Firing Range Teams With Mob Museum for New Experience
Firing Range Teams With Mob Museum for New Experience - Las Vegas Sun News
With a glacier-white smile and rapid-fire laugh, Mark Cole greets visitors to his Guns and Ammo Garage, a shooting range where they can travel back to a world of Prohibition-era weapons by firing classic models like the murderous Tommy gun, known, too, as the “Chicago Typewriter.”
Guns and Ammo Garage, 5155 S. Dean Martin Drive, has partnered with the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas to provide a full mob-related experience. From gunshot to mugshot, the partnership pulls from decades of mob history in Las Vegas and beyond.
“The Vegas Mob Tour,” Guns and Ammo’s package with the museum, is the latest in a series of unlikely collaborations for Cole. The garage began as a muffler shop, added ATV accessories and then opened a gun store. Now, after 10 months of building and installing bulletproof glass, the garage has re-emerged as something else.
“Gun store and muffler shop. You don’t see that all the time,” said Cole.
The promotion with the Mob Museum began in October. For $139.95, a customer gets to shoot 16 rounds from a 1911 pistol, 10 rounds from a snub-nose revolver and 50 rounds from a Tommy gun at Guns and Ammo. The deal comes with a T-shirt, hotel pickup and drop off, plus admission to the Mob Museum.
Jonathan Ullman, executive director of the Mob Museum, said consumers are looking for options that provide a broad experience. The Mob Museum’s partnership with Guns and Ammo, Ullman said, is a way for the museum to offer something unique.
“You have to have that broad reach in a very noisy entertainment market,” he said. “Increasingly, you’re seeing the public look for that fuller, more robust experience.”
Cole said he and his partner, Darby Neagle, always are looking for different angles to reach new people. Neagle takes care of the legal and financial side of the business while Cole manages the gun store and firing range.
Guns and Ammo Garage has become an attraction, luring several hundred visitors each day, Cole said. Among the guests have been actor Nicolas Cage and singer Rihanna.
It’s all about giving the customer a lot of attention and a positive experience, Cole and Neagle agree.
“What it all boils down to in the town is your reviews,” said Neagle. “In this day and age, it takes a customer 30 seconds to get on Yelp and write a bad review. You really have to focus on customer service.”