Las Vegas buffets have disappeared. Workers are now left wondering: What’s next? Ed Komenda, Reno Gazette Journal · March 8, 2021 at 6:28 am Nestor Gutierrez is a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. But not the way you might think. The 53-year-old buffet cook spent 16 years at Texas Station. Then came March 2020. COVID-19 collapsed Nevada tourism, and the resort closed. Gutierrez lost his job. Station Casinos paid him until May, but he has yet to return to work. His unemployment payment supports a household that includes his wife, two children and 92-year-old father. He waits for a callback, but Texas Station has not announced plans to open. It’s not the closure that concerns Gutierrez and frontline hospitality workers like him. It’s the reality of being jobless in a world where their skills translate nowhere else.
