The Las Vegas “grocery store” that’s really an art exhibit
“Gosh, even the elevator music is weird.”
That’s what a little boy said in an elevator at Omega Mart, according to Michael Duffield. He was riding along with the family. He laughed, he told us, and answered, “Yeah, ain’t it great?”
The elevator is part of Omega Mart. It looks like a grocery store, and it is one, sort of. It’s also one of the strangest art exhibits in America.
Duffield works in public relations for Meow Wolf, the company behind it. He walked us through how it works and what grown-ups can expect.
It’s a grocery store until it isn’t
Omega Mart looks like an ordinary supermarket. Then you read the labels.
Emergency clams. Nut-free salted peanuts. An avocado coin purse. Tattooed chickens, Duffield says. The shelves are stocked with products you can actually buy, Las Vegas Magazine notes.
Then the other shoppers start to vanish. “Where did they go? And can I go there too?” Duffield asks. The answer is behind a door or inside a drawer. Eight portals lead from the store into the rest of the 52,000-square-foot exhibit, Roadtrippers reports. It holds 60 spaces, made by more than 325 artists.
Duffield’s advice is one sentence: If you can open a door, you should.
Every product is art, he says. Artists created it all: the products, the packaging, the logos, and the copy. He calls the exhibit “a slightly subversive look at consumerism.”
He gets the irony. He worked in public relations for packaged food and grocery brands. Now he works in a grocery store that’s an art exhibit. He has no idea how that happened, he says, but it feels exactly like where he’s supposed to be.
Touch it, open it, answer it
Nobody tells you to keep your hands to yourself.
Open a drawer. If a phone rings, answer it. “If you like how that wall of glitter looks, touch it,” Duffield says. The glittering rock walls are hand-painted, he says, and human hands have touched every surface in the exhibit. Duffield says a different artist painted each public bathroom, and each has its own soundtrack.
The music is serious. Composers include Brian Eno, Beach House, Santigold, and Amon Tobin, Rolling Stone reported.
Do you need 3D glasses? “No, they need eyeballs,” Duffield joked. He added that the exhibit is ADA-accessible and that sight-impaired guests can explore through sound with their groups.
Meow Wolf’s accessibility page backs up the ADA point and says there’s an elevator to the second floor. It also warns that some second-floor areas have steps, narrow passages, or tunnels, and that staff can help find another route. What you need, Duffield says, is curiosity.
Even the marketing is designed by the company’s own creative team, he adds, with no AI and no Canva.
It started with a ship in an art gallery
Meow Wolf began in Santa Fe in 2008. Its founders were artists who didn’t fit the city’s traditional gallery scene. In 2011, they built a 73-foot, two-story ship inside the Center for Contemporary Arts, When in Your State reports. Duffield calls the founders “punks and outsider artists.”
Then came a bigger idea. “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin, a Santa Fe resident, bought the old Silva Lanes bowling alley and helped fund the buildout. The House of Eternal Return opened there in March 2016, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican’s timeline.
Duffield describes it as the house of an interdimensional travel agent, their family, and some hamsters, built inside a bowling alley. It turned 10 this March.
Five worlds, and a sixth on the way
Each exhibit takes a familiar place and cracks it open.
Denver’s Convergence Station, which opened in September 2021, is a transit hub, per Blooloop. Duffield says the four-story, award-winning building is triangular, and it sits in the middle of three raised highways. In Grapevine, Texas, The Real Unreal is a suburban house inside a mall.
Houston’s Radio Tave is an explorable radio station in the city’s Fifth Ward, the A.V. Club reports. Over 100 artists made it, and about half are from Texas, Chron.com noted.
Next is Los Angeles, which Duffield calls the Meow Wolf Picture Palace. It’s going into part of the Cinemark complex at the Howard Hughes Center in West L.A., the L.A. Times reported. Duffield says it follows early next year. Meow Wolf hasn’t announced an exact date, and its Los Angeles page points to late 2026 or early 2027. Duffield says it will “nod very heavily to LA’s cinematic heritage.”
New York comes later, at Pier 17 in the Seaport.
Grown-ups get a speakeasy
It isn’t just for kids, Duffield says, and it isn’t a museum.
The Las Vegas exhibit is off the Strip, with no gambling and no smoking. He says it’s open seven days a week, until 11 p.m. Hours vary by day, so check ahead. There’s no time limit. You can sit down, order a drink at the speakeasy, and talk about what you just saw. “Grown-ups don’t get big-eyed moments that often,” he says. He’s watched toddlers and grandparents enjoy it, for very different reasons.
There are special nights, too. Beyond the Aisle is an after-hours guided experience for ages 21 and up, with performers, cryptic quests, and a ritual. It runs Fridays and Saturdays at 10 p.m. through November 14, and costs $137, Spotlight Vegas reports.
On November 18, Omega Dayze goes live from the store at 5 p.m. Pacific, per its site. Duffield calls it “Amazon Prime meets Home Shopping Network in Meow Wolf fashion.” The free, 90-minute stream is hosted by two characters, Crystal Savings and Brad Produce. He isn’t sure whether there will be a harvest ritual.
How to visit
Omega Mart is inside AREA15, at 3215 South Rancho Drive, Travel Nevada notes. Entry is timed, so book ahead. General admission starts at $45, per Meow Wolf’s ticket page.
The same page sells two yearly passes. The Portal Pass covers one year of unlimited visits to the Las Vegas exhibit. The Portal Pass Supremium covers all five locations.
Super fans are real. One recently showed up dressed as Mr. Omega, Duffield says: a cardigan, a bow tie, and a giant Omega for a head.
The bottom line
Omega Mart holds about 60 spaces made by more than 325 artists, and nearly all of it is meant to be touched. Duffield’s advice for visitors is one sentence: If you can open a door, you should.
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