Crowd on hand for Q's grand opening

  His biggest fear was that come 10 a.m. Feb. 13, there would only be one person looking in the window of the Q for the grand opening of the Quechan Tribe's new resort, said Marty Gross, chief executive officer.

  Reality was quite different.

  Thousands gathered for the ribbon cutting Friday morning. To Queen's song, "We will rock you," they surged through the doors to get to the resort's slot machines, gaming tables and restaurants.

  "In my 30 years in the casino business, I've never seen a floor fill up so fast," said Gross, who worked for various casinos in Las Vegas, Reno and other places. "Every slot machine is full, the restaurants are busy, the Players Club is full. It's like a Saturday night on a Friday morning."

  It's a good feeling, he said, after the hard work that went into getting the nearly 300,000-square-foot resort built and ready to welcome guests.

  Eager guests were lined up by 7 a.m., Gross said. "Every entrance was filled."

  He estimated that by the time the doors opened, about 3,000 people had arrived "and more are coming."

  Carol Gauger was one of those on hand for the grand opening. She said she came over with a group from El Centro because she wanted to see the inside of the casino she had watched being built on her trips to Algodones.

  Bill and Judy Gelhaus, South Dakota residents who winter in a recreational vehicle near Quartzsite, quickly settled in front of slot machines.

  They came, they said, because they had wanted to experience a casino grand opening.

  "It looks great," they said with one eye on their slot machines. "Now we have to win."

  They planned to stick around awhile and "definitely check out the food." And they expect to be back often, whenever they come to Yuma to buy groceries.

  Within half an hour, he had spent his allotment of money at the 21 table, said Jerry Surber, a winter resident at the Sleepy Hollow RV park down the road from the resort. But he had hung on to enough money for lunch.

  Some people opted for food first, like Loren Jessen and his wife, Yuma-area winter visitors from Oregon. Their first priority was to sample the buffet in the Ocotillo Cafe.

  "We made a beeline for the food," said Jessen. "I'm a former Marine. I go to the chow line first."

  They agreed the food was pretty good, but then they had worked up an appetite with a two-hour wait for the resort to open. The only thing, Jessen said, is that he would like the cafe to have a refreshment bar where he could refill his coffee himself.

  Felix Montague and his wife were relaxing over coffee. They had spent the night at the hotel after enjoying the Thursday-night preview party for tribal members.

  "It's nice ... very comfortable," said Montague, who is the executive director of the Quechan Tribe's Gaming Commission.

  "It's only five miles from home but it felt like a hundred," he said of the resort. "It's another world. It will be a good hideaway for the locals."

  That's what Quechan Tribal President Mike Jackson is hoping.

  "As you walk through the doors to this beautiful resort, this is your destination," he told the crowd before presiding over the ribbon cutting. "It was built for people in this area. This is your casino. You're always welcome."

  Tribal Councilman Vincent Durand quoted from the movie "Field of Dreams" the famous line, "Build it and they will come."

  "Well, we built it and you came," he said as he helped welcome the resort's first guests.

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Joyce Lobeck can be reached at jlobeck@yumasun.com or 539-6853