Bryan Pierzga, bar supervisor at Sand Dollar at Plaza in downtown Las Vegas, and his team are concocting some of the most-innovative, creative cocktails in the city.
The Sand Dollar team creates all the cocktails together; it’s a family event when they get together. “Our cocktails are seasonal and creative as anything you’re going to find at any award-winning bar or lounge,” Pierzga says.
For more than a dozen years, the Pennsylvania native has been tooling around with flavors and cocktails since he started out in his home state, working for various bars in and around his hometown. “I thought about becoming a chef and going to culinary school, because I liked working with flavors. And when I found out that there were bartenders doing the same thing, that’s when I decided I needed to move to Vegas, being a hospitality town,” he says. “Vegas was only supposed to be temporary—make some money, get some experience; that was 2014.”
And Pierzga is still here, working in a bar he loves. After plying his trade at many well-respected bars on and off the Strip, he joined Sand Dollar (at its original location on Spring Mountain Road) in 2018. When the locals favorite bar opened its second location this year at Plaza, Pierzga was tapped to help run it. “Out of all the experiences I’ve had since starting in the industry, (Anthony) Jamison (co-owner) and Sand Dollar is one of the favorite places I have ever worked,” he says. “The Sand Dollar crew has always been able to deliver on what a bar and what hospitality should be. … I’ve always strived and wanted to be in a place like this.”
Libation: Ai Papai
Every day, the Sand Dollar crew is at the bar hours before opening, prepping and batching ingredients for cocktails. “We use unexpected stuff, crazy ingredients,” Pierzga says. A tasty example of this is the Ai Papai, a blend of cucumber-infused Avuá Cachaça, fresh mango syrup, lime juice and a sweet corn reduction.
Benefit: Get on the dance floor and enjoy live rock music nightly from local bands and national headliners.
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