The last two customers on the final night, with Darcy and Sally at Buzio’s (Rio)
Our fondest memories are of people and places.
For many, Buzio’s at the Rio in Las Vegas was one of the fondest of places because it was full of so many good people. It was more than just a casual restaurant. Buzio’s was a cradle of friendship and bastion of happiness. It was a boardroom of wheeling and dealing. It was a place to gossip, to drown our sorrows, and to celebrate. If the World Series of Poker, held at the Rio each summer since 2005 had an office, a break room, a social club, a watering hole, and a place of reprieve and relaxation — it was most certainly the public alcove in the form of a once-popular seafood restaurant along the so-called “bad beat hallway” leading back to the main casino.
Buzio’s served its final meal on Saturday night — December 12, 2015. After 25 years, the restaurant closed its doors for the last time, in order to make way for a new eatery which will eventually open on the spot where where poker players clamored each night for dinner reservations, where strategy was furiously rehashed and debated, where millions in poker deals were made over shrimp cocktails, where disappointments were doused and gradually forgotten, where tournament survival was toasted, and where innumerable lasting friendships were founded. Hostilities on hold, competitors who tried to outfox each other during the WSOP competing for their livelihoods often dined out together at Buzio’s. Poker doesn’t have many places around like this anymore. Sadly now, it has one less such place.
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