Feb 18 2004

Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville

by Megan Edwards

The Flamingo is the oldest super resort on the Las Vegas Strip, and it was beginning to look its age. Bugsy Siegel’s brainchild seemed more historic than glamorous, even after periodic remodeling jobs. Then came a glimmer of hope. Beginning several months ago, the “You are Here” map in the lobby showed an under-construction project named after someone younger than the Rat Pack. Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville was coming soon!

And now Buffett’s tequila-powered franchise is open for business, and you don’t even have to go inside the Flamingo to enter—there are big doors right on the Strip. You can almost wander in by accident, although most of the people I saw there last Friday looked like they were just where they wanted to be, “Nibblin’ on sponge cake, watchin’ the sun bake, all of those tourists covered with oil…”

Actually, they were nibbling on menu offerings like “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” which is what I tried after being shown to a table on the second level. I also ordered (what else) a margarita, but neither was good enough for seconds. It was a disappointment, but so what? This wasn’t Wolfgang Puck’s Margaritaville, after all. I ordered a beer and continued my exploration, humming all the way. “Don’t know the reason, stayed here all season…”

The food may be nothing to sing about, but Margaritaville’s got ambience to make up for it, a full three stories of ingeniously crafted, phony but fun Key West atmosphere. The ground level is a cavernous space filled with replicas of fishing boats, osprey nests, and Jimmy Buffett’s airplane suspended from a twilight sky. There’s a stage at the back for the live music that starts at ten each night, and the rest of the time, Buffett himself croons from a huge screen and a couple hundred thousand smaller ones. “Wasted away again in Margaritaville, searchin’ for my lost shaker of salt…”

The second floor is a bit less seductive. It has cleverly designed boat-like booths (and of course plenty more video images of Jimmy Buffett) but lacks the groovy “Pirates of the Caribbean” quality of the ground floor. An excellent view of Caesars Palace helps, but I was glad to find another stairway leading up, and even gladder to find that the door at the top opened to the genuine outdoors.

It’s a challenge to create a tropical feeling outdoors in a climate known for its lack of humidity and extremes of heat and cold, but kudos to Jimmy Buffett’s designers for doing it anyway. The third floor of Margaritaville has heaters for winter, misters for summer, and a good enough view of the Strip to make you think paradise might be a desert after all.

As I listened to Buffett belt out “Margaritaville” for the 569th time and watched the fountains blast off at the Bellagio, my mind wandered once again to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. The Flamingo was nothing like this the last time he drove away. Neither was Las Vegas. Things have changed rather cataclysmically since 1947, when mobsters shot him to death in his girlfriend’s house in Los Angeles.

Even so, I think if Bugsy made a ghostly visit he’d have no trouble resonating with Jimmy Buffett’s music and the fictional paradise it has brought to life. Judging from the eclectic crowd packing the place last Friday night, Margaritaville’s escapist appeal is universal. People of all ages and sorts were singing along as though Buffett’s lyrics were written especially for them. Mr. Siegel could easily have felt that way, too. “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame, but I know it’s my own damn fault.”

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