Your Daily Guide

😬 A Bad Fieri Tale

At least two local restaurants are vocally unhappy about their experiences after being invited to participate in the Guy Fieri-branded Flavortown Tailgate, which took place on the Strip before the Super Bowl. After preparing large volumes of food to sell, they learned that big corporate sponsors were giving away free food. They say they lost money and had to dispose of their leftovers. [KSNV]

• One of the restaurants involved, Yukon Pizza, makes a great burger. [Hey Las Vegas 📧]

🐺 Coyote Bites Girl

I’ve had some yuks in this newsletter implicitly siding with coyotes in their encounters with humans, but there’s nothing funny about this: A 2-year-old girl reportedly had to have rabies shots after a coyote bit her last month in Lake Las Vegas. As described, the attack sounds horrifying. Don’t feed the coyotes, people. [KVVU]

• Context: Why we’re seeing more coyotes in neighborhoods. [City Cast Las Vegas 🎧]

⚡ 57 is the New 95!

Eligible NV Energy employees will be getting bonuses equal to the amount they’d receive if they had met 95% of the company’s internal goals — even though they only met 57%. The bonuses total $4.7 million, a bill that will be footed by us rate-payers after a Public Utilities Commission decision this week. [Review-Journal]

Monday is Presidents Day — get ready for those door-buster shopping deals! — which got us wondering: Who were the best presidents from a Silver State or even Las Vegas point of view? After wheedling a couple of nice historians, we compiled this list.

Abraham Lincoln

The obvious choice to lead off this list — he juiced Nevada into statehood when we didn’t meet the population threshold (he wanted our electoral votes, not our mineral wealth). With this founding shenanigan, Lincoln made possible all the growth, boomtowns, federal investments, mob skims, and Usher residencies that define Nevada.

Herbert Hoover

Well, of course this guy’s on the list. Hoover’s role in creating the dam that bears his name resulted in one of the main pillars of the valley’s survival during the troubled years of the 1930s and after, as well as a crucial component of water and power systems in the West.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Historian Geoff Schumacher credits FDR’s administration for shaping this area with Depression-era public works projects and jobs, and also such World War II investments as the Army Air Base and the Basic Magnesium plant, which begat Henderson.

Lyndon B. Johnson

As historian Michael Green notes, by the early-1960s, Las Vegas had a water problem (it needed some, with its groundwater dwindling). LBJ addressed this in 1965 by signing legislation creating the Southern Nevada Water Project (urged on by Nevada Sens. Alan Bible and Howard Cannon), which resulted in the infrastructure the valley needed to get water from Lake Mead.

Barack Obama

Relying heavily on Sen. Harry Reid, the 44th president decisively drove Yucca Mountain into a near-death limbo, and established two national monuments relevant to Silver Staters — Basin and Range in Nevada and Bears Ears, nearby in Utah.

Whataburger is now open at the Waldorf Astoria, which feels like even more of a mismatch when you type out those words on a keyboard. Yet the Texas burger chain is getting off to a good start, opening ahead of schedule — how about that, Las Vegas? — and tweaking the formula just enough to fit in on the Strip. So what’s it all about?

🍔 Texans Are Fiercely Loyal to Whataburger

The main reason: It’s always there. Another reason: Whataburger is picky about the ranchers who supply the beef, which is never frozen and sold in burgers within about a week of processing. Whataburger also uses two kinds of cheese (American and Monterey Jack), larger than average buns, and a choice of fancy or spicy ketchup — presented tableside in a touch Vegas will appreciate.

🧐 Off-Menu Items and Hacks

Whataburger is down to customize almost anything and has fun with secret dishes, seasonal weirdness (like the current Dr. Pepper shake), and a Hatch Chili Burger among the Vegas exclusives. You can even order Orange Chicken on the sly, since the Vegas franchise is owned by the company behind Panda Express.

🍸 Vegas Has the First Whataburger With Booze

Order beer, cocktails, and — since this is Vegas — spiked slushies to wash down those burgers. The upstairs lounge is actually quite stylish, with floor-to-ceiling windows, an outdoor patio, and a license to print money during F1.

🤔 This Isn’t the First Vegas Whataburger

According to recollections on social media (which are never wrong), Whataburger was around as far back as the 1970s, but its presence fizzled out in the ’90s.

🏆 Whataburger Has the Healthiest Fast Food Cheeseburger

That’s based on a 2023 study that looked at nutritional stats. Keep in mind, McDonald’s was ranked ahead of Five Guys, so take those results with the same grain of salt that might spike your blood pressure levels.