Brad Garrett is navigating his big boat to a new port.
Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club is moving from the Tropicana, it’s home since July 2010, to MGM Grand. The club’s general manager, Tony Camacho, confirmed today that the club has given its 60-day notice to Tropicana officials and plans to reopen under the same name on March 29, and Garrett is expected to perform. The move first surfaced today on Fox 5's "More" show. Coincidentally, or not, the club opens the weekend of April Fool's Day.
“We are getting into a better situation,” Camacho said during a phone call this afternoon. “We’re building a new club from the ground up, and it should be very nice in every way.”
Garrett had recently compared his foray into comedy club ownership as “a very expensive habit, like owning a big boat that seats 300 people” and acknowledged that he had yet to turn a consistent profit at the Trop. He entered the four-wall partnership with the hotel nostalgically, as the space was once the site of a club headed up by comic legend Rodney Dangerfield.
The new club will be located in the long walkway leading from the casino floor toward MGM Grand Garden Arena. In a text message today, Garrett said the club at the MGM Grand will still be called Brad Garrett's Comedy Club. The Trop club will remain open through January 2012, and the shows on the schedule for this weekend, starring comics Chas Elstner and Chris Bowers, would not be affected.
Brad Garrett's Maximum Hope Foundation Poker Tournament included Annie Duke, Jason Alexander, Ray Romano, Larry and Camille Ruvo, Cheryl Hines and Jose Canseco at the Tropicana on Sept. 17, 2011.
Garrett’s uprooting is the latest in a series of recent departures at the Tropicana. Over the past month, it has been announced that the hotel has cut loose club operator Nikki Beach and will operate its nightclub, pool space and adjoining cafe itself. Showroom headliner Gladys Knight is ending her run Oct. 21 at the theater named for her, and this week Tom McCartney announced his resignation as the hotel’s president.
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