Las Vegas depends on the hospitality industry. With the Strip shutdown, restaurants closed and travel effectively stopped, and the entire gambling and hospitality industries have been decimated overnight. Las Vegas has a population of more than two million, with 300,000 directly employed in the hospitality and casino industries; Sin City is hurt badly, and everyone who lives here is hurt too.
Restaurants always have very thin profit margins that can be destroyed by factors they can’t be controlled, as well as during times of economic downturn. The truth is, restaurants are among the first and worst hit.
The sad fact is, when life in Las Vegas finally starts to return to”normal” when this pandemic ends, some of your favorite bars and restaurants will be closed forever. However, there are ways that you can pitch in to help your favorite businesses get through these crazy times.
Order your breakfast, lunch, and dinner for takeout
You may have gone panic-shopping like everyone else, but now that you’re stocked up on dried beans and rice, do you even know how to cook them? The good news is, delivery services like Uber Eats, Grubhub, Postmates, ChowNow, DoorDash, and Menufy are all still up and running. Uber Eats has also graciously dropped their delivery fees for independently owned restaurants; that means, you can order knowing that Uber Eats isn’t further eating into their tiny profit margin.
Every bar, restaurant, and coffeehouse that’s still open have carryout and delivery. You can order directly from them with a phone call or an app, or through a third-party service. Many restaurants have their own free delivery service, and others offer curbside pick-up so you don’t have to get out of your car.
For more information, check out this full list of restaurants in Las Vegas that are still open for carryout and delivery.
You can also order meal plans, boxed meals, and meal prep packages
Restaurants in Las Vegas have been very creative in the face of Covid-19, offering everything from boxed meals to pre-ordered meal plans for delivery or carryout. Some of the restaurants may not be on your radar, like the modern and elegant French restaurant, Partage, which is currently offering complete lunch and dinner menus, changing daily. For your convenience, you can order day by day or by the week.
Other restaurants offering meals include:
- The Palm Las Vegas is serving up prepared food as well as cook-at-home meals. They’re also offering 25% off food and 50% off wine until March 31.
- In Summerlin, Honey Salt is offering complete family-style meals for four, and you can choose from five different dinner packages.
- Both locations for Café Lola have “Lola To Go” boxed meals with a few different options, including sandwiches, pastries, and toasts.
- Meal Prep Las Vegas is continuing to deliver their “foodie fit” healthy meal plans.
- At Cornish Pasty Co., you can order both hot as well as frozen pasties to go.
- Paina Cafe has Ohana Family Pack Meals including stews, potatoes, rice, salad, and dessert.
Locale Italian Kitchen has mix-and-match combination meals that include entrees, panini, pasta, pizza, soups, salads, antipasti, and side dishes.
- Pizza Rock is offering pizza meal kits to make at home.
- Island Flavor 808 has Japanese-style bento boxes for takeout.
- Bonanno’s New York Pizzeria is offering family-style meal trays.
- Trattoria Nakamura-Ya is offering all-day combo specials, and alcohol delivery.
Garagiste is available for curbside pickup of their fabulous selection of sustainable, small-scale wines, as well as their charcuterie and cheese plates. Garaiste has also partnered with Paradise Creamery to make their vegan ice creams available by the pint, and they’ll soon be offering fruit and vegetable boxes from Cured & Whey.
Both locations of Aces & Ales are selling both food and beer by the bottle, for pickup and delivery. Aces & Ales tare well-known for their massive variety of rare, limited, and white whale craft beers. All pickup orders will receive a 50% discount on pizzas and growler fills, and $2 off all appetizers.
You can pitch into a tip pool
People are setting up GoFundMe pages and Venmo tip pools all over the country, specifically to support the service workers who are hurt the most by this shutdown.
You can find a Virtual Tip Jar for Las Vegas here, or ask to be added to it here.
You can also support Las Vegas servers and bartenders with the tip jar Go Tip ‘Em.
Even though local restaurants soldier on, with a skeleton staff, the servers are facing unbelievable financial hardship and uncertainty without your tips. If you want to explore other ways to support laid-off workers and struggling restaurants during this time, Food & Wine has compiled a great number of resources here.
Show support with gift cards and online contributions
Local restaurants can really use the money right now, and you can show your support by purchasing gift cards to use when this crisis blows over. It’s like an interest-free loan when your favorite restaurant needs it the most. You can purchase gift cards directly from the restaurant’s website, or from a third party like OpenTable or ItsOnMe.
If your favorite restaurant has an account with InKind, you can contribute there, or suggest that your favorite restaurant open one. InKind is an ingenious restaurant financing program that operates with the support of customers paying for their meals in advance.
Support businesses that support your community
Some businesses are going above and beyond to support the community.
- Meal Prep Las Vegas is donating fully cooked, fresh meals to anyone in Clark County who is elderly or has a compromised immune system.
- Milk+T has a free, no questions asked lunch for anyone in need. It’s also delivering free boba kits to homes with a child currently battle cancer.
- District One is giving first responders 50% off for curbside pickup. Seniors and the disabled can get 50% off with free delivery, within a 5-mile radius.
- Aloha Kitchen is serving free lunch to children from 2-4 pm Monday through Friday.
- Paradise Creamery will donate $5 from every “Play Pack” purchase to the Las Vegas Sex Worker COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund during their pop-up at Garagiste.
- Honey Salt has already donated hundreds of meals to “Delivering with Dignity,” a program delivering meals to the elderly and those with compromised immune systems and their families living in the same households.
- Kitchen Table and Kitchen Table Squared have free food for children.
- Buldogis has a 20% discount for first responders and healthcare professionals and for all takeout orders.
- Pinkbox Doughnuts delivers free doughnuts to healthcare providers and first responders, and are operating 24 hours a day to do that.
- Cafe Sanuki is offering a free child’s meal with the purchase of an adult meal.
- Sparrow + Wolf is currently closed, but they’re holding the #sparrowandwolfchallenge on Instagram; for every cocktail video you upload with the above hashtag, they’ll donate a meal to a first responder. Their goal is to donate 2,000 meals.
Unfortunately, Esther’s Kitchen is closed indefinitely, but they had been serving free meals to anyone who had been recently laid off due to the virus, as well as their families.
Stacks & Yolks and Griddle Cakes had been serving free meals to the children, after the Clark County School District closed. Fortunately, the school district has stepped up with locations to serve vulnerable Las Vegas kids meals.
Although they are currently closed, Jolt Coffee Co. has been providing free meals to seniors.
Please keep these restaurants in mind when the crisis blows over, and support them by buying gift cards now.
You can also consider supporting the Three Square Food Bank and the Just One Project mobile food pantry; they’ve worked overtime to make sure that no one in the Las Vegas Valley goes hungry.
Buy fresh baked goods and bread
A few restaurants remain open in a limited capacity, serving only a few specific items.
In Henderson, you can pre-order fresh-baked bread from Saga Pastry + Sandwich and Pizzeria Monzu a day in advance.
You can also order bread and pastries from La Belle Terre Bakery, Café Breizh, La Luna Tea & Dessert Bar, Rooster Boy Café, and Sugar Bees Bakery.
Wear your support
Buying merchandise is a great way to support small businesses, as well as artists and musicians. Be sure to check out the merchandise pages of your favorite businesses and people, and show your support.
Stay abreast of the latest developments via social media
Things are changing on a daily basis, and what was true yesterday may not be true today. Follow the social media accounts of your favorite local businesses to keep up with all of the latest developments. Also, be sure to like and share their posts so more local people know who’s open, so they can patronize those businesses, too.
Leave a nice review
Whether you love it or hate Yelp or Google Reviews, they can make or break a business. Once this pandemic is over, your favorite businesses will be struggling to get people back in the door. Positive reviews can really help, and if you’re forced to stay home, you’ve got free time to spare.
Make your voice heard
It’s not really clear if Change.org petitions have ever really accomplished anything, but it’s worth a try. This one is about putting emergency relief measures in place to save the country’s restaurants. Restaurants are an essential piece of our economy, and also, once this is over, we all going to want to go out to eat.
You can also call your Representatives to demand that restaurants be included in the federal stimulus plan. You can reach the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.
