Permanent Hard Rock Bristol casino opens

The permanent Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol opened its doors Thursday at the site that was once the Bristol Mall.

Developed by a joint venture between Hard Rock, Par Ventures President Clyde Stacy and United Co. Chairman Jim McGlothlin, the roughly $515 million, 620,000-square-foot resort at 500 Gate City Highway features more than 900 slots, 50-plus table games, a 303-room hotel with 56 suites and a 2,000-seat Hard Rock Live indoor performance venue.

“It’s beautiful. I’m proud,” Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol President Allie Evangelista said Tuesday as grand opening preparations were underway. “Sometimes I get exhausted. But I am so excited.”

The new resort casino replaces the temporary Bristol Casino: Future Home of Hard Rock, which opened in July 2022 as Virginia’s first operating casino. Since then, two other casinos in Danville and Portsmouth have opened.

“It’s incredible,” Jon Houser, a lifelong Bristol resident, said Tuesday. “The temporary casino gave us a great idea of what we could expect.”

The development team previously pushed back the opening of the permanent casino, which had been expected in July, in favor of opening the full casino resort, which is the nation’s eighth Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

TN Ward and BurWil Construction are the contractors for the Bristol Hard Rock project. Some construction work remains to be done, which will increase the team’s capital investment, Evangelista said Tuesday, adding, “Right now, I think it’s at $515 million, but we’re not done.”

Bristol Hard Rock representatives have said the casino plans to eventually hire about 1,400 employees. As of early October, the resort had 791 employees, and on Thursday, it had hired approximately 1,400 people.

In its first year of operation, the temporary Bristol casino made $157 million in net gaming revenues, while the Rivers Casino Portsmouth, which opened in January 2023, made almost $250 million in gaming revenue during its first year. The temporary Caesars Virginia casino in Danville opened May 2023; in its first six months, the Danville casino racked up about $145 million in gaming revenue. 

In 2023, Virginia casinos generated $554.87 million in adjusted gaming revenues, based on monthly reports from Virginia Lottery. The Bristol casino represented $160.49 million of the annual total.

Virginia’s three casinos reported a total of $56.56 million in gaming revenues for September. Of that, about $14.09 million came from the temporary Bristol casino.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.