Prime Rib in Las Vegas: A Buffet Tradition
There are few foods more closely associated with old-school Las Vegas than a thick slice of prime rib.
Long before celebrity chefs, tasting menus ,and restaurants where dinner can cost more than your hotel room, Vegas built much of its reputation on giving people a lot of food for their money. And few things said abundance quite like someone standing behind a carving station with an enormous roast and a very sharp knife.
Because the rib contains plenty of natural marbling, properly cooked prime rib can be extraordinarily tender, juicy and flavorful. It also has another advantage that's particularly important in a buffet: one large roast can satisfy a lot of hungry people while still creating a little bit of theater every time somebody steps up to have a slice carved.
So it's not hard to understand why Las Vegas fell in love with it.
In fact, prime rib has been part of the Las Vegas dining scene almost from the beginning. Menus from the El Cortez show that the casino was serving "Prime Ribs of Beef Au Jus" in the early 1940s. Back then, you could get prime rib along with soup, a beverage and dessert for the princely sum of 90 cents.
From the Chuck Wagon to the Las Vegas Buffet
The Las Vegas buffet followed soon afterward.
El Rancho Vegas, the first casino resort on what would become the Las Vegas Strip, introduced its famous late-night Chuck Wagon in 1946. For around a dollar, hungry gamblers could load up on an assortment of hot and cold foods rather than leaving the casino in search of something to eat.
And that was really the genius of the Las Vegas buffet.
Casinos weren't necessarily trying to make a fortune selling dinner. They wanted to keep you inside the building. Feed people, keep them happy, and hopefully they'd wander back over to the blackjack table or slot machines when they were finished.
The idea worked so well that other casinos quickly followed. By the 1950s and '60s, the inexpensive casino buffet had become part of the Vegas experience, eventually evolving from simple late-night spreads into breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets filled with seafood, fried chicken, steaks, desserts and, of course, prime rib.
Over the decades the prices certainly changed, and today's buffets can bear very little resemblance to those old dollar chuck wagons. But the basic appeal remains exactly the same: walk in hungry, find something you love, go back for as much as you want, and then head back to the gambling tables.
And for a lot of people, that still means making a beeline for the prime rib.
So Where Should You Go?
There are plenty of places to enjoy prime rib in Las Vegas, and several of them happen to be all-you-can-eat buffets.
But with so many choices, how do you know where to go?
We've taken the gamble out of it for you.
Sure, it's a sacrifice, but we've tried the prime rib at buffets both on and off the Strip, compared them side by side, and weighed everything from tenderness and flavor to temperature, value and consistency.
We even went so far as to rank them from worst to best.
But finding the right buffet is only half the battle.
Surviving the Carving Station
As far as I'm concerned, once you've found good prime rib, the next challenge is getting the piece you actually want.
Because sooner or later you're going to encounter the dreaded surly carver..you know, the one whose more surly than the toughest steak you've ever had.
I've met many of them in my day.
You walk up knowing exactly what you want, while the person holding the knife apparently has completely different plans for your dinner. Maybe you want the rare center and they're determined to hand you an outside slice. Maybe you'd like a thicker piece and they're shaving that roast like they're making roast beef sandwiches for someone whose had their stomach stapled.
And suddenly the fate of your prime rib is entirely in somebody else's hands.
Not on my watch.
Over the years I've learned a few tricks for dealing with carving stations and getting the temperature, thickness and part of the roast I'm looking for. There is actually more strategy involved than you might think.
And yes, I'm going to show you exactly how I do it.
In our Las Vegas Prime Rib Buffet video, we visit the buffets, compare the prime rib, rank them from worst to best and share my pro tips for getting the slice you want instead of simply accepting whatever happens to land on your plate.
After all, this is Las Vegas.
There are plenty of things here you should leave to chance.