Holiday Inn/Harrah’s
The Holiday Inn brand has a long history on the Las Vegas Strip. Back in 1971 the first Holiday Inn opened on the Las Vegas Strip. At the time, the brand new hotel and accompanying River Queen Casino was a decent size, but it would eventually grow to become the largest Holiday Inn in the world by the 1980’s. (Great photo here.) In the 1990’s the name was changed to Harrah’s after Harrah’s Entertainment was sold by Holiday Inn.
See: Artist Rendering circa 1972
Holiday Inn/Boardwalk Casino
Another huge property on the Strip also carried the Holiday Inn branding. The Boardwalk Casino was built in the late 1960’s and its 600+ room tower took on the Holiday Inn branding until the year 2000 when the property was purchased by MGM Mirage. Eventually the hotel & casino was torn down and imploded and City Center sits on the land it once occupied.
You can find out more about the history of this interesting property here.
Holiday Inn?/Hooters
The property currently known as the Hooter’s Hotel & Casino sits right next door to the Tropicana and across the street from the MGM Grand. It opened in 1973 as a Howard Johnson and has seen a number of different names since then. The Las Vegas Sun is reporting that the property was just purchased by an investment group for $53.8 million dollars.
Among the interesting items in the Sun’s article about the sale is the following line, “It is expected, though not yet verified, that the last company (Holiday Inn) will take over the property — but not under the Holiday Inn brand.” What does this mean exactly? While this could be speculation, but the author has a lot of connections. My guess is that contracts have not yet been finalized.
If Holiday Inn or IHG takes over management of the property it could mean a vast improvement. By many accounts the rooms are very dated despite the renovation to Hooters in 2006. It seems during that changeover they simply “put lipstick on a pig” and didn’t really give the property a proper makeover. If the hotel is indeed brought up to Holiday Inn standards it could be a nice mid-level property on/close to the Strip.
Conclusion
I’ll be watching this story closely, but whether the Hooters becomes a Holiday Inn or has another name, it will be renovated and we should see another updated property in that neighborhood which is a positive move in my opinion.
Did you ever stay at either of the other two Holiday Inn hotels when they carried that branding? Let me know in the comments!
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I’ve never stayed at a Holiday Inn in Vegas (!!!), but I do have fond memories of doing a little gambling at the Boardwalk during its Holiday Inn days. It was one of those rare (even more rare now!) places on the strip where you could find low-minimum tables. What used to always crack me up is that they had half-sized craps tables!