Beau Rivage at 25: How a $750 Million Bet Built the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s Signature Resort

From Mobile, the opening of Beau Rivage on March 15, 1999, felt like something out of a movie: a full Las Vegas-style resort rising on the Mississippi Sound an hour from home, with Cirque du Soleil booked for the grand opening and families from across the Gulf Coast booking rooms for the show. Twenty-five years later, Beau Rivage Resort & Casino remains the signature property of the Mississippi Gulf Coast — and its story is one of the region’s great business tales.

At $750 million, Beau Rivage was the largest single investment in Mississippi history when it opened, a full-service destination resort with 1,740 rooms to fill and a 25th anniversary now behind it. The resort, built on a series of barges on the waterfront, grew from an audacious bet into the anchor of a tourism economy that stretches from the casino floor to the golf course to the oyster beds of the Mississippi Sound.

Learning to Operate a Giant

“We were the first major resort to be built on the Gulf Coast, and it took a minute to figure out a strategy to learn how to operate and attract a steady clientele,” says Brandon Dardeau, president and chief operating officer, who came to the property shortly after it opened and has worked 13 different jobs there — slot service attendant, supervisor, assistant manager, casino host and up. He spent four years running MGM’s Gold Strike Casino Resort in Tunica before returning as vice president of marketing, and today leads the property’s strategy.

Dardeau and communications director Mary Cracchiolo — who were in the same new-hire orientation class in July 2001 — have watched the resort hit its stride in its second decade. More than 70 percent of business now comes from more than 300 miles outside Biloxi, a customer base built through brand investment and, notably, through the air. With gaming executive Ryan Ross, the team launched a scheduled charter air program that evolved into MGMair, partnering with Sun Country Airlines to bring visitors from 90 cities around the country to the Mississippi Gulf Coast — about 25 percent of the air traffic at the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport, more than any other carrier including Delta.

The resort also learned resilience. Oil spills, pandemics, hurricanes — Beau Rivage has weathered them all. “When the pandemic closed all the MGM properties, we were the only property that knew how to close and reopen because we’ve had to do it so many times,” Dardeau says. Gulf Coast property staff became the model their sister properties leaned on to reopen.

Economic Footprint

The resort’s economic impact radiates well beyond gaming revenue and taxes. Since opening, Beau Rivage has contributed roughly $1.9 billion in leases and taxes over its 25-year history, and $3.1 billion in construction projects, salaries and wages. Neighboring businesses have grown alongside it. “We were a tourist town without any tourists until the casinos showed up,” says Bobby Mahoney of nearby Mary Mahoney’s Old French House. “When the Beau opened, we were the envy of almost every destination in the U.S. Our business tripled.”

Guests come for three or four days and fan out across the region — golf, fishing, shopping, dining — and Beau Rivage works to give them reasons to stay on property too: the Tom Fazio-designed Fallen Oak championship golf course, preferred charter captains for fishing charters, and a full entertainment calendar that ranges from Broadway shows to family summer productions. “There is no other place in the country where you can golf, gamble and fish,” Dardeau notes.

Coraline’s and the Oyster Shells

The resort’s newest restaurant answers a longtime gap. Coraline’s, opened in June, gives Beau Rivage the upscale Gulf seafood restaurant it had lacked, with views of dolphins swimming and sunsets over the water. The kitchen has become part of a sustainability story as well: through the Nature Conservancy’s Save Our Shells program, more than 1,000 pounds of oyster shells are recycled by the resort each week, primarily from Coraline’s, and MGM’s Las Vegas restaurants have helped ship more than 22,000 pounds of shells to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to help regenerate oyster beds in the Mississippi Sound.

The community work extends beyond shells. The company’s “Focused on What Matters” philosophy invests in diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and volunteering is woven into the corporate culture. Employees, meanwhile, have built careers there — many executives and staff have been with the property for its entire 25-year existence. “People are family here,” Dardeau says.

Entertainment for Everyone

The resort’s holiday transformation has become a Gulf Coast tradition: decorated right before Thanksgiving, with family photo backdrops in the lobby and Broadway-caliber productions such as “Elf the Musical” staged over multiple December weeks. Each summer brings a family-friendly production show, and the property works to keep family entertainment affordable.

Just down the road, October brings Cruisin’ the Coast, the eight-day classic car event considered “America’s largest block party” and repeatedly ranked the nation’s number one car show in USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice awards. The resort’s own calendar — golf tournaments at Fallen Oak, fishing charters, headline entertainment — means the property no longer depends on any single draw.

A quarter century in, Beau Rivage has grown from a bold bet into a national destination for gaming, entertainment, golf, shopping and dining — and, in the words of its leadership, proof that a resort built on barges can anchor a region built on resilience. Twenty-five years in, the Beau shows no signs of slowing down.

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