ATOMIC LIQUORS: The wait for Las Vegas' oldest bar to reblast is nearly over

LAS VEGAS - June 2, 2013 - PRLog -- When the keys to Atomic Liquors were passed to its new owners last year on June 22, the iconic sign in front was turned on after being dark for a year and a half.

Since then, the sign has illuminated 917 Fremont Street each night as downtown attorney Lance Johns, his brother Kent Johns, a commercial real estate salesman, and downtown visionary Derek Stonebarger have worked to restore the venue.

This week the sign goes dark again to prepare for Atomic’s Grand Re-Opening Weekend, June 20-22, which will blast off with a ribbon torching by Mayor Carolyn Goodman at noon on Thursday June 20.

“It’s finally time,” said Johns, owner of LJ's Bar (Sahara Ave and Maryland Parkway) and partner at Downtown law firm Johns & Durrant. “I can’t wait for the public to come and enjoy the new Atomic. We know lots of people have been waiting, as they try to get in everyday - my hope is that they will appreciate all the hard work we've done to get this historic place re-opened.”

Built in 1945, the building originally was home to a café named Virginia’s. As customers watching atomic blasts, drinking atomic cocktails from the rooftop became a norm, the name of the building was changed to Atomic Liquors in 1952 and later received the first package liquor license and off-sales permit of Vegas.

“This isn’t your ordinary watering hole,” said Stonebarger, creator of the Vegas Indie Film Fest! (VIFF!) and owner of theatre7 (Third Street and Imperial). “This place is as much a museum as it is a bar. We've started calling it a ‘bar-seum.’”

Atomic has drawn the interest of the National Atomic Testing Museum, who already partnered with it for a private event in April, and the Neon Museum, which has tried to help locate the history of the venue’s historic sign.

It was suggested that Betty Willis, who designed the sign for the Moulin Rouge and the Blue Angel just down the street, may have been behind it. The Atomic Liquors sign predates Willis’ most famous work - the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign – by possibly five to seven years and is similar in design.

But Willis, now in her 90's, said she doesn’t recall having worked on it and doesn’t know who may have. During her time there were many great sign designers, creating googie style and neon works of art, from Kermit Wayne (Golden Nugget), Jack Larson (Silver Slipper), Buzz Leming (38 major hotel signs), to Hermon Boernge (Flamingo) and Pat Denner (Vegas Vic).

Through the years, the glowing Atomic sign has been a magnet for the famous, including the likes of Roy Rogers, The Rat Pack, Barbara Streisand and The Smothers Brothers. It was also a film location for Martin Scorsese’s Casino, an episode of the Twilight Zone, Clint Eastwood’s The Gauntlet and many more. As recent as May this year, international billboard recording artist, singer-songwriter and local Kristine W shot a music video there.

Several members of the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop), as well as Tom and Dick Smothers spent many a late night there after headlining shows on the Las Vegas Strip. Atomic it seems was one of the only places still pouring drinks after hours in those days. And when Streisand was in town, she made sure to stop by and shoot some pool there. She later wrote about it in one of her books.

The place has also been a magnet for the infamous.

It has been rumored Bugsy Seigel may have played a hand in the establishment’s early days as the mobster was an owner of the nearby El Cortez casino in 1945, and one of the only people in town with enough resources to loan out the kind of money it would have took to build the venue.

And an old timer that recently came forward has said he used to be Jimmy Hoffa’s in-town driver and Hoffa used to hang out at Atomic. From the mid-50s through the mid-70s, Hoffa, who disappeared in 1975, has been called a rock star of organized labor as he allowed the mob to use the teamster’s pension fund as its own bank. It’s been said loans from the pension fund helped build Desert Inn, Stardust, Caesars Palace, Circus Circus, and many other resorts.

“There are layers upon layers of history here,” Johns said. “Literally.”

When they replaced the floor near the back of the left side of the bar, a safe filled with receipts from the 50s was uncovered. One receipt, dated June 23, 1954, was for an advertisement with the Redwood Publishing Company. “Atomic Liquors,” “Beer,”  “Bar,” “Coolest Spot in Town” read the ad, which was most likely a part of a weekly City of Las Vegas map for tourists.

Since it opened, Joe and Stella Sobchik, 65-year residents of Las Vegas, were the only owners of Atomic Liquors. The couple died three months apart in 2010.

The bar was closed in January 2011.

The famous sign out front, which was even featured in The Hangover, went dark.

Joe and Stella’s son Ron Sobchik, a technical aerospace engineer, said he “was too young to be aware of what was going on with the sign” when it was originally erected in 1952. More important than preserving its history to him, was finding somebody who saw as much opportunity as his parents did, to keep the spirit of Atomic Liquors alive.

It seems the Fullerton, Calif. resident found the perfect fit with the Johns Brothers and Stonebarger.

“When I see a sign like this – it sort of has a time warp effect on me,” Stonebarger said. “It inspires, excites and makes me feel proud to call Las Vegas home. I’m sure that is what it did back in the 50s when it first opened, and I am excited to be a part a new piece of history, and the new Atomic.”

Since it was announced Atomic would be reopening, the bar has received a ton of media attention, from the Los Angeles Times, MovieMaker Magazine, Playboy Channel, Coed Magazine, to Fox news stations all across the  country.

The new owners hope Atomic can become a central hub for Las Vegas’ ever growing downtown scene of the creative and cool, which includes business entrepreneurs, lawyers, filmmakers, artists, as well as music, car, beer and history enthusiasts.

“Right now we’re turning off the world famous sign,” Johns said. “On June 20, at high noon, Mayor Goodman will cut the ribbon with a torch, the sign will come back on and my hope is fans of the past will enjoy what we have done to the place and people that have never been here will come out and enjoy this slice of American culture that our city has to offer.”

For more information, please visit http://atomiclasvegas.com/ or contact Stonebarger at DerekStonebarger@gmail.com or 702-349-2283.