Paul W.
Yelp
The Bleau Bar is the lobby bar inside the main entrance of the Fountainbleau Hotel, and is really the first thing one sees when entering this place. The first time I'd come to the Fountainbleau post-renovation, I didn't know how I felt about this bar. I mean, you walk into the lobby of this iconic hotel that's been around since the 1950s and see the brass-framed entrance doors and windows, the grand chandeliers overhead, the black and white "bowtie" floor tiles and one can sense that you've just stepped into a special place. Then you look directly ahead and see this modern and in some ways almost futuristic looking lobby bar called the "Bleau Bar" all lit up with colored LED lighting, and it's a complete contrast to the rest of the more traditional and tastefully appointed lobby. Then you order a drink, and the price makes many a SOBE bars' prices look reasonable.
That being said, I've been to this bar a few handfuls of times, mostly to meet up with groups of people for dinner at one of the restaurants in the Fountainbleau complex, but more often to come here for a post-dinner drink and to watch "the show". "The Show", of course, is the incredible people watching that starts at about 11:15 as the doors to LIV at the far end of the lobby are about to open. You see the groups of guys who think they're the stuff that every woman must dream about, they walk up to the entrance of LIV all cocky, and are promptly turned away by the doormen because they have no women in their group; You see the very young women who are wearing about 5 layers of makeup and the shortest skirts known to man (sans panties, of course), but who would actually look much more attractive if they'd peel off about 1/2 the makeup. In short, they're dressed and made up in a way that screams "Some guy with an expensive car and bags of cash is gonna take me home tonight and treat me like the pig I'm made up to look like." Then, of course, there are the mother/daughter duos where the mom and daughter are both dressed and made up the same, so the daughter can move in for the kill first, and mom gets all the "spoils" who get turned away by her whelp.
In the end, though I still have mixed feelings about the bar, and despise being charged $20 for a mixed drink (though it's generally a strong pour) and may only give the bar itself 3 stars, the people watching and entertainment value when LIV is opening gets a strong 5. Averaged out, we'll give 'er 4 stars overall...