The next time you drive through the Grapevine and approach the forest of oil rigs outside Bakersfield, look for a six-deck guitar.
That would be the Hard Rock Casino Tejon, whose opening Thursday brings industrial-strength Indian gaming (and some Hollywood pizzazz) to a territory better known for cowboy hats, farmland and oil drilling.
The Tejon casino is located in the rural community of Mettler, near the convergence of Interstate 5 and State Route 99, “a stone's throw” from Los Angeles, suggested Hard Rock Casino Tejon president Chris Kelley.
In effect, the casino is a $600 million bet by the leaders of Hard Rock International and the Tejon Indian Tribe that they can take on a central role among Southern California's many Indian casinos.
The property is the first large-scale gaming and entertainment destination in Kern County.
(Photography by Makenzie Beeney for Hard Rock International)
A wind sculpture at the entrance to the casino.
(Cristian Costea for Hard Rock International)
The tie? Most notably, 150,000 square feet of gaming space, including 58 table games and more than 2,000 slot machines, puts it among the largest casinos in Southern California, on par with many along the Strip in Las Vegas.
And of course, since this is a Hard Rock company, there are pop music artifacts on display. Among them: the blue velvet hooded minidress Sabrina Carpenter wore in her “Why Please Please” music video, guitars signed by Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt, Beck's tambourine, and Natalie Cole's orange heels.
The casino also includes four restaurants serving Asian street food, tacos, pizza and American comfort food (especially Nashville hot chicken), and an additional feature. At select hours, Kelley said, staff will put up a divider to create Deep Cut, a fancier “speakeasy” that will emphasize steak and seafood.
“This is something no other Hard Rock Café has…a restaurant within a restaurant,” Kelley said, leading a tour in the days leading up to the opening.
Live action table games include blackjack, craps, roulette and baccarat.
(Photography by Makenzie Beeney for Hard Rock International)
Plans for the second phase of the project will include a 400-room hotel and spa on site, along with a 2,800-seat Hard Rock Live venue designed to host concerts, sporting events and ultimately make Kern County a premier destination for travelers and fans. Officials declined to share a timeline for the next delivery.
Although its global empire began with a London cafe in 1971, Hard Rock International has been owned by Florida's Seminole Tribe since 2007. The company's Native ownership was “a major influence” on the Tejon Tribe's decision to join, said Tejon Tribe Chairman Octavio Escobedo III. Hard Rock Casino Tejon is owned by the Tejon Indian Tribe and managed by Hard Rock International.
For the Tejon Tribe and its 1,523 enrolled members, the casino represents a new chapter in a challenging saga. In the 1850s, the Tejon were included in the creation of California's first Indian reservation, which was later closed by federal officials in the 1860s. More than a century later, in 1979, the tribe was omitted from a list of formally recognized tribes by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, an apparent error that took decades to correct.
When the Badger gained federal recognition in late 2011, game plans quickly materialized. By late 2016, the tribe had launched its acquisition of the casino site.
The Deep Cut restaurant bills itself as an “elevated steakhouse experience.”
(Photography by Makenzie Beeney for Hard Rock International)
For the tribe, Escobedo said, the long-term outlook likely includes the development of a residential community, which the Tejón has not had for more than a century, as the tribe aspires to “financial sovereignty.” Although he declined to specify the amount of money that would be required, he did say that “it will take an enormous amount of financial discipline to achieve this.”
So far, things look promising. Escobedo said 52 tribal members have signed up to work in casinos and “I would love to see that number double over the next year.”
Long before the Seminoles purchased control of Hard Rock International, the tribe pioneered Indian gaming in the United States, beginning with a bingo hall in Hollywood, Florida, in 1979. Through new investments and legal victories rooted in tribal sovereignty, tribes in 29 U.S. states have built hundreds of gaming operations, which together gross more than $40 billion a year.
Beyond its prospects for the Tejon Tribe, the casino's arrival means about 1,100 new jobs for the Bakersfield metropolitan area, which lost a beloved entertainment venue in August when Buck Owens' Crystal Palace closed after 29 years.
Owens, who died in 2006, was a longtime resident of Bakersfield and a champion of the gritty “Bakersfield sound” in country music. In addition to artifacts from pop music, rock 'n' roll and Badger cultural history, Kelley said, “We're going to have some Buck Owens memorabilia. It just wouldn't be right not to.”
