Horseshoe Las Vegas and Jack Binion's Steakhouse
In Las Vegas, automated "everything" has replaced the human experience.
I was genuinely grateful Horseshoe had a room for me last-minute on Dec 30. Check-in was easy enough if you're familiar with the kiosk process It's affordable and convenient, but the heavy perfume smell didn't come close to masking the stale cigarette smoke
For New Year's Eve, we had an 8:30 PM dinner reservation at Jack Binion's Steakhouse inside Horseshoe. Unfortunately, the service experience left a bad taste.
The hostess wasn't welcoming; rushed, no smile, no "hello," just a dry "Do you have a reservation?" She said , "they're getting the tables ready".
Whatever that means.
We weren't in a rush. 15 minutes goes by and we waited. where we were told and finally walked to the bar to get a drink but the martini came out dirty (not what I ordered) and had to be remade.
We finally seated around 8:45 PM and started with Oysters Rockefeller. We were warned, "It takes a long time," which was fine--we weren't trying to rush. Our server, Duff, was friendly enough, but wine service was not it. When asked about reds, he said he doesn't drink red because of his dental crowns and couldn't really guide us beyond suggesting "one of the blends." We ordered the Paraduxx 2020 Proprietary Red for $125.
The wine arrived after the oysters. We ordered the NYE special ($149), plus French onion soup and creamed spinach. I mentioned we were sharing and saving room for dessert, and Duff told us we couldn't share the NYE surf and turf which felt unnecessary, especially since we were still ordering plenty of food.
Food-wise, flavors were on point, but they forgot our lobster at first and the baked potato wasn't hot. The lobster eventually came out. We enjoyed our mean and were ready for coffee and dessert... except the check was dropped without that option. When I reminded Duff I'd said I was looking forward to dessert, he told me the chef went home. On New Year's Eve, at a steakhouse offering a prix fixe special, that's pretty hard to wrap your head around. I asked for the manager and he truly seemed like he could not care less.
Upside: after dinner, we played blackjack and actually had a pleasant experience.
But then checkout happened. This morning we were stuck in the parking garage for an hour because the gates weren't working. I walked from the fourth floor down to the bottom and literally helped direct traffic. People couldn't get out using their room key or after making a payment, cars were backing up, and the gates would work intermittently. Sometimes all three would lift at once, then all three would stop again. I spent at least 30 minutes on the phone trying to reach someone for help only to have AI direct me to no help.
All I could think about was: what if there was an emergency? People would be trapped.
So yes, there were some highs. But the lows outweighed them by far. The biggest issue is that the automated "everything" has replaced the human experience, and when it fails, there's no urgency, no ownership, and no real care for guests. That part felt very true here. And the alarm was going off during dinner service read more