Adios Riv.

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The Riviera will close in May.

Being turned into more Las Vegas Convention Center space. Not really sad to see it go, and not really surprised that it's happening. I stayed at the Riv on my 3rd trip to Vegas in 2012. It was very underwhelming. The check in line on a Saturday night was an hour long. The place looked like it hadn't been renovated in decades. Garish carpet, dingy brass fittings everywhere, musty. It looked like it was stuck in 1978.

The rooms were no better. Smelly, small, with awful old carpet. Tiny bathroom. No view. It was very cheap though, and I suppose that's why it stuck around as long as it did. It certainly had a terrible location, almost at the very end of the Strip. Very light foot traffic up there. Being in the shadow of the half-built Fontainebleau couldn't have helped either.

Probably says a lot too when the biggest attraction on your neon marquee is your food court. It felt like I was slumming when I was there 3 years ago, I can't imagine it's gotten any better, but I couldn't say since I haven't set foot in the place in the 7 trips since.

It is slightly sad to see another of the last of the "old school Vegas" places close down, but it was seemingly a shell of its former self and has been for a while. I will be in town next month. I will not go in to say goodbye to it.

Adios, Riv.

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