One of the Strip’s Best Cocktail Bars Closes to Make Way for Dueling Pianos

One of the most popular cocktail bars on the Las Vegas Strip is closing in June as a hospitality group changes over a trio of bars inside the Venetian Resort. The Dorsey, located just off the Venetian’s casino floor, is recognizable for its sultry library-inspired interior, tall metal birdcage-like structure, and inventive cocktail offerings. It closes on June 25 for a new bar, called Juliet Cocktail Room, to debut in the space.

The Venetian Resort

The Dorsey’s closing marks the first big move since 81/82 Group CEO and founder Ryan Labbe partnered with the Venetian in March. The hospitality group is reinventing three bars, which the resort calls the cocktail collective — including the Dorsey, Rosina, and Electra Cocktail Club. The 81/82 Group has a distinctive flair for highly stylized bars and restaurants, which can be seen in its venues like Summerlin’s Mexican restaurant La Neta Cocina y Lounge with its chandelier and foliage-dripping ceiling, the Chinatown restaurant Mas Por Favor with its skull-adorned not-so-secret bar, and the Cosmopolitan’s vintage-style the Barbershop Cuts & Cocktails that gives way to a speakeasy.

Louiie Victa/Eater Vegas

Juliet is inspired by the Juliet Rose, a $3 million pink rose with a large blossom. The 81/82 Group describes the new bar as rich, refined, sexy, and intimate, with Victorian-inspired decor. The cocktail menu will include signature drinks with unique flavors. The bar will also have two baby grand pianos where, every weekend, dueling pianists will play music from Elton John and the Rolling Stones to Biggie and Madonna and everything in between.

The 4,500-square-foot Dorsey opened in 2016 with a mahogany and leather-filled interior and a bar that specializes in signature cocktails poured into eclectic barware. With plenty of seating options, it is a reliable spot both for visitors and for locals enjoying a night out on the Strip. For another month or so, you can still stop in and imbibe on cocktails like the Penicillin, an inclusion by barman Sam Ross of New York City’s Attaboy fame, with scotch, fresh lemon, ginger, honey and an Islay float. Other popular signature drinks include the Harajuku, with Japanese whisky, Byrrh Quinquina aperitif, and chocolate bitters, and the Coney Island Express, with dark rum, cold brew coffee, vanilla, and Amaro Ciociaro liqueur, poured in a blue-and-white Greek coffee cup familiar to New Yorkers. The Dorsey will close on June 25 and Juliet is slated to open this summer.