One of Southern Nevada’s biggest slot machine operators isn’t even a casino

For Golden Entertainment Inc., its 64 taverns scattered across the Las Vegas Valley and in Reno delivers gaming, food and brewskis to thousands of customers every day.

Blake Sartini II, son of Golden Entertainment Chairman and CEO Blake Sartini, has provided two decades of expertise in his role as executive vice president of operations at Golden, overseeing several of the company’s casinos, all noncasino gaming under the distributed gaming arm, Golden Route Operations, and the company’s taverns under the PT’s brand.

And Golden Entertainment’s casinos that are led by Sartini include Arizona Charlie’s Decatur and Arizona Charlie’s Boulder in Las Vegas; Rocky Gap Casino Resort in Flintstone, Maryland, which is being sold to Century Casinos for $260 million; and Pahrump Nugget Hotel and Casino, Gold Town Casino and Lakeside Casino and RV Park in Pahrump.

The PT’s franchise, which is observing its 40th anniversary, includes several tavern brands: PT’s Pub, PT’s Gold, PT’s Ranch, Sean Patrick’s, Sierra Gold and SG Bar.

Last month, Golden reported revenue of $842 million for the first nine months of 2022, a 3.4 percent increase over the same period last year, and of that, 42.6 percent was from distributed gaming, mostly from the taverns.

Sartini discussed the tavern business and Golden’s growth plans with the Review-Journal last week. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Review-Journal: How did the concept of the PT’s Pub franchise get started?

Blake Sartini II: The franchise itself actually was started by two brothers, Phil and Tom Boeckle, in 1983. They built the brand up to about 23 tavern locations in the valley. We purchased those 23 taverns in 2002. That’s really the essence of how everything got started. We really didn’t get our hands on it until 2002, and it’s grown exponentially over the years.

Describe the mission of the PT’s franchise.

We’ve always thought of ourselves as what a Nevada-style tavern really is. There are some nuances when you understand the tavern industry in Nevada and the most blatant is, obviously, the gaming. We try to give our customers the best entertainment value possible, the best experience in customer service that we possibly can offer. That really is the foundation the brand has been built off of, providing exceptional experience for our customers as well as best-in-class customer service. The gaming element is something unique to our state and something we’ve welcomed, and we continue to try to push that experience into something more mainstream with our player rewards club. Now, all of our 64 locations are tied into the same players’ club.

All Golden casino assets can be used. You can earn points at a PT’s and use them or cash them out at the Top of the World (restaurant) at The Strat. That’s relatively unique to the tavern industry. They can also be used at our concert series at our Laughlin Event Center.

Who’s your biggest competitor in this space?

That’s tough to say. Our largest competitor probably would be Remedy’s Taverns, maybe Buffalo Wild Wings to a certain extent. We’ve always focused on being a “Cheers”-type atmosphere. We invest a lot of training with our staff to know what you drink when you walk in and know the customer’s name to develop a relationship. I think that’s something that sets us apart from everybody else. Our strategy has always been to continue to keep up with the growth of the city and the state. We’ve seen significant population growth since 2020 so we’re very strategically looking at growing our portfolio in those regions of the city that have captured a lot of that population growth.

The franchise is now 40 years old. What major milestones have occurred in its development?

The first large milestone is when we implemented our Golden Rewards Players Club in 2008, which was when we introduced the first casino-style rewards club to the tavern industry. It really has been a pillar of our brand since we rolled it out. That was one of the biggest opportunities. The next one was the rollout of our first ground-up build, our PT’s Gold. That probably was around that 2008 timeframe (actually 2005) and was a large catalyst. Not only did we have the rewards club but we also stamped our first cookie-cutter brand and model for PT’s Gold, which was at Hualapai and Twain near Summerlin. We’ve always been very patient and strategic with the growth. But I’d say since 2002, we’ve at least opened a location each year since we got our hands on the brand. When we got to 60, that was another large milestone for us. People always ask us how many of these do you think you can do? We’ve never thought about it like that. We’ve always looked at how many opportunities are we going to be able to find. Is it 80? Is it 100? We don’t really know. We’re just going to continue to be strategic like we always have been and not really have anything set and just continue to grow in the city as we see fit.

The company’s brand has expanded to include PT’s Ranch, Sean Patrick’s, Sierra Gold and SG Bar. What’s the difference between these products and why were they added?

I think a lot of it was the necessary evolution of us expanding our portfolio. We had a chance to purchase four Irish pubs at one point. We learned very quickly that it was going to take a lot more than we were willing to spend to try to make those look like a PT’s Gold, so we decided to embrace the motif of the location and we said, “Look, we need an Irish brand in our portfolio. We might as well call it Sean Patrick’s.” The same could be said for the PT’s Ranch brand. We had two acquisitions that we did that were very Southwestern themed. We said we might as well not fight the current, let’s just bring some Southwestern flair to this location so that was the essence of PT’s Ranch. What we’ve found is by giving the city a variety of different options, but keeping the foundation of customer service and experience the same has allowed us to grow our portfolio. I think one of the things you’ll see in the future is that we will continue to bring more brands under our PT’s Taverns umbrella to the valley.

Golden has a slot route operation to service pubs. How does that work?

A slot route is a very unique industry and unless you’re in it you probably don’t know too much about it. There’s a good chance that if you go to a local tavern that’s not called PT’s or Sierra Gold or any of our brands we would do the slot operation. Essentially what we do is provide the location with slot machines cash to operate 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week service, and any time they need us to fix anything as well as consultation and marketing support. With our history of crafting this tavern industry, our consultation is very important to our route customers to help them really understand what it takes to run a successful tavern. If you look at some of our partners within our portfolio, they’ve exceeded our expectations and you can maybe look at them as a standard we may be trying to chase every now and again.

Are there expansion plans in the PT’s universe?

Absolutely. We have a new location that we’re planning to open in April 2023 at Desert Inn and Durango. It was the old Porchlight Tavern that was on our slot route and there was an opportunity to make that into a PT’s. That’s the first one you’ll see in 2023. We’re in the process of being able to announce four more taverns that should roll out sometime in the fourth quarter of 2023. We’ve got two land leases for new ground-up buildings that are also signed. I’m optimistic that they’ll be open by Q4 of 2023 but probably more likely Q1 of ’24.

Looking ahead, what do you think the PT’s franchise could do better?

I think we have a lot of opportunity in our food and beverage program. I think coming out of the pandemic everybody was focused on getting back to normal as soon as possible. Everybody was quick to staff the bar and make sure that bar operations were as strong as possible. Labor was an issue. I think everybody heard around town that it was very tough to find sufficient staff for the back of the house. Over the past six months, the team has done a great job of getting that assembled to the point where we have a lot of opportunity in 2023 to improve our food product. In particular, redo our menus and continue to offer some new offerings in our happy hour program. I think that’s something we’re putting on ourselves to improve next year.

Are there any updates to operations at other Golden properties?

I think at The Strat everybody’s focused and excited for our new golf facility, Atomic Golf. We are hoping to have that ready to go for Super Bowl ’24 so everybody is really focused on that. We’re continuing to upgrade the rooms at The Strat. We have a significant amount of rooms that will go in for remodel in this upcoming year. In Laughlin, we have a great concert schedule we’re looking forward to announcing at the first of the year. Tickets will go on sale right after the first of the year for our spring series. We have some great names coming up for that.

Any changes on the horizon for the reopening of Colorado Belle in Laughlin?

I think the reopening is probably something we would not approach again. We were successful in moving that business to the other two properties. What that has allowed us to do now is to focus on what can we do with that land. It’s a premium piece of land in that market. It might be nice to maybe put the event center down in that space and have an event center right there on the river. It’s something we’ve often talked about as well. I think 2023 is really the year for us to make a choice on what to do with the Colorado Belle and work that direction on what we can bring to the market.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.