According to Southland Gaming and Racing president and general manager Troy Keeping, Sammy Hagar’s Red Rocker Bar & Grill is just one element of $30-million-plus in improvements. There will also be work done on the exterior of the building, valet parking will be added, and the gaming space will be expanded.
Results from a survey led to the Red Rocker.
“We let our guests tell us what they want,” he says, and what they wanted was a sports bar.
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“When we were creating our concept, we kept coming back to rock-and-roll,” says Keeping.
Southland’s parent company Delaware North Companies Gaming & Entertainment already had a relationship with Hagar, who has lent his name to Cabo Wabo Cantina and Sammy’s Beach Bar & Grills, as well as Cabo Wabo premium tequila and Sammy’s Beach Bar rum.
“Let me give you the tagline,” says Keeping. “It’s a sports bar that rocks!”
The decor will include 55 TVs in a nod to Hagar’s hit “I Can’t Drive 55.” There will be a shuffleboard and dart boards. There will be lots of red accents.
The menu features bar food with a twist — a meatloaf cupcake, a three-meat burger topped in sweet onion jam. There will be a beer tap that will keep beer at 29 degrees, colder than your average tap.
Keeping says that when the news about the Red Rocker was released about 6 weeks ago, his phone blew up. People asked him for tickets. Tickets to a sports bar!
Red Rocker is set to open sometime around the end of the year.
Says Keeping, “There’s a lot of excitement around the brand, which tells me we’re really going to have a winner.”
