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ATLANTIC CITY - The beef brisket and tendon lunch special at the Atlantic City Hilton casino here is prepared in such a way that reminds Lorna Chen of her native China.
So much so that the real estate broker from Fort Lee, N.J., keeps coming back to the small casino and its Chinese noodle bar.
"It's the only place that knows how to make it," Chen said recently, as she was finishing her favorite dish before participating in a Texas Hold 'Em Tournament just a few feet away in the new poker room.
The Atlantic City Hilton caters to gamblers such as Chen - loyal and not likely to do much more than gamble while they're in Atlantic City. And the Asian demographic has been critical to the casino's rejuvenation.
The boutique casino built and called the Golden Nugget by mogul Steve Wynn 25 years ago has the smallest gambling floor and the city's second-smallest hotel. But despite its size and location, the casino has been on a tear this year.
Nicknamed "The Jewel of Atlantic City," the Atlantic City Hilton is the last casino on the Boardwalk, just before the million-dollar homes that dot Ventnor and Margate. It doesn't generate the kind of traffic that other gambling palaces, like Caesars and Bally's - both in the center of the Boardwalk - attract. But it is producing big revenue increases.
For June, the Atlantic City Hilton was the only one among the dozen casinos to post a double-digit revenue gain, 14 percent, according to figures released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission on Monday. The casino has also had the highest year-to-date growth in gross gambling revenue, 21 percent, far ahead of second-place Showboat at 11.6 percent and Harrah's at 10 percent.
"We are gambling-centric, and we make no apologies about it," said Anthony Rodio, regional president for the AC Hilton and Resorts casinos.
Rodio, 47, who became president of the Atlantic City Hilton in May 2005, was promoted to regional president last May and now oversees both the Atlantic City Hilton and Resorts casinos. He attributed the Hilton's glowing numbers to aggressive marketing that "speaks to the heart of the gambler."
While the other major casinos in town owned by heavyweights such as Donald Trump and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. have been building retail and dining establishments, the Atlantic City Hilton has gone in the opposite direction.
In December, the casino moved its Asian gaming room from the main floor to the second level next to a new 24-table poker room. The new 16-table facility offers baccarat, mini-baccarat, Pai Gow tiles and Pai Gow poker - games that are very popular among Asians.
"I've heard nothing but positive things about the changes," Rodio said. "The proof is in the numbers."
Central to the casino's growth strategy is tending to the needs of its core Asian customers. The Atlantic City Hilton was one of the first casinos in New Jersey to offer a bus program from New York's Chinatown in 1991, and has been an industry leader in Asian bus marketing. Buses leave New York for the casino anywhere from 15 to 20 times a day. Seven buses come from New York's Chinatown. The rest depart from Flushing, Brooklyn, the Port Authority in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx.
In June, the Hilton took in $28.6 million in total revenue. Of that, $19.6 million came from slots and $8.9 million from table games, according to the casino commission. But table-games revenue is growing at a much faster pace than slots - increasing 27.2 percent from the same month a year ago. Slots revenue increased 8.9 percent.
Rodio said about 20 percent of the casino's table-games revenue and about 3 percent of its slots revenue came from Asian customers.
Nearly one out of every five employees at the casino, or 18 percent, are of Asian descent. Many of them speak several languages.
Hung Ngo, 37, is a native of South Vietnam, and is fluent in English, Cantonese and Vietnamese. Ngo, a waiter at the Empress Gem Noodle Bar for 10 years, said gamblers enjoy the convenience of having the eatery in the Asian pit that features a menu in both English and Chinese.
"They don't have to go too far," Ngo said. "They have it all in one room."
Colony Capital L.L.C. purchased the Atlantic City Hilton and another casino in Mississippi from Caesars Entertainment Inc. for a total of $612 million, just before Caesars' sale to Harrah's Entertainment Inc. last summer. The purchase gave Colony, which already owned Resorts on the Boardwalk, two properties in the nation's second-largest gambling market after Las Vegas. Last June, the company installed a management team with Rodio at the helm and Phil Juliano as regional senior vice president of marketing.
In December, the casino became the first in Atlantic City to put a billboard on the Atlantic City Expressway written all in Chinese to announce the opening of its new Asian pit, called Treasure Palace. It also buys advertisements in New York newspapers and other publications that are written in Chinese.
"We know it's a growing market, so we're paying attention to all the new nuances that you have to know about that culture," Juliano, 58, said.
The Atlantic City Hilton's success with Asian gamblers hasn't gone unnoticed. Other casinos are aggressively going after them. The Trump Taj Mahal will open its new Asian pit today and a noodle bar next Friday.
Last month, Caesars unveiled Palace East, a $15 million Asian-themed gambling area, with an elaborate ceremony on the Boardwalk featuring a traditional Chinese lion dance. Showboat opened an Asian pit and noodle bar in March, and Bally's casino will open one in February.
"Everybody is looking at Asian gaming as the demographic to go after," said George Toth, president of the Sands Casino Hotel, which opened a six-table Asian pit last year. "It's a market that was probably starving for attention, and now everyone is focusing on them and giving them that attention."
Toth said Asian business at the Sands was excellent, even without a noodle bar.
"When we started, we had no Asian business," he said. "Now, the Asian game drop is probably 10 percent of our overall business."
In terms of property, the Sands is the smallest casino in Atlantic City and has the fewest hotel rooms. But the Hilton has the smallest gambling floor, measuring 60,000 square feet. When compared to a mega-casino like the Borgata with a 164,000-square-foot casino floor - nearly triple the Atlantic City Hilton's - it makes the Hilton's revenue figures even more impressive.
But Peter Ng, 56, who collects tickets for Skyliner Travel & Tour Bus, which makes trips to the Hilton six times a week from New York, isn't surprised.
"This casino takes care of my customers," said Ng, as he sat having a bowl of rice at the noodle bar. "They have a good time."
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