I remember my dad saying, Why don't you create your own restaurant?

I'm like, Okay, maybe someday.

He's like, You don't know when Someday is.

Let's go; let's try this out.

Let's see what happens.

Let's put all these things together.

♪♪♪ -Man, you guys are killing it.

Wow, man, I'm kind of blown.

I did not think I was going to witness that walking into here today.

♪♪♪ -Hi, my name is Nina Manchev, and I'm the owner of Forte Tapas in Las Vegas.

I was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and I emigrated to the United States when I was three years old.

My parents decided to come to Vegas and see what the city has to offer, and we put roots down here.

I thought it was a great city.

I had a lot of fun growing up here.

I feel like the Strip was kind of my playground.

A lot of kids that grow up in Vegas, especially like in the '90s, you go to like Luxor, Excalibur, Mirage to see the different animals and things like that.

So it was a lot of fun.

Food was definitely a huge part of my family.

My dad cooked a lot for us.

It was always an adventure because he loved experimenting with different cultures and different cuisines, and I feel like that's what inspired me later in life.

I have memories of me creating little menus and cooking whatever I could put together, which was barely anything.

But when they come home, I kind of had like a little restaurant setup, because I thought that's something that they would enjoy.

Because restaurants made me happy.

It made me happy to go to restaurants and be around people.

And everyone's always usually happy when they're out, you know, in a fun environment.

I went to college at UNLV.

I went into hospitality, and then I changed my major to food and beverage because I quickly discovered that I want to be in restaurants.

I thought it was so fun.

I read all the books.

And we had one assignment that we had to create our own restaurant.

We had to from scratch design a menu, design the floor plan, staffing.

When I put it together, I'm like, This is really, really cool.

And I remember going to my dad, I wonder if someday I could, you know, be a manager at a restaurant.

I remember my dad saying, Well, you don't have to imagine working at a restaurant.

Why not create your own?

And I'm like, Maybe someday.

He's like, You don't know when someday is.

Let's start talking about it.

Let's start having the conversation.

There was absolutely no brakes on it.

Like my dad saying, Let's go; let's try this out.

Let's see what happens.

Let's put all these things together.

When it actually came together, it was absolutely surreal.

The restaurant officially opened on August 16 of 2009.

I was 23 years old when I opened Forte Tapas.

One of the biggest challenges of being 23 years old is that people do not take you seriously.

I had a goal.

And whether people took me seriously or not, the restaurant is open.

People are coming to eat the food, and the show went on.

A lot of the dishes were inspired by my culture and heritage, being from Bulgaria.

We decided to highlight other amazing dishes from other cultures that were nearby and showing how those things can play together.

We pay respect to these different cultures.

It brings them back to maybe something that their grandmother or grandfather made or something that they experienced in their childhood through the different lineages.

I had to face a lot of uncertainties.

I'm excited about what we're creating.

I'm like, Everyone's going to be excited about it.

But when you open the doors, not all of those people are necessarily going to understand what you're trying to do.

I doubted this idea would work many times.

In 2009, there wasn't a lot of fusion concepts.

So going to a place where there's Spanish food, Bulgarian food, Russian food, Georgian food, Serbian food, all these different cultures represented was confusing.

You're like, Maybe this isn't going to work.

Maybe this is not going to happen.

And I think over the years, people's palates have changed and they're more open and it's better received than maybe it was in 2009.

-The quarantine for COVID-19 was one of the most interesting times.

We had to shut down.

It was definitely a very tough moment, and I didn't know how we would survive.

I didn't understand that, Oh, we're closing, and we're not going to open again.

I was thinking, Well, is it the food that people really want or the experience?

I've always wanted to do little cooking demonstrations.

I created these kits that contained all of the different ingredients, and people would come and pick them up at Forte.

And then together we would cook through Instagram and Facebook Live.

And then it went into YouTube.

Hello, and Happy Easter everybody.

After the first episode, one of my customers reached out who had a production company.

He's like, if you want help filming this, I would love to come help you film these cooking shows.

They're so much fun.

How's everybody doing with that?

I think the customers really enjoyed it because they had something to do.

The next day I would go on Instagram, and they would post the pictures of the dishes they made.

It gave everybody some sort of a connection.

Everybody kind of got involved.

Thank you guys.

Thank you for tuning in.

This is the pan I'll be using.

We're going to talk about the different dishes that he created.

So we'll take another drink.

And as you know, if I don't mess something up or forget something, then this is not really a show I'm a part of.

The cooking classes definitely made a big impact.

And for those at home, all you have to do, you have to preheat your oven.

I should have probably said that before.

It's okay.

[laughter] When we transitioned into reopening the restaurant, we had a lot of those customers excited to come into the restaurant and return.

When we reopened, had to shift gears into something completely different.

I think Las Vegas is one of the most interesting places in the world.

I think it's great how many new people are coming into here and actually receiving Las Vegas as a city that they can live in and grow roots here.

I am very proud to be offering my culture to Las Vegas.

It's an honor for me to represent my culture and cuisine in a positive way.

All the new people that are coming in, it's only going to make this town better and better.

♪♪♪ I'm going to show you how to make our most popular dish, the ajarski khachapuri.

This is a traditional dish from Georgia, but it's very widely accepted through other cultures throughout Eastern Europe.

And it's made its way to America.

Many people come to the restaurant and call it the bread boat, and I'll show you why.

For this dish, we have our dough.

And we basically want to make a big space to mix all the cheeses and create kind of like the canoe shape.

So first, we start off by stretching the dough.

A lot of flour.

The ajarski khachapuri is regionally from Adjara in Georgia.

It typically has three different types of cheese.

We use queso fresco, Bulgarian sheep milk feta, and mozzarella.

You can find these almost everywhere, and they tend to be a little bit lower of a cost point than if you're going to get the Eastern European imported alternatives.

So we're going to mix that, again, queso fresco, mozzarella, and the feta cheese.

And that's going to be the basis of what goes inside the khachapuri, and it all just melts so beautifully together.

And what I like to typically do is start from the outside and work in, just because the biggest part of this is the crust is filled with cheese.

So you get like a bite of cheese and egg with every slice.

Some flavors are insane.

I actually did a bunch of different videos on like how to pronounce this.

And when people come in here, they're like, How do I eat this?

How do I pronounced this dish?

So it's just basically the bread boat.

And you can see I'm just kind of folding in the sides.

You can see all the cheese over there.

And then we just stretch it again and fold throughout.

And for me, the most important part is you want to pinch-- we like to pinch the ends so that everything once it bakes and rises, it stays kind of in this like little canoe shell.

You'll see what the final, the final product.

But we add some butter.

This goes into the oven for about 10-15 minutes just to get a nice crust.

♪♪♪ So now we took our khachapuri out of the oven after it's been in there for about 12 minutes.

And the final stage of this is cracking the egg and popping it in for another 4.

So when we take it out, you'll see it has that runny egg in it, and then we'll be ready to mix it together.

Now we have the finished khachapuri over here.

See the egg is over easy or runny, whatever you want to call it.

And then we typically mix it for you at the table.

Then you see kind of how the melty texture of everything...

So it's a fun dish.

Really great for sharing.

Really satisfying, and it has all of your favorite things in it-- cheese, egg, butter, bread.

All right.

Here it is.

(Tommy Caprio) All right.

(Jeremy Helal) That looks amazing.

That looks really good.

-So, like you said, this is just cheese, egg, and-- -It's three different types of cheese, butter, and egg all baked together.

-I'm ready to try this.

This looks fantastic.

-Okay, wait a minute.

I think we're going to really elevate the experience, and we're going to do it a traditional way we do it at Forte and add some caviar to it.

What do you think?

-Okay.

-Well, you're in luck.

-You just happen to have caviar here.

-And listen, this is the osetra caviar.

-Okay.

-The textures and the richness of the khachapuri with kind of a little bit of the saltiness and brininess of the caviar is killer because a lot of people are used to having the traditional caviar service with the blinis, the egg white, the egg yolk, the creme fraiche.

It's basically like we took that, put it in the bread all together, and we're going to top it with this.

So dig in.

I mean-- -Caviar is good to me.

-Why don't you show us what we should do.

-Okay, I'm going to do one.

Sorry, I'm going to take the end over here and dip it in here.

So we have our eggs, our cheese, our butter, all the creamy, rich textures on top of the bread.

And then when we add the caviar to it, it completely blows it out of the water.

You got the saltiness, the earthiness, the nuttiness, the brininess from this one product and all together.

Kill it.

-Go ahead.

Get in there.

-Okay.

Let's get some cheese in here.

All right.

-A little bit of caviar.

-A little bit of caviar.

Okay, cheers.

-Cheers!

-I like our food because you can you can eat it with your hands.

It's an interactive experience.

And it's a good way-- you're literally breaking bread with your friends and family.

-That tastes incredible.

-Wow.

-That's, that's amazing.

-Yep.

It's like a pizza and an omelet.

Yeah, it's like a calzone.

I do like the saltiness of it.

-You're right, it does amp up the flavor.

It does really add another dimension to that cheese.

-Yep.

Because the cheeses all together, they're not very salty.

You get a little of salt from the feta, like the pickled cheese.

For the most part, it's very mellow.

I think it's interesting because you said you relate this to a calzone, which it's not very different to a calzone or a pizza.

Every culture has their own representation of a similar dish.

That's what, that's what connects all of us.

And it's, it's almost like a universal language.

If you go to the Republic of Georgia and try this dish over there, you already have something to connect it to that's like a personal experience.

-Well, I think that's an interesting point, too, because Europe is much more connected, in general.

There's influences from all parts of it.

And so, yes, it could be like an Italian calzone, but that's only because the people intermingled much more, you know, more closer they were.

That was really good.

This is good.

You guys want to try it?

-Yep.

Might as well.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ -We are Pure Sport.

I'm Justin.

-I'm Jared.

-I'm Gage.

-And we are the winners of the 2023 Rising Stars competition.

-Yeah, last year we signed up for the competition, but we didn't really make it past the first round.

[growl] This year we figured, give it our best shot, and here we are.

-Yeah, they asked us to join the competition this year.

-How many of you have seen us before?

Good amount?

-I think we've learned a lot since we tried out last year.

-Yeah.

I mean, we're better musicians now, and we have an actual following and a crowd who actually listens to us.

-It's very different, a very different environment.

-We just had a ton of like live experience and opportunities to play together and just more time.

-More business under our belt.

-Well, let's announce one winner here.

And playing the Rolling Stone stage at Life is Beautiful, Pure Sport.

[cheers and applause] -When we won, it was honestly just a surprise.

We didn't expect to win by any means.

-There was lots of hugging and crying going on.

It was a very cool experience just because we definitely didn't think we'd win.

We always, you know, would want to, but there's so many great musicians that we played with.

And it was an emotional experience.

-Yeah, yeah.

How did we win?

-Here we are on site, and we're just-- it's crazy to be here.

We're very excited.

-So now we're here behind the scenes a little day early here in our hive biz on the construction zone while they set up.

And it's just crazy to see it all come together.

-Let's go check out the stage.

-Let's do it, boys.

-Well, here we are at the Rolling Stone stage of Life is Beautiful.

This is essentially the biggest opportunity we've had.

This is literally crazy.

-Yeah, this is the biggest stage we've played.

-Definitely gonna be the loudest we've ever been.

-Oh, yeah.

I'm sorry for the people's ears in advance.

-This is insane.

-I can't believe we stand over the crowd.

-Yeah, super excited.

-Yeah, I'm really stoked.

-Getting loaded up here.

Getting ready to go to the festival.

Get all packed up and ready.

-Big day!

-Big day.

-Huge day.

-Help me.

Someone help.

[laughter] -When we played Life is Beautiful, it just felt amazing.

I mean, that was one of our better shows for sure.

-Yeah.

Performance-wise, it just went swimmingly.

I mean, it felt great.

It sounded great too.

I mean, we could feel and hear everything.

It was just a huge amount of sound, and it felt amazing.

-We played early, but people showed up, and they, they really seemed to dig what we were putting out.

-Yeah, it was super fun.

-A lot of pressure to not mess up.

But I mean, we've-- -We've never been that loud before.

-Yeah.

-That was a lot of pressure to, I don't know, just play all the correct notes.

-It's always the first song that's the scariest.

Once you're past that, it's golden, smooth sailing.

-Yeah.

I mean, Mondays Dark, marching out the space, the whole crew there, they really genuinely set up just such a good experience for us, and we couldn't be happier to be a part of it.

-It's wild to see so much local love from them, and we really appreciate it.

♪♪♪ Hey, everybody.

I'm Blake Lewis.

I live here in Vegas.

I'm a singer-songwriter, recording artist.

You might remember me from Season 6 of American Idol.

♪ Let's take a ride to infinity and lose ourself while we can ♪♪ But today, I'm here to check out a really cool local band, and I want you to join me.

[punk rock music] ♪ I say, wear what you want to ♪ ♪ I say, be who you want to ♪ ♪ -- old society ♪ ♪ Somehow, all you want to do is ♪ ♪ Take, take, take it all away ♪ ♪ Take, take, take it all away ♪ ♪ One time, you fought for the changes ♪ ♪ Now say, keep it the same and ♪ ♪ Blind to the irony ♪ ♪ Somehow, all you want to do is ♪ ♪ Take, take, take it all away ♪ ♪ Take, take, take it all away ♪ ♪ Back in my day we never did stuff like that ♪ ♪ Who gives a-- ♪ ♪ Kids and their cell phones I just don't understand ♪ ♪ Who gives a-- ♪ ♪ Why would you want to do that to your body ♪ ♪ Who gives a-- ♪ ♪ Nobody wants to get out there and work ♪ ♪ Who gives a-- ♪ ♪ Take, take, take it all a-- ♪ ♪ Take, take, take it all a-- ♪ ♪ Take, take, take it all away ♪♪ -Yes!

Amazing!

What's up guys?

-What's up, man?

-Man, you guys are killing it.

-Thank you.

-Justin.

-Man, I'm kind of blown-- I did not think I was going to witness that walking into here today.

First of all, are you guys from here?

-Yeah, born and raised basically, yeah.

-All of you?

How did you guys meet?

Like how do you guys know each other?

-There was this like metal rock music appreciation club at our school, and he was like, he was like the president or the vice president.

And when we saw each other-- -Was he wearing the tie?

-He was not.

-Surprisingly not, no.

[laughter] Probably would have got beat up if I was wearing a tie.

[laughter] -Just known each other ever since.

-And then you guys melded into one.

-Yeah, we always wanted to play together.

And then after a certain time of our previous bands breaking up, then we finally got a chance to play.

-Nice.

And then Pure Sport-- -Yes.

- --became one.

-Yes.

-Awesome.

What's the goal for you guys right now?

Where are you at as a band?

Yeah, where do you see yourself in the next year?

-I think we just want to spread as far as we can, hit other cities-- like start to expand a little bit and put out new music, recording or own demos, and trying to see if we can make a new album.

Try and get that live energy, but also still have production.

-Very important for punk music.

I've been recording for years.

I still don't think I've found the right sound for me.

So you know, I wish you all the luck.

Where can people find you?

-You can find us on Instagram @PureSportMusic, and as well we are on every tree-- [laughter] "Treaming"?

Let's try it again.

[laughter] -And we are on every single streaming service if you look up "Pure Sport."

-What he said.

♪♪♪ (Claire White) Welcome to the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada.

Here we explore the history of organized crime and law enforcement in the building's original federal courthouse and post office.

Let's go explore some of our exhibits.

Hi.

My name is Claire White, and I'm the Director of Education here at the Mob Museum.

And I'm very excited today to show you one of our premier artifacts.

This is the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall.

The wall against which seven members of the George "Bugs" Moran North Side Gang of Chicago were gunned down in the morning of February 14, 1929.

The massacre is still unsolved, although most people believe that it was orchestrated by Al Capone as he was the primary rival of George "Bugs" Moran's North Side Gang.

During the 13 years of prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, in Chicago, Al Capone and George "Bugs" Moran battled for supremacy in selling alcohol to the people of Chicago.

And on the morning of February 14, 1929, against this very brick wall, seven men were gunned down in this fight to sell alcohol.

On that morning, the members of the George "Bugs" Moran were meeting in a garage on the North Side, and they heard a knock at the door.

There they saw two men dressed as police officers, and they let them in, thinking that they were about to be arrested for bootlegging.

Instead, they were lined up against this wall and shot execution style.

Six of the seven men died at the scene, and the seventh survived for a few hours at a hospital.

His name was Frank Gusenberg.

Although the massacre remains unsolved, it is considered a key element in the history of forensic science, as a number of important techniques, including forensic ballistics, were used to investigate the massacre.

Besides the wall against which the St Valentine's Day Massacre occurred, the Mob Museum is also lucky to house the majority of the forensic ballistics evidence from the investigation of this crime.

We have on display bullets from the massacre, as well as coroner's reports, and the marks and wound sheets which show the actual bullet wounds in the victims of the massacre.

These pieces of evidence were able to connect the firearms used with a hitman named Fred "Killer" Burke, although he was not ever brought to trial.

To discover more about the massacre and other historical events in mob history, join us at the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas.

♪♪♪ -That's the show.

Watch more Vegas All In stories and moments whenever you want to.

Go online and search Vegas All In PBS, and we'll see you there.

-I'm all in.

-You know, we're talking about Las Vegas.

So yeah, yeah, I'm all in.

♪♪♪