Beauty & Essex Happy Hour. The Strip

You enter Beauty & Essex through a pawn shop. That is not a gimmick invented for Vegas; the original Lower East Side location opens the same way, and the Cosmopolitan outpost keeps the bit, with guitars and jewelry in the cases up front before a door swings into the actual dining room. Inside it goes full jewel box: chandeliers, button-tufted banquettes, warm low light that makes everyone look about ten percent better. The crowd skews dressed up, a mix of date nights and groups warming up before a night out.

The deal here is called Social Hour, and it runs Sunday through Thursday from 5 to 7 pm in the bar and Pawn Lounge area only. Everything on the special menu is ten dollars flat: cocktails, wines by the glass, and a shortlist of the kitchen's greatest hits. That includes the grilled cheese and tomato soup dumplings topped with smoked bacon, the dish this place is famous for, plus cauliflower tacos with apple miso and gochujang, and a jumbo shrimp cocktail. On the drink side, the Hot Tropics mixes blanco tequila, pineapple, lime, and jalapeño, and it holds its own against cocktails twice the price elsewhere on the Strip.

One catch worth planning around: the pricing only applies in the bar area, so a dinner reservation in the dining room will not get it. The restaurant opens at 5, which is exactly when Social Hour starts, so showing up right at the open is the cleanest way to claim a bar stool before the seats disappear.