New $325M Chicken Ranch Casino Resort sets soft opening for July 15
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The new, nearly complete $325 million Chicken Ranch Casino, Resort and Conference Center will begin welcoming guests in July, the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California announced at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
The new casino resort, about 2 miles southwest of downtown Jamestown, will be nine stories tall with a larger casino, new restaurants and bars, a 197-room hotel, fitness center and rooftop pool, plus a conference center, gift shop and a tribal cultural center.
Chicken Ranch tribal leaders and casino managers say the resort will start welcoming guests on July 15, with a soft opening that will include the nine-story resort, a five-story hotel and an expanded gaming floor.
A grand opening celebration for the new Chicken Ranch Casino Resort is planned this fall, when managers and workers will open the remaining restaurants and bars, as well as a 12,000-square-foot event space.
Chicken Ranch Casino public relations staff based in Las Vegas did not respond to requests for comment before deadline for this report.
A "Flock This Way" and "Now Hiring" sign stands across Highway 49 from the site of the new casino resort. The website on the sign connects to pages with information about 42 job openings as of Wednesday afternoon.
The new casino resort is hiring to fill positions that include full-time and part-time slot attendants, bell persons, fullt-ime slot technicians, full-time and part-time table games dealers, counter attendants, food runners, a full-time prep cook, full-time and part-time line cooks, hosts, a table games shift supervisor, a slot operations shift supervisor, hotel and housekeeping shift supervisors, cage cashiers, an assistant general manager, a staff accountant, bartenders, guest room attendants, beverage servers, security and safety officers.
The casino resort has held multiple jobs fairs to recruit workers, including Monday this week for jobs in food and beverage, hotel, gaming, cash cage, and security. On Tuesday, May 14, another jobs fair is scheduled for more jobs in food and beverage, hotel, gaming, cash cage, and security, at the Chicken Ranch Casino Event Hall, 16929 Chicken Ranch Road.
In early April, Chicken Ranch Casino Resort announced the hiring of Katie Kirkland as group sales manager. Kirkland most recently worked in downtown Sonora as sales and marketing director for Visit Tuolumne County, which she expanded into three international markets, until early this year. She has more than 14 years of experience in the hospitality, tourism and sales industries, and she has previously worked for Club Med Resorts, Black Oak Casino Resort, and Development Counsellors International.
When tribal leaders and project partners broke ground on the new Chicken Ranch Casino Resort in August 2021, they originally hoped to have the new venue operational by late 2023.
A topping out ceremony, luncheon, and celebration were staged in October 2022 to thank hundreds of workers and trade partners building the new Chicken Ranch Casino Resort.
Traditional topping out ceremonies used to mark the laying of the last beam on a building site. The topping out organized by Suffolk Construction included elements of Scandinavian traditions, with a ceremonial spruce tree and a topping off beam signed by construction workers, casino employees, and tribal members.
The Black Oak Casino Hotel, the Tuolumne County Administration building at 2 S. Green St. and Adventist Health Sonora were among the tallest buildings in the county, according to workers in the county Building and Community Development departments. The new Chicken Ranch Casino Resort building, part of which will be nine stories, will be by far the tallest in the county when it’s finished.
gmccarthy@uniondemocrat.net or (209) 770-0405. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @GuyMcCarthy.
