The Slot Room Where Mabel's Used to Be Opens This Week at Palms Place

You take the SkyTube down from your unit, cross into the casino, and turn toward the William Hill Sportsbook the way you have a hundred times before. For eleven months, chef Michael Symon's brisket and pulled pork sat behind that door. This week, you will find slot machines instead.

Mabel's Bar & Q closed after service on September 12 last year. The property announced no immediate replacement, and for the better part of a year the space sat converted, quiet, off the resident radar. On August 24, it reopened as a fully enclosed, separately ventilated non-smoking gaming room, and the official ribbon cutting lands this Tuesday, September 1, at 4 p.m. If your mental map of the casino floor still has a BBQ joint sitting there, you are not alone, and you are also not current.

The gap between closing and opening was the point

What's easy to miss in the churn of casino press releases is how long that footprint sat in transition. Mabel's served its last plate in September 2025. The new room didn't open to the public until eleven months later, in late August 2026. That gap tells you something about how these decisions get made inside a resort that answers to a tribal gaming authority rather than a board of public shareholders.

Palms General Manager Kevin Glass said the switch came down to demand for more gaming space, plain and simple. He also noted that Palms sitting outside shareholder control means fewer approvals to clear before a change like this happens. That distinction matters more than it sounds. Last year, Wynn Resorts, Boyd Gaming and Caesars Entertainment each fought to keep smoke-free study proposals off their own shareholder ballots, worried the optics would spook investors. Palms, owned by the San Manuel Gaming and Hospitality Authority, didn't have that conversation to have. It just built the room.

The result is 7,300 square feet and 224 of the newest slot games, making it the second-largest smoke-free casino floor in Las Vegas behind only the fully nonsmoking Park MGM, and one of at least three Las Vegas casinos now offering an enclosed non-smoking gaming area. If you've been asking the front desk for a smoke-free spot to play a hand of blackjack or spin a few reels without leaving the building, that request finally has an answer.

What's actually in the new room

The space isn't just relocated slot machines. It has its own full-service bar with a drink program built specifically for the room, separate from what's poured at Ghostbar or Tonic. Expect a rotating lineup of draft beers from local breweries that aren't available anywhere else on property, a nitro tequila-forward take on the classic carajillo, and a rotating Bartender's Choice selection of three premium bourbon and scotch flights for $10.

Tuesday's grand opening comes with a Spin It Forward IGT Celebrity Charity Slot Challenge starting at 4 p.m., with invited local personalities playing on behalf of at least ten Southern Nevada nonprofits, including Heaven Can Wait Animal Society and the UNLV chapter of the Advancing Indigenous Science and Engineering Society. It's a ribbon cutting with a cause attached rather than just a press event with free drink tickets.

Here's the footprint, before and after, side by side:

A few dining guides refreshed for 2026 still describe Mabel's as currently open, weekly specials and all, down to the Monday shrimp and grits. If you're relying on a general search to plan your evening, check the date on what you're reading before you walk down expecting a table.

What's still worth the walk across the SkyTube

The rest of the dining lineup hasn't moved. Scotch 80 Prime remains the steakhouse anchor, open nightly with a daily social hour and live entertainment from a DJ on weekends or a pianist midweek. Tim Ho Wan, the Michelin-recognized dim sum kitchen near the west entrance, still opens at 10 a.m. daily for shrimp toast and steamed Wagyu bundles. Vetri Cucina continues its small-plates Italian service on the 56th floor of the Ivory Tower, Tuesday through Saturday evenings, with strip views built into the reservation. Send Noodles is still the late-night answer for a bowl of pho or house ramen.

Ghostbar, one floor below the old Vetri perch, remains the one spot in the building where you can see nearly the entire valley in a single turn: Red Rock to the west, downtown to the north, the Strip to the east, and Allegiant Stadium to the south.

The buffet is the one thing that hasn't stopped changing

If there's a constant at Palms this year, it's that A.Y.C.E. Buffet keeps adding to its calendar rather than sitting still. Hawaiian Night, featuring an assorted poke bar, whole roasted suckling pig, chicken katsu and kalbi short ribs, ran again just yesterday, August 29, its second appearance of the year after a March run. The next themed night worth circling is October 10, when A.Y.C.E. runs a Filipino Night timed to coincide with the annual Las Vegas Pinoy Festival, a scheduling choice that suggests the buffet team is paying attention to the local calendar rather than just rotating cuisines for their own sake.

For residents, that means the buffet functions less like a tourist stop and more like a rotating neighborhood dinner option, provided you check which Wednesday or Thursday lands on an all-you-can-eat lobster night versus a themed one.

Restaurant Week already came and went

Earlier this summer, from June 1 through June 19, Palms took part in the 19th annual Las Vegas Restaurant Week, organized by Three Square Food Bank. Four venues participated: Scotch 80 Prime at a $100 prix-fixe, and Send Noodles, Serrano Vista Cafe and Palms Pizza each at $30. It's a small window into how the property spreads its dining identity across price points, from a wagyu-driven steakhouse tasting menu down to a $30 three-course pizza dinner, all under one roof, all raising money for the same food bank.

If you missed it this year, the event has run annually for nearly two decades, and there's no reason to expect Palms sits it out next June.

What this actually changes if you live here

None of this changes your unit, your HOA dues, or your view. What it changes is the ten-second answer to "what's downstairs tonight." A year ago that answer included a barbecue joint with a full bar and wall-to-wall screens for game day. Today it includes a smoke-free room built for people who want to play without the haze, backed by a drink menu nobody else at Palms is pouring, plus the same steakhouse, dim sum counter and Italian tasting room that were there before.

If you're weighing what any of this means for the value or rentability of your Palms Place unit, whether you're holding it as a residence, a part-time stay, or a piece of the building's rental pool, that's a conversation worth having with someone who tracks this property specifically. Gene Northup can put together a free home valuation and walk through what's changed on the resort side alongside what's changed in the resale numbers.