By james art 
To the uninitiated, the Downtown Cocktail Room has always seemed closed. Its entrance facing Las Vegas Boulevard, near the corner of Fremont Street, was unmarked. First time guests would often ask “Are you sure?” before being ushered into the dark hideout.
This entrance now has an iron fence with a padlock, which seems to indicate that the DCR is closed. In fact, this gate has been in place for some time. Club owner Michael Cornthwaite says entry is “bodies and bodily waste free” after the bar closes each night.
But that’s really the end of the Downtown Cocktail Room, closing for good next week, ending a 17-year run. The Cornthwaite club has never fully recovered from a pandemic shutdown in 2020 and an unexpected reopening a year later.
As a result, Cornthwaite himself cut ties with Las Vegas after the pandemic. He and his wife, Jennifer; and their soon-to-be 12-year-old daughter, Amelie, moved to Centennial, Colorado, three years ago.
“After what we’ve been through, we’ll call it two years, but it’s really been the whole time since March 2020 — it’s never come back,” Cornthwaite said last week during a phone chat from Colorado. “I think whether people want to address it or pretend it never happened, the social thread and cultural norms that we’ve all known all our lives are changing… It just never was the same.’
Cornthwaite says that while he hasn’t crunched the numbers, his best years at DCR were 2018 leading into 2019. But he reports that revenue has dropped since the club reopened, post-COVID.
“What I’m seeing is people drinking less, going out less, maybe even changing their life priorities,” Cornthwaite said. “In the research I’m doing and the people I’m listening to, there’s definitely a tendency for drinking to be kind of the exclusive social life of the 20s and 30s.”
This trend would be news to anyone walking Fremont East on a weekend night, where social activity seems fueled by alcohol consumption. But the street revelers of Fremont East, or FSE, are not the DCR crowd.
“It probably doesn’t help that I’m already over the age demographic, so it’s just not something I understand,” Cornthwaite said. “The neighborhood has changed quite a bit.”
Cornthwaite opened DCR in January 2007, one of the original nightlife businesses in what would become the Fremont East neighborhood.
DCR seemed exclusive, but was open to anyone who wanted to get away from the chaos of Fremont East or FSE. The club was an early vision of Downtown Project founder Tony Hsieh, opening five years before DTP was officially established.
“What was happening was unprecedented, it was special and it was exciting,” Cornthwaite said of the business expansion prompted by the Hsieh revitalization project. “There was a lot of energy associated with this initiative. Things were moving forward and it was a neighborhood that was under the control of a small group of local people who were interested in downtown.”
Cornthwaite had helped convince Hsieh to invest downtown, encouraging him to meet with Mayor Oscar Goodman. The mayor, in turn, offered Hsieh the 11-story City Hall building as Zappos’ downtown home. The move helped inspire Downtown Project investment throughout the downtown footprint, particularly Fremont East.
DCR was among the Fremont East businesses that received a special limited tavern license, helping seed businesses in the neighborhood and downtown Arts District.
“The limited tavern license allowed bars to go in and over the years, I would say, a little bit to the detriment of Fremont East, but maybe for the better of the whole downtown, maybe 50-100 new licenses were given out,” Cornthwaite said. “I’m talking about liquor licenses, restricted licenses … What you’re seeing is a thriving arts district, and I think that’s amazing, especially for the locals.”
Cornthwaites also opened The Beat Coffeehouse, formerly Fremont Medical Center, in Fremont East in 2009. A popular spot for reading, writing and coffee, the establishment closed in 2017 and is now occupied by Eureka Restaurant.
Since that transaction, Cornthwaite has been busy converting a restaurant in the west Texas city of Marfa into a short-term rental project called Bohemio. He expanded this to include a boutique hotel and event venue, saying: “I’m just about to finish the last phase of it. It’s a lot of fun and I really enjoy going there.”
Cornthwaite still invested in some buildings in the Arts District.
“I’ve always loved real estate, so I might stay on that path,” Cornthwaite said. “I’m definitely not too excited to get into food and beverage operations. At this point in my life, I like the start and finish of a project, not necessarily a day-to-day, operational lifestyle. I think I’ve had enough of that for the past 25 years.
Cornthwaite may be nostalgic for DCR after it closed, but he hasn’t even decided he’ll be around to lock it up for the last time. He sounds very much like the businessman he is when asked about closing the club.
“You know, a lot of people have been asking me about it,” Cornthwaite said. “I just say, ‘Look, it’s just time to go.'” Sometimes it’s just time to go.
Cool Hang Alert
Miss Melanie Moore, fine singer and also a skilled emcee (catch her at Dolby Live, among other venues) plays from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Thursdays at the Dispensary Lounge at 2451 E. Tropicana Ave. Dave Richardson on keys, Adam Schendall on skins Darren Motamedi on sax and Bram Sherai on bass. Linda Woodson as a vocal guest. Say hello to Adele Bellasthe original Adele, and try the cheeseburger. Go to thedispensarylounge.com for information.
John Katsilomets’ column appears daily in Section A. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow along @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.