Koi Restaurant Goes Belly Up at Planet Hollywood

By Scott Roeben, on January 16 2024
2 min read 4 comments
Las Vegas Las Vegas Restaurants

A longtime fixture at Planet Hollywood, Koi Restaurant and Lounge, has quietly closed.

The restaurant was located on the resort’s mezzanine level, next to Strip House.

We have such fond memories of Koi when we ate there that one time in 2012.

Dibs on these statues, obviously.

Koi Las Vegas closed Jan. 8, 2024.

Koi opened at Planet Hollywood in 2007. We don’t remember too much about the opening, other than the fact Pamela Anderson was in attendance. She wore make-up back then. Weird.

We knew our photos of Koi would come in handy someday.

It took us until today to realize “Koi” may have been a play on “coy.”

News of the closure was first shared by @VegasStarfish, which is extraordinarily irksome because Las Vegas restaurant scoop has been our exclusive domain since Eater fell off a cliff after editor Susan Stapleton left.

Presumably, Koi’s main attraction was sushi. We have never had sushi, so we didn’t really go back after our first visit. During that visit, we did enjoy a dish featuring filet mignon.

This is what happens when steaks are wet-aged.

We chatted with a Caesars Entertainment executive, and the company doesn’t have any current plans for the Koi space.

Koi was leased, it’s believed the next concept will be operated in-house. The smart money is on one of these names being involved: Vanderpump, De Laurentiis, Fieri, Flay, Stewart or Nobu.

That’s only because Gordon Ramsay already has a restaurant at Planet Hollywood, the excellent Gordon Ramsay Burger. Another Ramsay burger restaurant is already in the works at Flamingo.

The operators of Koi also lease the Strip House space, which doesn’t seem to bode well for that restaurant. They also operated Pink’s Hot Dogs, which closed some time ago.

Sometimes, when we walked past Koi, we would use the prayer wheels to reenact that scene from “Golden Child.”

Tibetan stand-up comedy: “What’s the deal with prayer wheels? You don’t pray, it’s for mantras. And it’s not a wheel, it’s a cylinder! Take care of your cocktail servers.”

Please feel free to retroactively cancel Eddie Murphy, just leave us out of it.


We trust Koi will be missed, we just aren’t entirely sure by who. Or possibly whom.

We’ll let you know what’s next for the Koi space, or if the other shoe drops for Strip House.