Office1 Visits Las Vegas' Oldest Bar to Launch Office1 Cares
Atomic Liquors, just blocks away from our downtown Las Vegas headquarters, will host this year’s Office1 Cares Kickoff on Friday, February 7th at 6pm. Atomic Liquors is iconic and holds a special place in Las Vegas history. The café turned bar is the oldest bar in Las Vegas and holds the city’s oldest liquor license #00001. Located at the east end of Fremont Street, it is a short walk from the Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas.
The original owners, Joe and Stella Sobchik, took over Virginia’s Café in 1945. During WWII, the Sobchik’s learned that rationing food wasn’t a good model for offering high quality food service so in 1952, Joe gave up cooking and Atomic Liquors was born. After beginning as a liquor store, the couple acquired a license to sell bottled liquor and mixed drinks becoming the first free-standing bar in Clark County. The name “Atomic” was chosen because customers could climb a ladder to the rooftop and watch atomic blasts coming from a U.S. Army nuclear testing facility 65 miles to the north.
Atomic Liquors, open 24 hours a day, quickly became a hot spot in the 1950s and 1960s as cocktail servers, dealers, pit bosses and casino performers could make their way over for a drink no matter what time their shift ended. The bar was also a favorite hangout for some the hottest celebrities of the time, the Rat Pack (including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop), Hunter S. Thompson and Barbra Streisand. Atomic Liquors was also immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s Casino, as the location for the scene where Joe Pesci’s Nicholas “Nicky” Santoro uses a pen to kill a man. The Atomic Liquors neon sign even makes appearances in an episode of the Twilight Zone, The Hangover and Clint Eastwood’s 1977 classic The Gauntlet.
The Sobchiks passed away in 2010 and after being run for a couple of years by their son Ron, the original Atomic Liquors shut down on Jan. 1, 2011. In 2012, the historic bar rose from the ashes, restored to its original configuration and converted into the current 2,500-square-foot venue and entertainment hub for artists.
Office1 looks forward to having our whole team in town, enjoying delicious drinks at this historic venue and having a wonderful Office1 Cares weekend!
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