Nope, 'fraid not. From what we can gather via the recent official press release, it sounds like all traces of The Quad and the reconstituted O'Sheas "casino-within-a-casino" will be obliterated in the latest overhaul, scheduled to debut Oct. 30 (reservations are already been accepted), so you'd better go and pay your last respects to Lucky the Leprechaun and grab a game of beer pong while you still can, as we cannot see a place for what what the current Quad website proudly bills as the "raucous atmosphere traditional of an Irish pub" in the soon-to-be-unveiled new "digitally curated resort experience." (No, we're not at all sure what that means, either, but we are pretty sure that the plan to "immerse guests into social lifestyle experiences" does not refer to dousing them in green beer.)
By the sound of it, The LINQ Hotel will be to The Quad what The Cromwell is to Barbary Coast (i.e., a complete and utter departure), with 2,256 brand new "urban"-style rooms and suites, and the now de rigueur swanky pool deck, retail, and spa "experiences" that cater to "the changing Las Vegas consumer." With recent efforts to foster a local customer base for The LINQ in its current almost-complete state (discounts on the High Roller observation wheel, new weekly "The LINQ Loves Locals" Tuesday block parties, with more discounts on retail, dining, etc.), to create yet another hub geared toward sophisticated Strip visitors might seem contradictory, but on the other hand this new $550 million high-end entertainment complex is flanked on either side by Harrah's (home to the pretty raucous Carnaval Court) and the Flamingo (featuring Margaritaville), so perhaps it's a wise decision to ensure that the accommodation offered on-site appeals to a more high-end, spendy clientele.
While, on the surface, for the heavily debt-ridden Caesars Entertainment to plough money into an upgrade of the former Imperial Palace, only to completely abandon the whole concept less than a year after completion, might seem like something between gross recklessness and utter insanity, in truth we've never seen a breakdown of what proportion of that $550 million went into The Quad makeover, and as we heard current Quad headliner Jeff Civillico observe on a local radio show recently, it was actually a pretty cursory/cosmetic upgrade (the back of the building still features all the pagoda-inspired architectural touches from the I.P. days, for example).
"The Quad" always struck us as a singularly unglamorous moniker, hardly designed to inspire thoughts of either fun or sophistication (in a Reader Poll we ran on the subject following the initial announcement of the re-branding, "The Quad" received a distinct thumbs-down, with the majority of respondents feeling it evoked images more of a college campus or prison exercise yard than a Las Vegas resort-casino.) While many also berated the move toward unromantic single-letter hotel names, at least CET only forked over for one letter for the main Quad signage, which shouldn't be too costly to remove. Perhaps they can re-purpose the "Q" and just add "LIN" on the front!
One last thought to temper our perhaps over-emphatic opening to this answer, is that there was obviously a lot of feedback from loyal consumers that led to the previous restoration of a mini-O'Sheas within The Quad. So, while we see no place for it within the new LINQ hotel, perhaps the Strip's perennial St Patrick's Day-party spot will live to see another day in yet another Caesars Entertainment property, or an entirely new venue downtown? We hope so, if only for the sake of Brian "Lucky" Thomas, who's been making a living with his whole Leprechaun schtick for close-on a decade now (despite the fact that he's actually Lebanese and, to the best of our knowledge, has never even set foot on the Emerald Isle).
