you there's not a single person in the world, in England, who could do what I did. You just can't build a rodeo arena in the middle of a downtown and start doing horses and bulls and all these events, and and there we are doing it. So that it's this idea that you have the freedom and the ability to try new things, and, whether it's pickleball rodeo, I love bingo. These are things I didn't think I'd ever, but they're great businesses.

And they're a good way to differentiate. I really enjoyed bingo. That's a big seller for me.

We do a super bingo. It's my favorite time of year, two days every month. Okay, that's 800 people come and play bingo, mostly 70 year old ladies.

Oh yeah, I'll be there here by all the people when I win. Every time I play bingo and if I win I get like, look what everybody's give me the meat on the track.

You gotta come play. I gotta check that out. So what's been like your biggest obstacle just being the CEO of you know cold hotel like plaza?

I mean, you know the growth downtown has just been so great that that would have been in the early days. It was overcoming that. It was telling everyone that hey, downtown is not that same place and there is so much more to do here and convincing people to give it a try. But now I feel like I don't have to do that anymore because thanks to the help of whether Tony Shay or soccer the mayor, oscar who's, who's our partner in the steakhouse or his wife now who's the current mayor They've done such a great job of championing downtown that it's made it much easier.

But in the early days that was by far the biggest challenge convincing not just customers but people to work there. You know, when you got a higher Executives, like, do I really want to give up my nice safe job? It when? Or MGM and goats downtown and and so that was the risk. But now everyone wants to be a part of it. So we sort of doesn't really answer your question. But we've overcome that Challenge because now everyone wants to get involved in downtown and we call it the 12 year overnight success. You said 12 year.

You're a mode you motivating, john. I love talking with you, man, just hearing these stories of History and things along those lines, man, and being able to execute is is amazing, because it's hard to execute a lot of times. But yeah, with us being a business podcast, I'm just curious what your perspective is on business advice. What would you tell somebody that's not ready to take that risk, that wants to maybe build their own business or maybe, do you know, walk the path of you of being a CEO and running a huge company?

you know, I think I mentioned it earlier on, but it's it's this idea of patience. When I, when I started out, I remember there was nights where I would, as a 24, 25 year old, I would stand in the plaza at the entrance doors and I would just watch when people came in. What was that first impression? What do they see and what signage are they seeing? What's the first slot machine they see? What's the first Lights that they see? What's the energy that they're feeling as they walk in? We talked about this before yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but energy is everything you know I mean, you got to keep that energy, and you can never. The minute you get To complacent or too arrogant and you stop having that energy, you stop listening to good ideas and you stop seeing new things. So so to me, it was just this idea of patience and um and waiting for those opportunities to materialize. Now, obviously, there's a cutoff point to that.

Don't wait forever, but I just think.

Too many people quit too early at things, and it does take time for things to manifest and to evolve. And things do evolve and opportunities present themselves, and then you become an expert in that field and then, when that opportunity presents itself now, you're ready for it.

Yeah, I love that and, honestly, being for all this, vegas is the best place to people watch hands down. So to be able to learn that you could learn so much, it was pretty crazy.

We're on the casino where soccer is today. We used to call the Las Vegas Club. The people watching in there was insane. Yeah, definitely it was amazing, because it was pretty special. It was a little bad.

So just kind of transition a little bit. We always talk about restaurants, so what was and I'll bring your wife involved in this too what's your favorite restaurant in Vegas when you're not eating there at Plaza? Well, I'm not at Oscars.

When you're not at Oscars. Yeah, I got a publicus at least once or twice. Publicus. Oh, publicus, it's a coffee shop in downtown Usually breakfast and coffee. I'm not a publicus.

OK, publicus, I don't think I've had anybody say that. Yeah, a wife shaking her head in the background. She'd been there before.

You've been there, yeah.

Oh, I've been there. I mean I was yeah, so I'm good. Well, coffee's not good, then I'm calling out. I'm getting called out. I forgot.

Publicus is on Maryland and Fremont Street. Now if you have the guts to do what they did seven years ago, you deserve the shout out on the podcast. Toping up, there was ballsy. I go to Esther's Kitchen a lot.

I think this is great. I'm sure you've had that one. Esther's very good, I'm sure you've had that one. And should we just look at Derjus recently? Yeah, I love that. Oh, you did. Yeah, it's a good thing.

It's great, and then I mean all the usual staples on the strip. You've got to go to SW.

Esther's great.

Ambience with steak mixed together, I've got to keep it downtown.

Yeah, what else are you concentrating on? And maybe finishing up 2023 and maybe next year.

Well, getting these projects completed was the big undertaking. One of my biggest accomplishments in Vegas was getting rid of the Greyhound bus station. That used to be downtown, so I got a key to the city from the mayor for getting rid of the bus station. It was the number one crime spot in the city for about two decades.

Oh, wow, that's interesting Number one call from Metro was that area, so getting rid of that out of downtown was a big deal, and so we now have that space. I don't know where you parked when you came down for the fireworks show.

They hooked me up in the front.

They let me park right up on the side there and right next to that is the old Greyhound bus station. That's about 18,000 square feet of empty space that we're going to develop and it's about an acre and a half of parking lot, and then we have another 10 acres next to it. The plaza sits on 17 acres total.

Wow.

So there's a lot of development opportunity down there, but I'm really focused on these new projects we just finished and then putting the plaza where it deserves to be. One of the things with the fireworks that we took was awesome. We did the, we went up on the roof, we did the countdown with the kids and everyone says to me why do you love fireworks so much? Because I do love fireworks and it's expensive. It's about the size of anybody.

There was a time in about 2017, 2018, I was doing fireworks about six, seven times a year. Now I can't do it as much because CERC is a little close to us. Yeah, they don't want any straight fireworks, which I appreciate, but it was interesting because the way I could explain it to someone I've never really told people this, but I'll share with you guys here is because I'm South African. When you're on safari, when the lions come into their territory, they roar to let the other lions know that they're here. That's their area. So when someone says to me, why are you doing the fireworks, it's to let everybody know the plaza is still here because for many years the plaza was forgotten. So now they all hear the noise of the fireworks Like, oh, there goes the plaza again, and so we were doing it. We were doing it six, seven times a year. Now we're doing it three times a year in New Year's Eve, July 4th and a few special occasions. Okay.

Yeah, so that's all good story, that's a good story, that's an amazing story.

But yeah, that's my focus is putting the plaza where it deserves to be, in downtown Well.

I applaud you, man, when you just you know piggybacking off what you said about the 4th of July, I mean it's amazing. They really do a good show. I'm not just saying that because you invited it. It was fun. It was really fun. My kids and family enjoyed it. So thank you, great stuff. Definitely support you know what Jonathan's doing down at the plaza and his team. Definitely make sure to check out all the restaurants and pick a ball and everything that they're doing. Where can people reach out to you, which, like your social handles, that applies and all that good stuff.

Well, there's at plaza Las Vegas on Instagram, twitter, and I'm at Jonathan Drossel on Instagram and Twitter. Facebook must be plaza Las Vegas. So though I don't have the Facebook, awesome man yeah.

Well, Jonathan, absolute pleasure to hang out with you. And I'll just pick your brain for a little bit and we support you and we got to keep bringing you back, man, and give us updates on what you guys are doing.

Thank you, visionary. Thank you so appreciate checking us out at VegasHotcom.

Make sure you subscribe with us. Thanks a lot.