If you’ve ever gone to a nightclub on the Vegas Strip and wondered where the super connected and often unfairly good-looking humans mixing your drinks are going on their nights off, you’re not alone. They’re likely heading to the roughly six blocks of Fremont St. in Downtown that stretch east from Las Vegas Boulevard to 8th St. and sit between Ogden and Carson.

The Fremont East Entertainment District has transformed in the last decade from a gritty no man’s land to a collection of neighborhood bars, independent eateries, and an incubator for young musicians and artists. “We have this set of kids that are throwing their own parties and promoting their own events. They’re their own DJs,” says Ryan Doherty, founder of Corner Bar Management, which owns eight of the venues and is in many ways responsible for the renaissance of this area. “We’re inviting thinking artists on our side of the street, and we’re way more on the gourmet end of electronic experimental music—the here and now music.”

Doherty refers to a side of the street because Fremont has two distinct personalities. On one side, there’s the Fremont Street Experience, the wild, five-block pedestrian district covered in a 1,400-foot-long canopy LED screen exploding with 3D effects in more than 16 million pixels. Walk east through the canopy, then keep on walking: Fremont East is right across Las Vegas Boulevard. Where the Fremont Street Experience is all high-production sensory overload, Fremont East is the city’s rebellious younger sister.  There’s no shortage of neon, though: Fremont East is lit by restored neon signs from the city’s long-gone icons.

“There are so many artists, mixologists and bartenders that start with us and work their way up to the Strip. We’re like the farm league for the big casinos and we’re okay with that,” Doherty says. (That cool Strip bartender probably started here, too.) “You get to our blocks and you’re making clear musical choices. Do I want to see a live band?  Do I want to see a DJ? Do I want EDM?”  All the venues are different, from Discopussy, the warehouse space that pays homage to early underground techno and is presided over by the spreading tentacles of a disco-octopus, to Lucky Day, with its cantina vibe, Latin house DJs and Mexican bingo nights.

Nightlife in Fremont East

Fremont Street is in fact the oldest street in Las Vegas, the first to be paved and the first to get a stoplight. Orchestrating the neighborhood’s cultural revival wasn’t Doherty’s first business. The former media company owner was invited to move his offices to a burgeoning early Downtown Project in 2011 by the late Tony Hsieh but wasn’t ready to move. To help breathe life into the neighborhood, he opened Commonwealth, which started as a neighborhood bar and is now the cornerstone of the Fremont East scene. The Laundry Room, the unmarked former actual laundry room for El Cortez casino, sits below it and arguably started the city’s contemporary speakeasy scene. Doherty opened Park on Fremont, the burger and beer garden across the street, to prevent would-be buyers from opening a planned Steak ’n Shake there. The success of some of Corner Bar’s early ventures paved the way for other businesses, like the pocket-sized street food restaurant, Le Thai, and the comfort-food favorite, EAT.

One mixed-use Container Park with a fire-breathing praying mantis and a bunch of venues later, Fremont East has become a lively-but-not-commercial zone that’s a go-to not just for locals, but visitors who want to party like them. Like many great neighborhoods in other cities, Fremont East is still a little gritty, Doherty says. “But that’s okay. The ride is more fun and feels more special while it’s materializing.”