Atomic Liquors

Atomic Liquors holds Nevada tavern license #00001 — the state's first — and the title of Las Vegas's oldest freestanding bar, pouring on East Fremont since the early 1950s. The name is literal: patrons used to climb to the roof with cocktails to watch nuclear tests bloom over the desert. The long mahogany bar, the restored neon sign, and the film résumé (Casino, The Hangover, a Bourdain pilgrimage) carry the history without the bar ever feeling like a museum.

Today it runs noon to 2am daily (3am Friday-Saturday) with a modern program layered onto the bones: craft cocktails around $11-14 — several with atomic-test names — and a rotating local craft-beer wall at $7-8. The Kitchen at Atomic, the attached restaurant, stays open the full stretch to 2am with a $9 smash burger, bar pizza, and shrimp cocktail, which quietly makes this corner one of downtown's best late-night food-and-drink pairings.

It sits on the far east end of Fremont's bar crawl — a few rougher blocks past the neon core, so ride rather than wander at 2am — and weekends bring a loud tourist wave. Weekday afternoons, when the regulars hold the rail and the bartenders have time for the license-number story, are when Atomic is most itself.