The dinner break at the World Series of Poker is a practice of patience and efficiency — a cruel dance against time and crowds to find food, eat it, and return before the next level starts.
Thankfully for some, the WSOP has moved to the Las Vegas Strip where you can swing a PokerGO giveaway t-shirt and hit a world-class restaurant. It stands to reason, however, that not every player dropping thousands of dollars on buy-ins and hotel nights has the extra scratch — or time — to eat like a champion on dinner break.
There can be very few places to turn on The Strip for a bargain. We are paying sports arena prices for just about everything. There’s also the time factor, and we have to be back to the farther corners of the Horseshoe or Paris before the bell rings.
Luckily we walk around The Strip all day long throughout the rest of the year looking for a quiet spot to work and a cheap lunch. Here are a few tricks for navigating the dinner break at Horseshoe and Paris.
The food hall
The Nathan's Hot Dog stand has a flat top grill so you're getting a semi-authentic experience.It’s not necessarily cheap, but it’s fast. Just head down the escalators at Horseshoe next to Jack Binion’s Steakhouse and walk to the end. It can crowd up on dinner break, so it may not be a great first option if you hate lines, but you have perfectly acceptable food court choices down there. If you are looking for a breaktime prop bet outlet, there’s an arcade just a few steps from the food court.
Ellis Island
Ellis Island opened in 1968 as a bar called the Village Pub and it has been a mainstay on Koval Lane since, serving wandering tourists just one block east of The Strip in what is now a casino with an attached hotel.
You can get a great meal in a cool spot without opening up a credit line at The Front Yard at Ellis Island. You can find a BBQ spot inside, as well as Metro Pizza and the Village Pub and Cafe — home to one of the best steak deals in town. A recent addition, The Front Yard, added a large space for watching sports and a fancier menu. Ellis Island is undergoing another expansion throughout 2025, but it’s still open and easily accessible from the WSOP. A short Uber will get you there in no time, and it’s walkable if you can stand the heat.
Stage Door
A much shorter walk out the same side door of the Horseshoe is the infamous Stage Door, a bar and package liquor store right across Flamingo Road from the Horseshoe. After a quick patdown from security, you can walk up to the bar and grab a quarter-pound hot dog and a beer for $3. That’s right — still just three dollars in this economy. It's a good hot dog, so don't sleep on this one.
The Stage Door sits in the shadow of the Monorail and you can always find a $1 beer. The $3 special is a great deal and you can be on your way in a matter of minutes — or sit around and enjoy the ambiance of a Las Vegas biker bar that doubles as a defacto headquarters for the most diehard Raider fans.
Battista’s Hole in the Wall
We wouldn’t call this inexpensive, but it’s a neat dinner break trick. Across Flamingo Road and next to the Stage Door is Battista’s Hole in the Wall. It’s famous for the unlimited wine and fixed-price dinner specials, but you won’t have the time to get the maximum value for that on a WSOP dinner break.
The ala carte menu at Battista's will have you on your way in no time. Instead, head straight over to the bar. It’s first come, first served, but you can usually find a chair — even on weekends. The bar features an à la carte menu, so you won’t get unlimited wine, salad, and everything else you might get with the full dinner, but you can get a big plate of Italian food and be back with plenty of time to spare. You can find better Italian food on The Strip but you won’t find it this convenient and it will probably cost a lot more.
CVS
There are a lot of reasons you might head over to CVS for dinner, whether it be a rough day in the Paris ballroom or an abbreviated break. No matter your reason, just about everything you might find at a gift shop in the casino is cheaper at CVS. Energy drinks, sandwiches, water, pretzels, Las Vegas-themed chocolates — CVS has it all. It might not be great food but you’ll be done eating and playing poker again and that may be all that matters to you.
There is no shame in visiting the CVS Buffet. If you only have 15 minutes and don’t want to break the bank, head directly to The Strip and the CVS is in between Horseshoe and Paris.
Done and dusted
If you’re done having chips and ready to ditch the WSOP for the evening, you’ve got a few honorable mentions to consider. These places might be too far away for a dinner break if you don’t have a car available, but they’re close enough to the WSOP to make a great post-game regroup location.
Roma Restaurant and Deli, a famous Todd Brunson spot, is on Spring Mountain Road just west of The Strip with a great Chicken Parm. Nearby on Spring Mtn Rd, Honey Pig is a cant-miss 24-hour Korean BBQ restaurant and you’re likely to see a few other poker players there. If you’re on foot, cross Flamingo for an In-N-Out Burger in the Linq Promenade. In-N-Out might be doable on a dinner break, but the unpredictable line and made-to-order service could create a risky trip.
For more helpful WSOP tips, check out our guide to beating bathroom breaks. We have also Asked the Org, so you can let us know if we missed any great deals.
