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Vendors in Las Vegas expand to keep up with industry

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Victor Gill remembers a time when business in Las Vegas was simpler.

In the early 1970s, when his father, Jack Gill, worked as a print broker -- the middleman between casinos and the print shops -- Victor Gill sensed opportunity.

Victor Gill, who was a University of Nevada, Las Vegas student at the time, told his father that they should open their own print shop. The casino industry was starting to expand and Gill's Printing could produce every conceivable product, from promotional brochures to place mats used inside casino coffee shops and tickets used by valet parking attendants.

"We started out exclusively with the casinos," Victor Gill recalled. "Eventually, we hired a salesman to cold call all the mom and pop businesses. Dad and I concentrated on the casinos."

Thirty-seven years later, Gill's Printing operates out of a headquarters on Paradise Road south of McCarran International Airport, maintains a warehouse nearby on Grier Drive, and operates a secondary facility in Phoenix. The company employs about 90 workers between the three locations.

Gill's still prints brochures, place mats and valet parking stubs. But as the casino industry expanded in the past three decades, so has Gill's, which produces all types of casino-industry forms and documents.

Victor Gill estimates the company has invested more than $2 million to keep up with the needs of its expanding hotel-casino clients.

Six years ago, Gill's added a computerized mailing system that has allowed the business to become a one-stop shop for clients. Gill's can print a marketing brochure and either mass mail the piece to a particular casino client's customer data base or target a select group of the casino's customers.

"The direct mail business is probably why we are still here," said JoAnn Gill-Grady, Victor Gill's sister and the business's vice president and sales manager.

Other longtime casino industry vendors have similar stories. Their businesses grew to meet the Las Vegas gaming industry's expanding needs. Small storefronts gave way to large warehouses and the companies added workers and technology to service the seemingly endless expansion.

"We started out with the gaming industry," said Charlie Jackson, chief operating officer of Shetakis Wholesalers, which was founded in Las Vegas in 1959 and provides meat, poultry and dairy products to Strip and locals casinos. "The tide of growth was phenomenal. The megaresorts came up but we also saw the growth in the locals business as well."

Lately, vendors have seen their revenue pull back somewhat, reflecting what's happening in the casino business. Nevada has suffered through 20 straight months of declining gaming revenues.

"It's the biggest challenge because the entire town is off," said Dominic Caldara, president of Get Fresh Produce. "We made some changes in our operation early to streamline the business. But we also dropped any communication stumbling blocks with our customers. We've worked together to make adjustments."

Universal Bakery owner Rafael Gonzalez, whose company supplies cakes, pastries and other baked products to coffee shops and buffets operated by Station Casinos and Boyd Gaming Corp., said small businesses depend upon a healthy gaming industry. Gonzalez, who spent 15 years as a pastry chef at Landmark, Frontier and Golden Nugget before opening his wholesale business, employs a small staff at his production facility in east Las Vegas. His first customer was Palace Station and his business grew steadily as the company expanded to 18 casinos in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson.

If you snack on a pastry or a muffin inside one of Station Casinos' Feast Buffets, it was probably baked by Gonzalez's business.

"If the casinos do poorly, I do poorly," Gonzalez said. "I appreciate the casino operators staying with us through these tough times. Hopefully, we'll all weather the storm together."

Get Fresh Produce started in 1989 selling fruits and vegetables to "white-tablecloth" restaurants, Caldara said. But as soon as the high-end eateries began showing up inside Strip hotel-casinos, Caldera's business grew.

Get Fresh sells produce to most of the major gaming operators.

"We've been fortunate to grow along with the casinos," Caldara said. "But we're also no longer dependent on just the casinos. We've branched off into the retail business, such as grocery stores, and we still work with the local restaurants. We have products that people want and desire."

Diversifying beyond gaming has helped Gill. The company handles printing projects for Cox Communications and the Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Universal Bakery has a small retail outlet near Bonanza Road and Eastern Avenue to serve the Hispanic community.

"The economy hurt the casinos the most, and they are our most important customers," Gonzalez said.

Shetakis serves the Clark County School District, neighborhood markets and restaurants.

Shetakis went through its own financial issues in 2000 when it was in bankruptcy. The current management purchased the company and Shetakis has remained the casino industry's primary meat-and-poultry provider. The company put a 110,000-square-foot warehouse on Western Avenue, a mile west of the Strip, to better serve its casino customers.

"Our revenues are up about 3 or 4 percent in the last year and a half," said Jackson, Shetakis' chief operating officer since 2001.

He said the casino business has gone through several changes.

Consolidation brought the purchasing element to the corporate side and away from individual properties. For example, MGM Grand Corp. spent $6.4 billion in 2000 to acquire Mirage Resorts and $7.9 billion in 2005 to buy Mandalay Resort Group. Harrah's Entertainment bought Caesars Entertainment in 2005 for $9 billion. Those mergers and subsequent deals put 18 Strip area casinos under the control of two companies.

Also, many casinos turned their restaurant operations over to independent operators.

Through it all Shetakis has remained one of the industry's largest nongaming equipment vendors.

"We've always worked closely with our customers to understand their needs, especially in this challenging economic environment," Jackson said. "We worked closely with MGM Mirage after its last merger to better understand their needs. I think that's one benefit of working with a local company."

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