As director of operations for Golden Gaming Inc., Todd Parmelee oversees 44 tavern locations throughout Nevada that operate under the company’s Golden Tavern Group. The properties include the ubiquitous PT’s throughout Las Vegas, Sierra Gold in Las Vegas and Reno, and Spark’s in Reno.

He joined the company in 2003 when the PT’s Gold brand was being launched, but left a year later to take a position as assistant director of food and beverage at Hard Rock. He was soon promoted to director of food and beverage, a position he held until 2007.

He reconnected with Golden Gaming founder and president Blake Sartini and COO Steve Arcana when Golden Gaming was contracted to manage casino operations at the Hard Rock after Peter Morton sold the property to Morgans Hotel Group, and soon found himself working for Golden Gaming once again.

The economy has changed, however, and with people spending less at the casinos, it means the people who live in Las Vegas have less money to spend going out themselves. As director of operations, Parmelee is charged with finding ways to keep the tavern operations healthy despite the troubled economy. He talked to Casino Connection Managing Editor Greg Jones about the current challenges the company faces and where the company is ultimately headed.


Casino Connection: Now that you are back with Golden Gaming, what is your day-to-day focus?

Parmelee: It changes every minute. Just in Las Vegas, there are 36 taverns to operate. Really, the biggest part of it is playing air traffic control. I have six regional managers and an assistant director who are out in the taverns. They just keep feeding me information. I am the one asking questions a lot of the time from them because they’re in the taverns more than I am. I take what they need and work with the vendors or the marketing team here at Golden to really benefit each different tavern the best we can when we have all the information.



Do you enjoy being more removed from the gaming operations now, as opposed to your previous position at Hard Rock?

There are a lot of differences. In the casino world, it is easy to leave your office and go downstairs and check in on your operations. Dealing with 36 taverns throughout the valley is tough, but I really like this a lot more than the casino grind. The hotel is a big business and the competition is fierce—not that it isn’t in the tavern world—but with the support that I have with this company, I just feel a lot more comfortable with the operations of it. It’s a clearer picture of what we’re trying to do.



The current economic troubles are hitting everyone pretty hard. What are you seeing at your taverns, which primarily target locals?

I ask that question of our vendors and people I still have relationships with in casinos and around town. Thankfully, we’re not taking it as hard as everybody else.
 
I really have to credit everyone from the people who work in the taverns to my regional operations team. We’re not sitting on our hands. We’re out there working hard. We’re creating events to give people reasons to come into our places and it seems to be working.

In the past, it was just easy to go by a PT’s and think great food, great drinks, gambling and great atmosphere. Now we’re throwing different events to give people a chance to say, “You know what, things are down, I’m not making as much money working in the casino, I’m going to go into PT’s and they’re throwing a party. They’re taking my mind off of things.”

That’s what we’ve created this summer. Knock on wood, it’s been working.

We tell the entire team that that it is great to see the regulars, but we also need to recognize the new faces. We need to put our hands out and introduce ourselves as their neighborhood bar, introduce them to the people there and create that family, that Cheers effect, so to speak.

It sounds simple, and I guess we have realized that we have to get back to the basics and the foundation of what creates a good tavern experience.



How much do you compete with the locals casinos as opposed to other bars and taverns throughout the city?

We compete against everyone. If somebody is gambling at a grocery store we compete with them. I think if they’re putting their hard earned money in one of those, I want to get them into our bars.

You get more customers coming into our taverns because you’ll get that one-on-one experience with the bar host or server and you get to meet people who live or work in your area instead of the casino. And nothing against tourists, it’s just that there is more of a commonality.

My point being that it’s an experience that we’re really creating and I would hope that people walk into our taverns and get that great experience rather than going into a gas station or a grocery store.

We also have a program called the Golden Rewards program. It’s an incentive to join up. We track your gaming and you get a ton of rewards based on how you play. A lot of what I do with the marketing and promotions side is to come up with things to keep growing that sense of golden rewards to give more benefits to it. Our package is, if not better, then it is just as equal to local casinos and you don’t normally see that in the tavern world.

And we just rolled out a wide-area progressive on at our Sierra Gold brands. It is, for lack of a better word, a system that we have with our three Sierra Golds around town.

The progressive starts at $12,500 on quarter machines right now, and I believe it is at $13,500 now. We’re trying it with the three properties and if we have success, we’ll roll it out with our other brands. Then the jackpot will be huge.



The casinos also have the smoking advantage. While some of your locations have nonrestricted gaming licenses, the majority are limited to 15 machines, and therefore are subject to the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act. Did you see any drop off when that law took effect?

We absolutely saw a drop off.

People can go into a casino and not worry about that.

At some of our very high volume gaming, we have built walls in there to separate dining from the gaming. So you can go into many of our Pubs or Golds and smoke depending on if we built the wall, but that gets expensive, too.

It created a bigger expense for us and it definitely drove more people to the casinos because they can do what they want as far as smoking. We definitely saw a big drop here, as well as in Reno.

Any time you have a gambler, you don’t want to divert them from what they’re there to do to go outside and smoke.



You also oversee the tavern operations in Reno. How does the Reno market differ from the market in Las Vegas?

Our taverns are branded as Sparky’s in Reno. It is like our PT’s here and we do have a Sierra Gold up there.

Reno is definitely a different market than Las Vegas. Reno tends to be, not for negativity, a little more conservative. They really got hit economically.

They were ready for a growth spurt before everything hit. Building was starting. They got hit a little bit earlier and then the smoking ban was enacted.

If tourism is down, the locals don’t have the money to spend. It’s the same thing down here in Las Vegas.

The bodies are still coming, people just are not purchasing the premium stuff. Those who used to drink Grey Goose are now drinking Absolut or a beer. The bodies are still here, they’re just not spending that heavily.



Last year at about this time the company was looking at a new concept that would add live music to the atmosphere of PT’s that would be branded the Loft. I heard that concept is currently on hold right now. What is going on with that?

When I came on board, that is what I was diving into. At that time, we started seeing the signs that this wasn’t the right move to make right now. It’s still there, we still discuss it, but we have to get through what we’re doing now.

The concept is one that will work, and it is a concept that will stand the test of time, so whenever we’re ready to discuss it again and we’ve got the right locations for it, it will happen. Right now, the focus is to get through the third quarter and see what the fourth quarter brings.

So your focus is strictly on the operations right now?

That’s been the direction my team is going. The team I have working with me is digging into everything that we can cut without detracting from the guests’ experience. These guys have done an amazing job. When we can sit in our reviews every month of the company and be able to go through line-by-line and say we’re making a difference for the better, it’s great.

With 36 locations in Las Vegas alone, I imagine there is some fat that can be trimmed from your operating expenses without causing any drop in customer service.
Yes, and it’s up to us as operators to find that.

That’s why Steve Arcana hired this team that he put together and there is no stone unturned. Not right now.

It’s called doing it the hard way.

The easy way is to just get the revenue on the top line and let it flow down. But, in times like this, we’re doing it the hard way, but it is making a difference.

By Roger Gros

Roger Gros is publisher of Casino Connection and editor and publisher of Global Gaming Business magazine, the industry’s leading gaming trade publication. Prior to joining Global Gaming Business, Gros was president of Inlet Communications, an independent consulting firm. He was vice president of Casino Journal Publishing Group from 1984-2000, and held virtually every editorial title during his tenure. Gros was editor of Casino Journal, the National Gaming Summary and the Atlantic City Insider, and was the founding editor of Casino Player magazine. He was a co-founder of the American Gaming Summit and the Southern Gaming Summit conferences and trade shows. He is the author of the best-selling book, How to Win at Casino Gambling (Carlton Books, 1995), now in its third edition. Gros was named “Businessman of the Year” for 1998 by the Greater Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce.

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