Country Star Blake Shelton Rides Into Las Vegas With His Honky Tonk Ole Red in 2023

Las Vegas already has a residency from singer Gwen Stefani at Planet Hollywood Resort, and now her husband Blake Shelton brings his own venture to Las Vegas in 2023. The country music singer and coach on The Voice plans to open Ole Red, a honky tonk spanning 27,000 square feet, at the Grand Bazaar Shops in front of Bally’s Las Vegas with Ryman Hospitality. The $30 million, four-story venue, a fifth from Shelton, plans to offer dining and 686 seats, as well as two floors overlooking a central stage for concerts daily. The 4,500-square-foot rooftop also plans to offer music, food, and beverage with views of the city.

“I’ve never felt like there was enough of a country music presence [in Las Vegas],” Shelton says in a press conference. “At some point, after you’ve seen enough magic tricks and casinos, sometimes you just want to hear some damn country music.”

Think of a night at Ole Red as an evening as a music scout, where new talent is discovered, only with drinks. In Nashville, the menu includes starters such as fried pickles and green tomatoes, smoked wings with pickled jalapeños, a Southern tater tot poutine with a fried egg, and Redneck Nachos with kettle chips, smoked chicken, and Velveeta beer cheese. Salads, burgers including the Oklahoma onion, pulled pork sandwiches, a Nashville hot chicken, and the Pig n Cheese with fried bologna, Velveeta beer cheese, caramelized onions, and crushed potato chips make the menu, along with bacon-wrapped meatloaf, chicken fried steak, and St. Louis-style ribs.

Ryman Hospitality, which also operates the Grand Ole Opry, also plans to open an Ole Red at the Nashville International Airport in the first half of 2022, and has locations in Orlando, Nashville, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Tishomingo, Oklahoma, Shelton’s hometown.

Ole Red joins a roster of new restaurants heading to Caesars Entertainment properties. Paris brings Nobu Matshuhisa, Bobby Flay and his burgers, realty television personality Lisa Vanderpump and her cocktail lounge Vanderpump à Paris, and domestic guru Martha Stewart’s first Las Vegas restaurant to the resort in 2022.

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