Goodman’s toast is exaggerated, but Mob Museum’s confidence is not

Motivated perhaps by the current political climate, or even the oversized martini in his left hand, Oscar Goodman seized exaggeration Thursday when toasting the fifth anniversary of The Mob Museum.

“We’ve had, what, 350,000 come through this museum last year? No! Double it! It’s 700,000!” Goodman said from the old courtroom that was the stage for the Kefauver Committee Hearings in 1950-‘51. “We’ve had $20 million in economic impact? No! We’ve had $40 million.”

Goodman is used to putting on this flavor of show in a courtroom, of course. The man dubbed the “Mob Lawyer” was still mayor when The Mob Museum was first proposed for downtown Las Vegas. Goodman recalled a meeting with a prominent Italian-American organization when the formally titled National Museum of Organized Crime & Law Enforcement was still in the planning stages.

“They were concerned about disparaging their culture and promoting stereotypes,” Goodman said. “They were serious. I thought they were going to lynch me. There was a even a rope hanging up in the back.”

As the crowd laughed, Goodman then toasted The Mob Museum’s success, joining his wife and current Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman; Mob Museum Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Ullman; and Chairman of the Board Jeffrey Silver.

On Friday, Ullman and Mob Museum Senior Director of Content Geoff Schumacher unveiled a new, permanent attraction of artifacts from the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

“We’ve been pretty aggressive, yet cautious in our growth,” said Ullman, who moved to Las Vegas in 2010. “We’ve had big plans, but very smart about it and careful not to over-extend ourselves. We have always added to the attraction and to the staff and have not had to go in the other direction. We’re in a good spot.”

PHIL THE ROOM

About 280 supporters turned out at the Smith Center’s Reynolds Hall for the annual Las Vegas Philharmonic gala on Thursday night.

For this discriminate crowd, the theme from “Family Guy,” was ably recited.

This shouldn’t be a surprise if you know the man playing the song on piano was keynote speaker Dave Loeb, who performs the score for the long-running animated series and (more notably) is also the head of the UNLV Jazz Studies Department.

Buoying the spirits of L.V. Philharmonic Chief Executive Officer Jeri Crawford, the symphony recently announced that conductor Donato Cabrera has signed a three-year contract extension. Cabrera is a fan of all types of music, with immense curiosity about the Vegas entertainment scene. Last month he was spotted at a Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns performance at the Palms. I know this, because I was sitting next to him.

SHRIMP COCKTAIL LIVES!

The sudden closing of DuPar’s at Golden Gate, which hotel owner Derek Stevens says was a simple case of the tenant failing to pay its bills, has clouded the future of the famous Golden Gate shrimp cocktail.

Formerly offered at 99 cents in the Golden Gate piano lounge, the cocktail’s price rose to $3.99 as it became a menu item at DuPar’s. But as Stevens says, “They owned the pancakes and French toast, but we own the shrimp cocktail recipe.”

That recipe is said to be locked in the Golden Gate vault, and Stevens says he might offer the cocktails at 50 cents apiece for one week when it does return.

“I just don’t know, right now, when that will be,” he said. “But we’ll have it back, once we figure out what we are going to put in the DuPar’s space.”

MORE HARD ROCK HAPS

The opening of Hard Rock Hotel’s new steakhouse has reportedly been pushed back to May. Original plans were to open the restaurant across from Vanity nightclub in March. Michael and David Morton are the owners and operators of the new restaurant.

Meanwhile, plans are to shut down Vanity in May and re-open the nightclub as a theater in September. The most tantalizing chatter, not yet confirmed, is for a stage version of NBC’s “The Voice” to take over that room.

At Vinyl, “Raiding the Rock Vault” is tossing its script and is performing as more of a straight concert than a musical story (and is being trimmed to about 75 minutes). Preliminary ideas are for singers and musicians in the show to perform acoustic sets at the Center Bar as a way to promote the show in Vinyl.

“Rock Vault” opens March 11. “Magic Mike Live,” the Channing Tatum male revue, is still on course for a March 30 opening in the former Body English club space.

Note: This version of the column corrects the operators of the new steakhouse at Hard Rock Hotel.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section, and Fridays in Neon. He also hosts “Kats! On The Radio” Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on KUNV 91.5-FM and appears Wednesdays at 11 a.m. with Dayna Roselli on KTNV Channel 13. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.