Look, we’re not above taking a cue from a taxidermied armadillo.
We sit down; we glance up — and there the little guy is, encased in glass, on his back and off the wagon, draining a bottle of Shiner Bock.
Bartender, a beer, please.
The critter in question feels like an apt totem for The Dustland Bar (1433 S. Commerce St.) with its mix of playfulness, kitsch and leather-skinned grit. And so it’s fitting that it’s one of the first things we see upon walking through the door, which is currently being manned by Hassan Hamilton, one Vegas’ best hip-hop artists of the past decade, who checks IDs.
The brick walls are talkin’ here on a bustling Saturday night: “A lil’ dirt never hurt!” declares a mural of a smiling, anthropomorphic duck gripping a brew, voicing Dustland’s motto near a small stage outfitted with an upright piano and chunky vintage audio gear dating back to the days when a stereo receiver rivaled the weight of a Volkswagen.
The room’s crowded with bodies and decades-old tube TVs alike, the former swimming in boilermakers — a house specialty — the latter showing old-school westerns and Roger Corman flicks where carnivorous fish feast on unsuspecting skinny dippers.
With its patterned linoleum floors, mountainous stone fireplace and wood-paneled hallways decorated with portraits of Willie Nelson and soaring waterfowl, Dustland somehow splits the difference between ’70s family den, hipster hunting lodge — dig the pistol-wielding stuffed squirrel rocking a cowboy hat — and equally bohemian and blue-collar neighborhood hang.
And if all that wasn’t enough to fill the pages of a reporter’s notebook, it’s also become an increasingly happening music venue, with a large, cactus-festooned outdoor patio leading to a sizable stage positioned beneath a Quonset hut.
At a bit past 10 p.m., we hear a band tuning up and head out to catch up-and-coming co-ed Vegas pop-rockers Stolen Street Signs, their songs as cool and breezy as the night air on this evening.
“How we doing, Dustland?” the band’s singer asks, visibly enthused by the number of onlookers before her. “There’s so many of you.”
Yeah, this place tends to draw a crowd.
Though Dustland’s celebrating just its first anniversary this weekend, it’s already become a Vegas signature, the kind of joint that’s on the short list of spots you take out-of-town friends to give them a taste of something uniquely evocative of its Southwestern surroundings, something they don’t have back at home — you know, like a bar that sells Coors trading cards for $6 a pack.
Cities are like coins: there are always two sides to them.
And so while Vegas will forever be synonymous with velvet ropes, neon, bottle service and abundance, it’s also a working-class town that was born — however improbably — amid the harsh austerity of the desert.
Perhaps this is why the bar has grown so popular so quickly, because it feels like an authentic, self-aware — and winkingly cheeky — expression of Vegas’ dusty origins.
Besides, every desert needs its oasis, right?
Contact Jason Bracelin at [email protected] or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.