Winnie & Ethel’s Downtown Diner

A contest brought a diner back to the Huntridge Center

The Huntridge Shopping Center, at Charleston Boulevard and Maryland Parkway, had lost its old diner. Its owner, Dapper Companies, wanted one back, so in late 2021 it ran the Great Las Vegas Coffee Shop Giveaway. Chef Aaron Lee and Mallory Gott entered, topped a field of nearly 90 submissions, and in May 2022 won a built-out restaurant space and a prize package worth nearly $1 million.

The couple married before opening day. They named the place for Lee’s grandmother Winnie and Gott’s great-grandmother Ethel, and set the dining room in the 1940s, the decade this part of town and the Huntridge Theater came into being. The look nods to the round-the-clock diners of that era, though this one closes at 2 p.m.

Kitchen and dining room

Lee runs the kitchen. He spent more than four years as a sous chef at Esther’s Kitchen before this, and the diner says it makes as many components of each dish in-house as it can. Gott, the CEO, also owns the Las Vegas design firm G+A, and the room shows it; Las Vegas Weekly noticed her mismatched, thrift-store coffee cups.

What people order

Asked about best sellers in 2024, Lee named three:

• the classic diner breakfast
• a Southern breakfast, with andouille sausage and grits in place of hash browns
• a pot roast French dip at lunch

On weekdays there is a breakfast special and a 25-cent bottomless house coffee for dine-in guests ordering an entrée; the diner’s FAQ has the fine print. It also caters office breakfasts and lunches, from malted pancake platters to sandwich trays and whole pies.

Hours: breakfast and lunch daily, 8 a.m.–2 p.m., as provided by the diner on September 24, 2026. Reservations are taken through OpenTable, walk-ins are welcome, and parking in the center’s lot is free.

Visit or contact Winnie & Ethel’s Downtown Diner

1130 E Charleston Blvd, Suite 140, Las Vegas, NV 89104
(725) 205-1831
Visit the business website

Researched September 26, 2026. Source 1; Source 2; Source 3; Source 4; Source 5; Source 6. Seat claimed by the business on September 24, 2026. Corrections or removal are free; contact Cody. The website badge is optional.