Atomic Liquors

Atomic Liquors: Tavern License #00001 — The Oldest Freestanding Bar in Las Vegas

Joe and Stella Sobchik converted their Fremont Street café into a liquor store in 1952 and added a bar in 1954, earning Tavern License #00001 — the first ever issued in Las Vegas. The Sobchiks’ rooftop drew Rat Pack regulars, the Smothers Brothers, Barbra Streisand, and Clint Eastwood, who came to drink “atomic cocktails” while watching mushroom clouds rise from the Nevada Test Site. In 2012 a group of investors led by longtime downtown attorney Lance Johns bought the bar from the Sobchiks’ son Ron and restored the building to its original mid-century glory.

Atomic Liquors at 917 Fremont Street is the oldest freestanding bar in Las Vegas — the Sobchiks predate every other surviving independent bar operation in the city by years or decades. The current operation has preserved the rooftop, the original bar footprint, and the broader mid-century identity that made the building a landmark of downtown Las Vegas.

Atomic Liquors in the Las Vegas Valley

Holding Tavern License #00001 makes Atomic Liquors a literal piece of Las Vegas history — the first business of its kind ever licensed in the city. The Fremont East corridor has built up around Atomic over the past decade as the downtown entertainment district has expanded, but Atomic Liquors precedes all of it by sixty-plus years and remains the corridor’s historical anchor.

Trade

Cocktail Bar & Tavern

Owner

Lance Johns (lead investor; group purchased 2012)

Founded

1954 (Tavern License #00001)

Address

917 Fremont St, Las Vegas, NV 89101

Website

atomic.vegas