When I was preparing to leave the east coast I looked at various cities that seemed to have excellent tech communities. I like tech and I like people that like tech.
Before I decided to move to Las Vegas I stopped by a pretty cool weekly meetup that local tech geeks and bloggers had called Beer and Blogs Las Vegas. That meetup has since disbanded because most of the people that attended were friends and hang out in a less structured manner.
While attending Beer and Blogs wasn’t the reason I moved to Vegas, it didn’t hurt. It also showed me that there was more to Vegas than the strip or downtown.
There is still a pretty cool tech community in Vegas. The tech community has pretty much separated since tech startups and programmers aren’t seeking the same thing as bloggers who can be a broad range of people that have varied interests. There are bloggers who write about eating and wellness while others range from corporate casino bloggers to travel bloggers. It’s a pretty cool crew, you can find some of these blogs in the sidebar.
This meetup was more of a brainstorming session to discuss what we wanted to get from future meetups than anything else. As a nice aside we were able to sample tasty treats like the ones below that were provided by the Ranch House Kitchen.
The Ranch House Kitchen is located at Town Square which is on the strip south of Mandalay Bay in a mall/town with hundreds of stores. Town Square is HUGE. In fact, I have such a bad sense of direction that I’ve gotten lost every time I’ve been there. I always give myself an extra half hour to find my way around. Pro tip: Ask the valet where to go if you’re lost.
Ranch House is next to the Rave Motion Pictures movie theater and on the second floor of the mall with few other places. Ranch House is a nice place to pre-game a movie if you’re looking for something to do outside of the casino next time you’re in Vegas. The ribs we had were super tender and fell right off the bone.
The ribs were the second favorite thing I had all night. The highlight of the night? Go figure, it was drink – A cucumber mojito!
It was over 110 degrees the day of the meetup and the last thing I wanted was a beer. There is a special cocktail menu and a cucumber mojito sounded like the most refreshing thing. And it was. Just about everyone at the table was drinking red drinks, but I know I won for best drink(s) of the night. Suckers. 🙂
The night ended when the musicians started playing. They were so loud that we couldn’t hear each other speak. That’s OK. The noise (#GOML) didn’t take away from sampling this awesome French Toast Sundae.
Like with everything I do there are more pictures of the night on my tumblr. The Ranch House was a surprise. There was nothing bad and the service was great. The waiters and waitresses we had were all great. There are plenty of strip properties that can learn from the staff at Ranch House.
The group was able to catch up with one another and we were treated to a tasty meal courtesy for the Ranch House and I was able to explore Town Square, a place I normally wouldn’t visit. I’ll call the night a win, win, win.
Note: #GOML is short for Get Off My Lawn.