Stars Casino moving to West Valley Mall

Stars Casino will head to West Valley Mall and move into the former Famous Dave’s building in July, opening with a full-service restaurant and bar for guests.

Emmanuel Macalino, chief operation officer of Stars Casino, said the card room is tentatively planned to open July 1 in its new space. The casino received its conditional use permit from the city in February.

“We have been happy here on Clover Road since 2013, we had an opening here in May of 2013 but when we saw the opportunity to acquire the Famous Dave’s building we jumped on it because I think for the business itself we needed something with a better infrastructure, meaning a full bar and a kitchen that’s fabulous. It speaks for itself,” Macalino said.

Stars Casino spent a number of years on West 11th Street as the Comstock Card Room next to the Shamrock Bar before moving to its current site at 775 W. Clover Road.

“We had to answer a simple question, do we invest more on the property that we are currently operating from or invest in a property that we can grow and stay longer term in. Famous Dave’s building is perfect for us,” Macalino said.

The move to the Naglee Road site will give Stars Casino a slightly smaller gaming space than they have on Clover Road but will easily accommodate their current limit of nine gaming tables.

“But what’s good about the new location is that it has a full bar and a kitchen that is already complete. So were able to merge those three components together and operate more efficiently and effectively from there,” Macalino said.

Stars Casino was closed for several months during the COVID-19 pandemic but was able to eventually open outdoors, Macalino saying that it was the first card room in California to be able to reopen outdoors.

Macalino said he worked with the city to change some of the outdated city ordinances and language to allow the casino to operate 24-hours, seven days a week since late last year.

“We have been going through the peaks and valleys but we did manage to open for a few months outdoors and it did help us maintain some kind of revenue stream but it was still very, very trying for us,” Macalino said.

Since the reopening of the economy and the lifting of all COVID-19 restrictions the gaming play returned indoors.

The casino hopes to bring some new life to the mall area.

“The building at Naglee, what jumps out at us first of all it’s a beautiful building, plenty of parking spaces and it’s right at the heart of West Valley Mall,” Macalino said. “It has more exposure — the amount of cars and pedestrians passing by is very appealing to us. The exposure the building itself and being part of that push to reinvigorate that area is quite appealing, we’re happy to be part of that movement.”

Macalino said he is finalizing plans to submit to the city for remodeling changes and customizing it for gaming use. He said it will be a seamless transition to the new site and said they would be closed at most one day to accommodate the move.

He said that should the soft opening in July be delayed the new site would open by August, and a grand opening will be planned for later.