The Palm Restaurant Happy Hour. The Strip

Caricatures of decades-worth of regulars and celebrities cover nearly every inch of wall at The Palm, a steakhouse that has been doing the same thing well since the 1930s. The happy hour runs Sunday through Friday from 3 to 5:30pm, and the prices feel almost out of place in a room this upscale.

Draft and bottled beer drop to $5, house wine to $7, and cocktails to $8. The bartenders here lean classic, so the $8 cocktail to order is a Manhattan, a properly stirred martini, or an Old Fashioned rather than anything fussy. Small bites run $7 to $13, which puts steakhouse-grade starters like shrimp cocktail and calamari well under what an entree costs at dinner.

The move is to skip a full meal entirely. Order two or three small bites and a couple of $8 cocktails and you can preview the kitchen for a fraction of the usual check. It suits people who want a real drink before a show or an early dinner without committing to a $300 evening.

The Palm sits inside the Forum Shops at Caesars, so plan on a walk through the mall if you park in the garage. The bar fills up but rarely turns into a crush, which means the bartenders still have time to talk. No Saturday service, so save it for a weekday or Sunday.