Hickory Wood BAR-B-Q Restaurant, Las Vegas, Triblend Tee

Description

Hickory Wood Bar-B-Q was a downtown Las Vegas restaurant that served residents, tourists, and Fremont Street night owls during the city’s postwar growth. Located at 315 Fremont Street — sometimes advertised as 315–317 Fremont — the restaurant stood in the 300 block near Third Street, across from the El Portal Theatre and surrounded by drugstores, jewelers, cafés, and gambling halls. Period records place Hickory Wood in operation by the late 1940s. Photographs document it on Fremont Street in 1950, throughout the early 1960s, and as late as 1965. UNLV’s menu collection dates surviving Hickory Wood Bar-B-Q material from approximately 1950 through 1964. Although a precise opening and closing date has not been firmly established, the restaurant was a recognizable downtown fixture for at least a decade and a half. The building later became a McDonald’s in 1971. Hickory Wood’s identity centered on barbecue and roast meats cooked in full view of customers. A longtime Las Vegas resident recalled that the restaurant had a large indoor pit where diners could watch meat roasting, an unusual feature that added both aroma and spectacle to the meal. Its prominent vertical neon sign advertised “BAR-B-Q,” while another animated element depicted a roast turkey, making the restaurant easy to spot among Fremont Street’s crowded signs. Street photographs also show it promoting breakfast and all-hours service, reflecting downtown’s nonstop rhythm. The restaurant appears to have operated as an approachable, family-style café rather than a formal dining room. Barbecued meats, chicken, turkey, sandwiches, breakfast plates, and traditional American accompaniments likely formed the heart of its menu. Its central location made it convenient for moviegoers leaving the El Portal, downtown workers taking meal breaks, and visitors moving between nearby casinos. For many regulars, it was the kind of place remembered as much for its familiar atmosphere as its food. Today, Hickory Wood Bar-B-Q is remembered as part of everyday vintage Las Vegas. Not a glamorous resort restaurant, but a dependable downtown institution with a memorable pit, bold neon, and the unmistakable smell of barbecue drifting onto Fremont Street. Its former building was eventually absorbed into the later Fitzgeralds and current D Las Vegas complex.