Las Vegas has become like an old lover to me. Long gone are the heady days of new love. The surprise, awe, and delight are gone – replaced by familiarity, comfort, and expectation.

There are no certain things that mean Vegas to me….happy hour at the Pink Taco is one of those things. Nothing gets my Vegas trips off to a better start than excellent half-price margaritas, bowls and bowls of free chips with 3 types of salsa, and half price, and very tasty, appetizers.



Banky and I were set to arrive just after 10am on Friday. But due to a full-on cluster-fuck by American Airlines, our connecting flight in Chicago was cancelled and we ended up routing through Dallas and not arriving until well after 4:30 in the afternoon. For some reason, the usually extremely impatient Banky was very zen about the whole thing, while I was on cancelled-flight-tilt.

While waiting in line to check-in at the Golden Nugget, the prospects of Pink Taco Happy Hour looked dim, as the clock ticked closer and closer to 5:30, I thought there was no way we’d check-in and make it back to the Hard Rock in time. But miraculously, the line started to move quickly (after being standstill for 15 minutes), and we were in our room by 5:40. We put down our bags headed back downstairs, hailed a cab and asses were on barstools by 5:55. We had 1 hour and 5 minutes left – and what a happy hour we made it….

In 65 minutes, we downed 5 margaritas and shared an appetizer platter, all for $15 including a generous tip. Even though it was happy hour, our barkeep BJ (a name I found incessantly amusing) comped us all the drinks, and we even got an extra freebie when a rep from Terzon (I think) came in shilling his new tequila.

Nicely lubed, we donked off money at the pai-gow & black jack tables but the dealers at the Hard Rock were jerks, so before long headed back downtown for an evening of more drinking, donking, and general tomfoolery.

By the time we went to bed, I had been up for 27 hours. Nothing like an old lover to keep you up all night…