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Jul 01, 2023

Nightlife Entrepreneur Ryan Doherty Brings Downtown Las Vegas To Life

Las Vegas nightlife entrepreneur and Corner Bar Management Founder Ryan Doherty

Las Vegas nightlife entrepreneur and Corner Bar Management Founder Ryan Doherty in Commonwealth on ... [+] Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas.

Downtown Las Vegas is a diamond in the rough. Las Vegas began in what is now downtown, although the area has long since fallen from favor. But club and bar entrepreneur Ryan Doherty is bringing new life to Fremont Street, an area mostly known for its faded casinos, wedding chapels, pawn shops like those immortalized in PAWN STARS and street people.

Doherty has shown an uncanny ability to adapt to the ever-changing world of Las Vegas nightlife over the last 25 years. His company, Corner Bar Management, is currently operating ten bars, restaurants and clubs in the Fremont Street area, including Commonwealth, The Laundry Room, DISCOPUSSY, Peyote, and We All Scream. Although the clubs are aimed at the sophisticated local crowd, they are helping make Downtown a destination for tourists again.

Doherty's Las Vegas story began when he visited the desert city while an undergraduate at UMass. Entranced by the growing club scene, he talked his parents into letting him transfer to UNLV, graduating in 1999.

He soon got involved in the entertainment and service industry, working as a waiter at Mortoni's, a popular restaurant, and producing a house music night at the Red Dragon Lounge. Doherty's Red Dragon gig was a hit with locals, who would become a critical part of his following in Las Vegas.

Seeing his popularity with the local industry crowd, Doherty was recruited to become the General Manager of Baby's Nightclub. Baby's, in the basement of the Hard Rock Hotel (since closed and rebuilt as the Virgin Hotel Las Vegas,) was at the time one of the city's most popular clubs.

Las Vegas is a city of entrepreneurs, most of whom, like Doherty, came from somewhere else. The tradition began with Brooklyn-born Bugsy Siegel, who discovered Las Vegas for the mob. Bugsy co-owned the still standing El Cortez downtown, then spearheaded the ill-fated building of the Flamingo. Ill-fated for Siegel, that is, executed at the Beverly Hills home of his mistress for financial improprieties.

Doherty would eventually create an interesting connection with the El Cortez. The exclusive Laundry Room speakeasy operated by Doherty's Corner Bar Management is located across Fremont Street from the El Cortez. Cleverly hidden behind another of Doherty's clubs, Commonwealth, the speakeasy is the site of the former laundry room for El Cortez guests.

Interior seating at the Laundry Room, a 22-seat speakeasy on Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas.

The Laundry Room is a hot ticket in Las Vegas, known by word of mouth for its creative cocktails. Its exclusivity is enhanced by its lack of capacity; it holds just 22 guests, plus a bartender, waitress, and piano player. Like a true speakeasy, the Laundry Room has great handcrafted drinks and strict rules: No photography, no phone calls, and ‘brawling is bad form.’

Doherty's creativity is on display at his other clubs as well. One is decorated with stuffed birds over the bar, acquired from a woman who did the taxidermy, then kept them in her refrigerator. Discopussy, a raucous Fremont Street nightclub, boasts a pulsating "octopus" overhead as LED lights and mirrors flash to its techno sounds.

We All Scream is an art-filled 10,000 square foot indoor/outdoor nightclub and not-for-profit ice creamery benefiting public art. It has a vintage dairy truck in the back and sells ice cream out a front window to the Fremont Street crowd. Other clubs are full of paintings, have a peaceful outdoor patio full of statuary, or boast a brass railing for your feet, with seating like an old-fashioned shoeshine stand.

Doherty likes to drive a tractor trailer truck into Mexico and score knickknacks and artifacts and furniture to decorate his bars.

Such focus is typical of self-made men of Las Vegas like Phil Ruffin, who turned flipping hamburgers and selling handcarts into eventual ownership of the Treasure Island, Circus Circus and half of Trump Tower.

The late visionary entrepreneur Tony Hsieh of online shoe merchant Zappo's (now part of Amazon) was another kind of Las Vegas mogul. He became something of a patron and partner to Doherty.

Doherty and partners moved into publishing lifestyle magazines and offering printing, video and other services to Las Vegas venues. That's when Doherty started working with entrepreneur Hsieh, who had an outsized impact on Downtown LV and the Arts District. "Through printing, Tony Hsieh and I began working in the early Zappo's days, which took us all the way to the festival days and in between," says Doherty.

DISCOPUSSY, a club playing house and techno music on East Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas.

When lifestyle publisher WENDOH media was sold to Tony Hsieh, Doherty acquired 50% of Life is Beautiful, becoming a producer as part of the deal. From 2015 to 2019, Doherty served as chief experience officer for Life is Beautiful, one of the largest annual festivals in Las Vegas celebrating music, art, food and ideas in Downtown.

In a sense, Doherty has picked up Hsieh's mantle of bringing downtown Las Vegas back to life. As part of his work with Life is Beautiful, Doherty coordinated public works of art throughout Downtown Las Vegas, including murals and statues from 50 artists from around the world.

That revival of downtown continues. Although tourists are welcome, the target audience for Corner Bar are Las Vegas locals. His success with this group is notable, as they are a discerning crowd, with many involved in the entertainment and hospitality industries.

In 2019, Doherty sold out of the festival business to focus on expanding with bars and restaurants on East Fremont Street. He says, "I had four [bar] operations while I was an owner of Life is Beautiful, so I was running both at the same time." According to Doherty, each Corner Bar Management project has a new group of investors, but about 80% of investors are consistent across all projects.

Doherty says Corner Bar is a $25 million per year operation. "We host about 6,000 people per week at our venues. On big weeks like spring break and New Year's Eve, that doubles."

Like most of the restaurant industry, Doherty's bars were shut down during COVID. He says the business was able to come back to life with a mixture of PPP money and rent forbearance. "It was a bit of both, and the desire to live had a lot to do with it." At one (low) point, Doherty opened Laundry Room for a one-night-only surreptitious party, to remind himself of the dream.

Since then, once-sleepy downtown Las Vegas has roared back to life, with new clubs, shows like Particle Ink, restaurants, condos and hotels like The English and Circa. What's next for Doherty?

The back patio at We All Scream, a bar and ice creamery operated by Corner Bar Management on East ... [+] Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas.

"We have our eye on more properties in the area for entertainment venues, with the next being a live music club that will host bands," Doherty says. And like previous Las Vegas magnates, he says, "Once I reach a point where I feel good about the direction of East Fremont, my dream is to one day open a hotel."