"Nightspot from the ’70s, Cleopatra’s Barge is Last Icon of Vegas Strip Architecture"

By MIKE WEATHERFORD  
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL  
Originally Published: March 7, 2017 - 10:07am

​It’s not just any boat with oars extended into a few inches of questionable water, dry-docked in the middle of a bar, surrounded by acres of Caesars Palace. 

“She’s a time machine to our past,” says Branden Powers. As the managing partner of two time-traveling bars beyond the Strip — the Golden Tiki and Evel Pie — Powers is an understandably vocal fan of Cleopatra’s Barge.  The nightspot from 1970 is the last iconic piece of classic Vegas architecture still in use on the Strip (though original casino areas survive at Caesars and the Tropicana). “They keep destroying it. If I wanted to go on vacation and stay in an airport, there’s plenty of places now,” Powers says. But the Barge?

“She endured the test of time,” he says. “Vegas needs more Vegas....”

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