Atomic Liquors

Atomic Liquors has been pouring drinks at 917 Fremont Street since Joe and Stella Sobchik decided the family café wasn't paying enough. According to the bar's own history page, the lot had been Virginia's Café since 1945 — run by Stella's mother, Virginia, who inherited the property through a Nevada judge's estate. Joe manned the grill through wartime rationing before he got tired of feeding travelers and locals lining up for the Helldorado parade, and pivoted to selling bottles instead. That liquor store got Las Vegas's first liquor license. A pouring license, bought off the closing Lido Lounge downtown, turned it into a bar — and created a brand-new license category altogether: the Tavern License. Atomic got the first one ever issued, numbered #00001.

The founding date depends who's counting

Popular retellings, including the bar's own branding, date Atomic Liquors to 1952. Wikipedia's entry pushes back on that, citing a contemporary Las Vegas Review-Journal article that puts the bar's actual public opening at April 17, 1954. Both dates are defensible depending on whether you're counting the liquor-store license or the day the bar itself opened its doors — Near isn't picking a side, just flagging that the plaque and the newspaper morgue disagree.

What isn't in dispute: this is the oldest freestanding bar in the city, a title that survives a 2011 closure and a 2012 reopening under new ownership (Kent Johns, Lance Johns and Derek Stoneberger). The renovation that followed turned up a working-class time capsule — a floor safe sealed around 1950, found intact and now sitting behind glass at its original spot in the room. The bathrooms got a matching '50s-style redo, renamed Joe's and Stella's; the women's room is pink, reportedly Stella's favorite color.

A local bar that happens to be famous

The National Trust for Historic Preservation covers Atomic for the same reason Near does — a building this old, still doing the thing it was built to do, is rarer than another rooftop pool bar. The regulars-who-became-legend list is real: Barbra Streisand has a barstool with a star on it marking her old regular seat, and Anthony Bourdain filmed a segment of Parts Unknown here in 2013. (One claim worth debunking outright: Bugsy Siegel was killed in 1947, seven years before this bar's confirmed opening — whatever story puts him on a stool here isn't checking a calendar.)

The Infatuation's review is the most useful honest read: a "boozed-up local crowd," Wednesday trivia and weekends that fill the room, cheap well drinks, and — the actual selling point — a spot on Fremont Street that feels genuinely separated from the touristy dome a few blocks west. Google's current numbers back that up: 4.6 stars across 2,285 reviews, $10-20 a person. It's open daily from noon, closing at 2am most nights and 3am Friday and Saturday.

This is downtown, not the Strip — worth knowing if a work trip has you stuck on Las Vegas Boulevard with nothing local to show for it.