Where is Geraldo Rivera when you need him?

There’s a mystery safe at a casino in Nevada that has captured the imaginations of people like no safe since the Al Capone’s vaults were busted open in one of TV’s greatest all-time stunts.

The decades-old safe — which has captivated the attention of the news media out West — was discovered buried in a wall during the renovation of Bill’s Casino in Lake Tahoe.

The casino is being coverted into a CVS drug store and the last owners of the casino had no idea the safe was there.

So far, no one has been able to open the four-foot square safe.

The intrigue over the safe stems from the history of the casino, built in the 1960s as Barney’s Casino.

Barney’s owner, Richard L. Chartrand, was murdered in August, 1968, when a bomb exploded in his car in front of his home in nearby Zephyr Cove.

The crime was never solved.

But speculation is that the safe belonged to Chartrand and the secret of the combination as well as its existence died with him.

Naturally, TV is trying to be there when the box is finally opened.

Mike Laub, a retired Reno lawyer who is owns the property, says he’s gotten over 50 inquiries, including one from the Oprah Winfrey Network.

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Saturday, Sept. 3, Indie West Fest presents the Jamboree by the Sea at Crave Bar and Lounge with Old Man Markley , Jackass, The Pullmen, Cold Blue Rebels, Embalmers, Radio Threat and Dusty Bottom Girls.

The Ventura Theater welcomes Timmy Curran and Dominic Balli on Sunday, Sept. 4.

Mouse Grey will kick off its tour at Sans Souci on Friday, Sept. 2.

The late show at Zoey’s on Friday, Sept. 2, 10:30 p.m., features Love’s Secret Domain , August Rising and Jade Hendrix.

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Piara Singh Amarkaur Mann with their Doodhis

An octogenarian has put the secret of his long healthy life down to his massive doodhis.

Piara Singh, 89, of St Albans Road, Seven Kings, is celebrating his biggest ever crop of the marrow-like gourds this week.

Former factory worker Mr Singh, who has grown the vegetables for the past year, recorded one whopper at 36ins long. He said: This year has been a massive crop. From just one seed I have had 30 or 40 doodhis. They have grown so well.

They are like marrows but even better. The juice is good for cholesterol and it has so many properties.

Family friend Rama Ohri said: I believe he has green fingers, as everything he grows is just fantastic.

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3. SOS: Ashley is whoring out her body to science! Seriously, someone, anyone please go to Florida and check on Ashley. We don’t know where she’s living, who she’s boning, or what she’s doing, but the fact that she considered enrolling herself into some random drug study can’t be a good sign. Save our ship! (Season 4, Episode 10: “4-1-1″)

4. “Meat scraps” = even better than sausage? Call us crazy, but we’re pretty sure Nora and George just ate a bunch of dog food. We know these guys love meat, but perhaps they should stick to sausage rather than binge eat the “meat scrapes” that George was saving for the family pet. Just as a reminder, here’s a rundown of the food the Secret Lifers have chowed down on this season: Churros, sausage, meat sauce, pickles, donuts and now, meat scraps. Wow. (Season 4, Episode 9: “Flip Flop”)

5. Was the flashback to mini- Amy the scariest thing you’ve ever seen? Look, Secret Life isn’t the first television show to do the whole “father picturing his teenager as a little girl thing” – we’ve just never seen it done so … creepily. There wasn’t even any lead-in music! Amy was yelling at George per usual, and suddenly there was a random kid staring up at us with a toothless grin. There’s a word for people who see things that aren’t there, George. It’s called delusional. (Season 4, Episode 2 “Another One Closes”)

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Running a successful restaurant has always been notoriously difficult, especially in lean times such as these. This year, around 140 restaurant businesses have failed each quarter (according to Stephen Broome of accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers), but despite this, a clutch of eateries continue to thrive, whatever the economic weather. What is the secret ingredient that so many seem to lack, but which keeps some restaurants in steady business for decades?

This week one of London’s best-loved restaurants Le Caprice ” known for its celebrity clientele and unfussy, comforting food ” reopens its door after a refurbishment to celebrate its 30th birthday. Thirty years, that is, since restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King bought and relaunched it in September 1981. Le Caprice was originally opened in the West End 1947 by Mario Gallati, who had launched the Ivy 30 years before that. “There are these institutional restaurants,” says Richard Harden, co-founder of Harden’s restaurant guides, “which have gone on for ever. Rules is another one.”

It is no coincidence, says Harden, that one of the longest-running restaurants, Le Gavroche in Mayfair, was founded by a French family. The British don’t have a strong tradition of children taking over their parents’ restaurants in the way they do in France or Italy, he says, so the natural lifespan of a long-standing restaurant is around 30 years, “when the owner decides to retire, or someone makes a good offer”. The brothers Albert and Michel Roux opened Le Gavroche’s doors in 1967, and it is now run by Albert’s son Michel Roux Jr (his cousin, Alain, now runs the Waterside Inn at Bray, which Albert and Michel Sr launched in 1972).

“One of the secrets is staying true to your roots,” says Roux Jr. Dishes such as the cheese souffle have been on the menu since the beginning. “We’re a French restaurant, we’re renowned for our classics so they have to be on the menu, but we have evolved. If you don’t, you become staid, and your customers get tired.” Holding your nerve through difficult times is key. “We have been through several recessions … the winter of discontent, the IRA bombing campaign, 9/11 … Experience helps, and [the ability] to make the best of what you’ve got without compromising quailty … when times are hard, you must never compromise on quality because that is the first thing your customer will see.”

However, he continues, “restaurants are not just food-led. It must be a whole experience for the diner – service, decor, ambience. And consistency.” To which hiring and retaining great staff is key ” Silvano Giraldin was at Le Gavroche for 37 years before he retired as its general manager in 2008. And the general manager of the Waterside Inn, Diego Masciaga, has worked with the Roux family for nearly 30 years.

Similarly, Jesus Adorno was head waiter at Le Caprice in 1981 and is now the director; one of the fixtures its customers expect to see, along with the salmon fishcake that has never left the menu. If a restaurant serves intricate, overtly fashionable dishes, he says, “you end up changing them more often. Here people come expecting their favourite dish. Whenever we change it, I have an outcry.”

It is also crucial to resist hiking up the prices in the wake of success, says Adorno. “People would say to Jeremy King and Chris Corbin, ‘Why don’t you put your prices up?’ They would say ‘Why? We’re making money, customers are happy.’ When they left [King and Corbin sold their restaurant group to Richard Caring in 2005], I followed the same philosophy. I don’t want customers to feel they are being taken for a ride.”

Of course, not all long-standing restaurants are celebrity haunts. Paul Milsom has worked at Le Talbooth in Essex, which his father opened in 1952, since he was 13. Their secret? “It starts with a great location, whether that’s Jermyn Street [in Mayfair] or out here in beautiful countryside,” he says. “Then it’s about serving the kind of food your customers want to eat. So many restaurants don’t end up cooking for their customers, they cook what their chef wants to, or they cook for the guidebooks or accolades … If a star chef spends two or three years with us, when they leave we have to start again.”

Finally, he says, when you’re out of town, success depends on local trade. “In London, if you have a great name for yourself, there will be a constant flow of new people who want to go. We don’t have that, but we have a fantastic community of people who live near us and we have to look after them so they come back time and time again.”

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STEVIE NICKS

With Michael Grimm

At: Bank of America Pavilion, Monday

It’s been a mere five months since Stevie Nicks was last in Boston, and while that’s normal for a performer still building up buzz and a fanbase, it’s a rather hasty double-back for a rock legend. But back in March, she was the undercard for Rod Stewart, with only 75 minutes of stage time. At the Bank of America Pavilion on Monday, Nicks had almost two full hours to remind the audience that she’s still a main attraction.

Nicks began by expressing her grateful surprise that the concert was able to go off as planned at an outdoor venue the day after Irene blew through town, and by the end, she extended that gratitude to her fans for being willing to listen to new songs as well as classic-rock staples like the clipped and propulsive “Edge of Seventeen.” It was easy enough on songs like the warm and gently surging “Secret Love” and “Soldier’s Angel,” where guitarist Waddy Wachtel’s cutting octaves honed Nicks’s Walter Reed-inspired lyrics to a sharp edge.

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