Raiders owner Mark Davis with The Family Stone in Las Vegas

The Kats! Bureau at this writing is Victory’s Cafe at the Cannery in North Las Vegas. Bottomless coffee for $5, free parking, a valet who gives such complimentary advice as, “Good luck in there.”

Thursday night it was a visit with star chef José Andrés at the grand opening of his Bazaar Meat restaurant at The Palazzo. We leave no culinary destination uncovered.

Earlier I spoke with members of The Family Stone, the only officially authorized band founded by the late Sly Stone. That outfit plays The Club at the Cannery at 8 p.m. Saturday. I also caught up with Raiders owner Mark Davis, a fan of the band since their inception. Davis and North Las Vegas Mayor Pamela Goynes-Brown led a ceremony naming Oct. 24 as The Family Stone Everyday People Day Of Service.

Davis is making the rounds during the Raiders’ bye week. There is no break in his schedule for personal appearances. The visit to the North Las Vegas hotel-casino was largely a personal call. He became a fan of the original Sly and the Family Stone as a kid, from watching the Woodstock concert film.

“It was Richie Havens playing ‘Freedom,’ Carlos Santana playing ‘Soul Sacrifice,’ and then someone comes out in a fringe jacket, singing, ‘I want to take you higher!’” Davis said after the event. “People were singing back, ‘Higher! Higher!’ even in the theater. That’s what it was like when Sly Stone was on stage.”

Davis was in great spirits, though he says of being whisked from event to event, “I’m Bernie, like in ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’” he said with a laugh. “But you can’t say no, and it’s fun. I know how much it means to people, and it means a lot to me, too.”

Davis was asked if the Aces’ three WNBA championships in four years has helped mitigate some of the frustration of the Raiders’ 2-5 start. He owns both teams, in case you’re unaware.

“No, it doesn’t mitigate anything, but it gave me an outlook that might be different if I didn’t have both teams,” Davis said. “At one point the Aces were 14-14 just lost by 53 points, a record amount to lose by at home. I’m thinking, ‘Is this thing over? Is it time to blow it up and build again?’ But I’m also saying, ‘I have faith in (team president) Nikki (Fargas) and (head coach) Becky Hammon. I’m gonna let them to their job and see what the results are.” The results will be displayed along the other two WNBA trophies at the team’s headquarters.

Davis said he’s still looking for stability after coach Jon Gruden was forced from his position. Pete Carroll is the fourth coach since then and the Raiders haven’t sniffed the playoffs.

“The one thing we haven’t done is won on the field,” Davis said. “That’s my fault. I’ll take that. We’re winning like s—- off the field, doing things to help the community and creating a great experience at the stadium.”

Davis recited some fast stats to put his 14 years as Raiders’ owner in perspective.

“Since I took over, eight teams have won the Super Bowl. Twenty-four have not,” the owner said. “We’re one of the 24. Do I feel like a failure? Yeah. But I have a lot of guests.”

In that outfit

Original Sly and the Family Stone members Jerry Martini (sax) and Greg Errico (drums) are set to perform in Saturday’s show, which kicks off The Family Stone’s U.S. Tour.

Sly Stone’s daughter and vocalist Phunne Stone (who performs a spot-on impression of her dad’s famous, loping gait), longtime member Jimi McKinney (keys), Swang Stewart (vocals/keys), Blaise Sisson (bass) and Nate Wingfield (guitar) round out the act. Sisson and Wingfield are popular Vegas-based players.

Las Vegas’s Broadway in the Hood was present, in the form of founder Torrey Russell, who was presented a $5,000 check for the local non-profit organization. We anticipate, accurately, Russell will be recognized by another Vegas institution in the near future. And his speech will be worthy of the stage.

Cool Hang Alert

A first for CHA in the extreme-sports division.

Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta III and Dana White’s Street League Skateboarding is rolling with its takeover of ComplexCon from noon-5 p.m. Saturday at a custom-designed plaza outside Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall.

The partners in Thrill One Sports & Entertainment aim to make SLS a major endeavor nationwide, similar to how UFC blew up in the years after the Fertitta’s bought the brand in 2001.

“Me and Dana [White], when we saw the opportunity with the UFC, we were really excited,” Lorenzo Fertitta told Sports Illustrated in 2023, shortly after taking over SLS. “It’s really hard to find something in sports that has the potential to be relevant from a global perspective. When we took over in 2001, with essentially a broken piece of IP, and by 2016 — and now beyond that — built it into a diamond.”

The first SLS Las Vegas Takeover features such “viral” elite athletes as Rayssa Leal (8.4 million IG followers) Nyjah Huston (5.1 million), Dashawn Jordan, Julian Agliardi and Vincent Milou. These names are huge on the socials. This is a fully outdoor experience, the first SLS event in Las Vegas in three years, and expected to draw more than 5,000 fans. GA cost is $20; go to streetleague.com for intel.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.