Employees at Cosmopolitan’s Wicked Spoon buffet are telling guests the restaurant will close by the end of 2024.
The hotel, now part of the MGM Resorts family, has not responded to a request for confirmation.
Buffets have been on the decline in recent years, as casino companies closed money-losing operations under the cover of the pandemic.
News of the potential closure of Wicked Spoon comes on the heels of the hotel’s conversion from the Identity loyalty club to MGM Rewards.
MGM Resorts purchased the operations of Cosmopolitan on May 17, 2022 for $1.6 billion. The switch from Identity to MGM Rewards took a minute. The rumored reason had to do with the complexity of the integration and complications related to the hack of MGM’s systems in September 2023.
Wicked Spoon has always been sort of “mid” (“mid” is the new “meh”), in our opinion, like pretty much all of the dining options at Cosmo.
The fact is buffets make very little money for casinos, and are often loss leaders. Caesars Entertainment has said its Las Vegas buffets lost an average of $3 million a year, which is why most have shuttered.
When MGM Resorts purchased the Cosmo, the company assured everyone changes to the resort would be minimal. Three people believed it, all of whom also believe the moon landing was faked.
Big casino companies are concerned with one thing: Margins.
That means booting the parts of the business that generate the least amount of profit.
Buffets, in general, are that. Ditto poker rooms.
There were 18 buffets before the pandemic, now, there are eight.
We inquired with MGM Resorts about what might happen with the Wicked Spoon space should it close, but the odds of getting that information is roughly the same as hitting 20 numbers in keno.
As it appears Cosmo has informed employees of Wicked Spoon’s closure, we have to give them props for giving them time to look for other gigs. Often, companies wait until the last possible second to avoid an exodus that can cause service disruptions.
We’ll let you know when (more like “if”) we hear back from MGM Resorts, and we say the more changes the better when it comes to restaurants at Cosmopolitan.
Holsteins is being replaced by a Mexican restaurant, Mariposa Rosa.
Superfrico isn’t going anywhere, but Scarpetta should. Ditto China Poblano. Secret Pizza (nee The Pizzeria) could use a revamp as well. STK would benefit from turning the volume down.
If you’re craving a buffet on The Strip, you can still hit Bacchanal, the undisputed best buffet in town (if you exclude Garden Buffet at the South Point, which wins for best value, second place is A.Y.C.E. at Palms).
The Circus Circus buffet has excellent soft serve, we’ll leave it at that.
Buffets are pretty much done in Las Vegas, but you’ll survive. “Food halls” are the new buffet. Bigger margins, much less waste and less low roller vibe. Vegas continues to evolve, and that evolution isn’t for everyone. Awkward, but we’re keeping it real.