New restaurants opening soon in Las Vegas include Crab N Spice, Liquid Diet, and Via Focaccia at Ellis Island

Making a splash in the Gateway District’s burgeoning bar and restaurant scene takes imagination, and a new proposed restaurant on Commerce Street can guarantee that it will conjure up a truly original concept. Liquid Diet filed paperwork to move into Suite 130 at 1415 S. Commerce Street, planned a major renovation of the 1,344-square-foot building, and added a 480-square-foot rear patio. The restaurant is about 60 feet from the street and prospective customers will walk across the small parking lot, past new murals, and enter a themed room that “tells a story of post-civilization recovery.”

The menu focuses on fresh and healthy ingredients, and the space is enhanced with a forest decor inside and out. Teased highlights include staff in costumes pouring freshly squeezed specialty drinks and “unexpected immersive entertainment.” Project applicant Bret Pfister is an experienced local performer and director and was most recently seen on the Miss Behave game show at Bally’s Resort. An estimated debut date has not been disclosed.

Another seafood boil brings flavorful crabs

Crab-N-Spice. Crab N Spice

Seafood boils seem to be all the rage lately, with new ones opening regularly over the past year – think Angry Crab Shack, The Vikings Boiling Seafood, and more. Crab N Spice plans to open a 3,229 square foot seafood restaurant on Lake Mead Boulevard and Buffalo Drive.

Co-owner McMillian (Ian) Latayan recommends garlic noodles or Cajun noodles when the restaurant opens, hopefully in October. Guests can choose a sauce from options ranging from mildly spicy to Assin8 spicy and then order it by the pound for a variety of seafood such as crab legs, dungeness crabs, prawns, clams, clams, lobsters, and more. Guests can also add sausage, corn, quail eggs, or potatoes to their bags.

According to Latayan, the 100-seat restaurant at 7501 W. Lake Mead Boulevard in Suite 100 near the Grape Street Cafe will have decorations reminiscent of a pier setting, with wooden beams with ropes and pine and bricks on the walls. Outside, the restaurant is planning a shady terrace with Misters who can accommodate another 30 to 40 guests.

Bib-supply cook-in-the-bag specialist Crab N Spice was originally launched in 2014 and now operates in Palmdale, Ventura, Sacramento and Bakersfield, California.

Sandwiches on the way to Ellis Island

A focaccia sandwich made by Chef Ismaele Romano, soon to be found on Via Focaccia on Ellis Island. Ismaele Romano / Facebook

Chef Ismaele Romano, who won the World Sandwich Champion title at the International Pizza Expo in August, plans to open Via Focaccia on Ellis Island. The Sicilian chef’s porchetta and eggplant sandwich, served on kale and dandelion focaccia, took first place in the competition and is just one of the menu items appearing in the resort’s casino east of the Strip. Guests can expect homemade Sicilian recipes with traditional preparations and Italian ingredients that Romano ate as a boy in Italy. Ellis Island expects the restaurant to open sometime in September.

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4250 Koval Lane, Las Vegas, NV 89109

1415 S. Commerce Street, Las Vegas, NV 89102