FALL 2026 FREE
Read t he RN& online at R RenoNR.com!
EDITOR'S NOTE
Fall 2026 | Vol. 32, Issue 3
The ‘alt-weekly’ flame still burns bright around here Mailing address: 31855 Date Palm Drive, No. 3-263, Cathedral City, CA 92234 775-324-4440 • RenoNR.com
Publisher/Executive Editor Jimmy Boegle Managing Editor Kris Vagner Editor at Large Frank X. Mullen Photo Editor David Robert Cover and Feature Design Maria Ratinova Best of Northern Nevada Illustrator Kaija MacKinnon Distribution Lead Rick Beckwith Contributors Matt Bieker, Alan de Queiroz, Mark Earnest, Bob Grimm, Helena Guglielmino, Jessi Sprocket Janusee, Matt King, Misty Kinser, Kelley Lang, Chris Lanier, Lynn Lazaro, Michael Moberly, David Rodriguez, Sarah Russell, Jessica Santina, Jason Sarna, Max Stone, Marc Tiar, Delaney Uronen, Robert Victor, Matt Westfield, Leah Wigren, Susan Winters The Reno News & Review quarterly magazine is published in March, June and December, with the newsprint Best of Northern Nevada issue published in September. The Best of Northern Nevada issue is available free of charge throughout Northern Nevada, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $5 by calling 775-3244440. The RN&R may be distributed only by authorized distributors. The RN&R is online every day, all the time, at RenoNR.com. All content is ©2026 and may not be published or reprinted in any form without the written permission of the publisher. The RN&R is owned by Coachella Valley Independent, LLC, and is a proud member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, the Nevada Press Association, and the Local Independent Online News Publishers.
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Welcome to the fall 2026 print edition of the RN&R! It’s been a while since we distributed regular newsprint copies, and getting this issue together sent me straight down Memory Lane. I still remember the first time I saw an alt-weekly. It was in 1990—a year before I got my first email account or ever saw a webpage. Social media wouldn’t be available to ordinary users for almost two decades. Mark Zuckerberg was only 6. People—even young people!—did not yet consider newspapers old-fashioned. I was an 18-year-old college student in Tempe, Ariz., working at a busy coffeehouse on the town’s main drag and having my mind blown on a regular basis by things that did not exist in the small New England town where I grew up. Arizona State University’s buzzing theater scene! Downtown Phoenix’s weird warehouse music scene! Activism! Cold brew! Counterculture! And the Phoenix New Times. That newspaper was a portal to worlds I’d never known I wanted to be part of. For the first time in my life, I had a steady stream of news about progressive politics, marginalized community members and corporate wrongdoing, along with serious but accessible discussions on local arts, and lifestyle reporting that was more gritty and honest than precious. A lot has changed in the news industry since then. While some alt-weeklies continue to thrive, others have closed or been bought by large news corporations, and others are in the midst of a long period of experimentation, trying out various strategies to revive and reinvent now-outdated revenue models that pretty much died with the rise of online news and advertising. Small news organizations learned to shapeshift. Of the independent alternative newsweeklies that didn’t close or get bought out, some morphed into monthly print publications, or online-only news sources. The RN&R has taken on all of those forms. We launched as a print weekly in 1993, almost shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, went back into print on a monthly basis in 2022, and pivoted to a new form—mostly online, with a RenoNR.com
quarterly print edition (three of those quarterlies are glossy magazines for subscribers)—this year. (For more on what the RN&R’s been doing since December 2025, when we last distributed a newsprint issue, see Jimmy Boegle’s column on Page 5.) Why do we persist? Do we love being dinosaurs? OK, I did laugh when I read Frank Mullen’s takedown of Gen-Z milkshake flavors. (See the Staff Picks in the Best of Northern Nevada section!) I still cannot for the life of me get my head around all that is matcha. So, if you want to call me a dinosaur in that respect, that’s fair. But otherwise, no. We persist because of our mission— to bring you a steady stream of news about progressive politics, marginalized community members and corporate wrongdoing, along with serious but accessible discussions on local arts, and lifestyle reporting that is more gritty and honest than precious. It is still as important to me as it was when the alt-weekly
spirit first enticed me as a teenager. So, I’m pretty excited about this issue. For one, you can still pick it up in a coffeehouse. (And wow—I am impressed by the number of locals who’ve told us this year that they still wanted to pick up print copies.) Plus, we’ve got some of the usual independent-news angles—read on to learn about how data centers and surveillance cameras are affecting life in our region—along with art, music and literature news you won’t get elsewhere. Plus, this is our big, annual Best of Northern Nevada issue, where, as always, you’ll find out which people, places and things our readers deemed the best in the region. We’re proud to publish some lovely artwork by recent University of Nevada, Reno, graduate Kaija MacKinnon throughout the Best Of section. And, in addition to Frank’s advice on where to get good-ol’ chocolate milkshakes, we present plenty more opinionated takes from our staff and freelance writers about where to eat and shop, and how to soak up local culture like an expert. Enjoy! KRIS VAGNER krisv@renonr.com
GUEST COMMENT
BY BRENT BUSBOOM
I’m a high school teacher; here’s why the latest education trend doesn’t lead to more learning After 28 years of teaching, I still get excited about the first day of school. The desks may be the same. Hamlet is still Hamlet. But when 180 students walk through the door, the world gets created again. The week before students arrive is less exciting. It’s a time when districts roll out the next “big idea,” often in language that sounds vaguely pharmaceutical. What really works is far removed from these mandates— things like smaller classes. Serious tutoring. More time for teachers to plan. None of this is mysterious. Much of it is expensive. You can understand why districts go looking for something they can control— the inexpensive miracle. I have quite a bit of sympathy for anyone trying to make systemic change in a state as chronically underfunded as ours. I’m much less sympathetic when I’m asked to believe in fiction. Take, for example, the latest trend—posting learning intentions and success criteria. The Washoe County School District presents research on its effectiveness with a confidence the evidence doesn’t support. The idea seems sensible enough: Students can benefit from knowing where they are going. Goals can focus attention. Clear expectations can help. But all of that comes with an important caveat: There are lessons when specificity helps, and there are other lessons when destinations need to be discovered. A lesson teaching the difference between dependent and independent clauses benefits from being specific. On the other hand, an English-language arts lesson might begin with the simple question, “Why doesn’t Hamlet just kill him?” Fifty minutes later, students have wandered through cowardice, conscience, theater, religion, self-disgust, evidence, mortality and the possibility that Hamlet himself has no idea why Hamlet does what Hamlet does. Imagine what a teacher following the district mandates might write on the board: “I am learning to analyze how Shakespeare develops characterization through internal conflict in order to understand how complex characters contribute to thematic meaning.” That would look spectacular during a walkthrough. It would also produce far less learning. Robert Marzano, a researcher frequently cited by the district on learning intentions, had a warning. He writes that “setting a goal focuses students’ attention to such a degree that they ignore information not specifically related to the goal.” In other words, goals
work partly because they narrow attention. They tell us what to notice. Which means, inevitably, they also tell us what to ignore. That should lead to a serious professional conversation about when explicit goals help, when they constrain, and how teachers can tell the difference. Instead, this useful tool has become pedagogical bureaucracy. Consider how it might play out: Principals are told to look for learning intentions. Teachers dutifully write learning intentions. The district reports that 93 percent of observed classrooms displayed them. Huzzah? The district has measured the spread of learning intentions. It has learned almost nothing about the spread of learning. It’s easy to disparage these educators and say they’re gaming the system, that they discovered the pedagogical equivalent of a tax shelter. But think about what teachers don’t game. A teacher who believes calling parents helps students will pick up the phone even if nobody is checking. A teacher who discovers that reading the first scene aloud transforms a class will keep doing it. If teachers were encountering these ideas and thinking, “My God, students understand the lesson so much better when I do this,” the district wouldn’t need to check for compliance. Some will argue this is teacher cynicism defeating educational reform. They’re wrong. These are educators trying to restore the flexibility that bureaucracy has removed. The unfortunate reality is that many of the people advocating these initiatives haven’t taught in a classroom for years, sometimes decades. That makes it easier to replace actual students with “the student.” Give “the student” a learning intention, and they focus. Give “the student” success criteria, and they achieve. I’ve never met “the student.” Perhaps that’s the dilemma at the heart of all these beginningof-the-year mandates: The inexpensive miracle requires the imaginary student. But classroom teachers know that human beings are messy. They show up hungry, brilliant, exhausted, hilarious, anxious, distracted, curious, hostile, lovesick, caffeinated, shy, competitive, ambitious, bored—and that’s just first period. Again and again, students arrive and ruin the elegance of our theories. Brent Busboom has taught English for 28 years and has two children currently attending schools in the Washoe County School District. He also serves as a national trainer, teaching AP English literature educators from across the country how to score the AP exam.
BY DAVID ROBERT STREETALK Reno used to be best known for casinos. What is it known for today?
Asked at Reno Public Market, 299 E. Plumb Lane Chris Mayo
Consultant and engineer
Data centers and logistics. The Tahoe Reno Industrial Center has always catered to the tech industry here in Northern Nevada—Tesla, etc. It’s the technological hub of the West. Reno is connected to major highways and has an airport. It’s like the casinos went away. But the bad thing is that there is urban sprawl—malls everywhere.
Madelyn Coronel Student
The nightlife, the entertainment. I’m a college student, and it’s very social here. I like to go out on the weekends and sometimes during the week and hang with my friends. There are a lot of great bars and clubs in Reno. Also, there are a lot of cool concert venues like Cargo and raves outside at the J Resort.
Hunter Lee Kahn
Sheet-metal worker
The jobs. There is plenty of work out at USA Parkway. Reno is also best known for Burning Man. Reno is the destination before the destination. Reno is known for being close to Lake Tahoe. You can swim and ski up at Tahoe. Reno has a free spirit and has many different cultures.
Naing Swe Oo Sushi chef
Reno is known for its diversity. Reno is a city that always has something going on. It’s very welcoming to people, both local people and tourists. I get to meet a lot of people here. I feel alive living here. I feel like I’m swimming in a river and not stagnating in a pond.
Yanelle Gudino
Business student
Reno is known for its higher education. UNR is here. The nursing school here is one of the best, but hard to get into. I came here for the business program. I’m going to be a financial adviser. I didn’t want to go to UNLV. I wanted a new environment; I wanted to come to Reno for the in-state tuition and to be independent. RenoNR.com
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
| BY JIMMY BOEGLE
‘Sparks PD should stop hiding from the truth’ (Sept. 4, 2014) The ‘RN&R’ has been covering Rail City transparency problems for decades On Page 8, you’ll find a piece by Frank X. Mullen on local police drones—looking at how they’re undeniably helpful tools for local law enforcement, although they come with some serious and legitimate privacy and civil liberties concerns. Frank starts off the piece by discussing the impressive public-transparency portals maintained by Reno Police and the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office. So ... what about Sparks? “While Reno and Washoe County make their drone-flight information easily available to the public, Sparks requires the filing of formal open-records requests to access data about its DFR program, including its police drone policy document. Reno and Washoe County have their drone policies posted online,” Frank writes. While this lack of transparency by the city of Sparks is appalling, it’s far from the first time Sparks police have chosen secrecy over transparency. In fact, the Sparks Police Department has a disconcerting history when it comes to transparency and telling the truth. More than a decade ago, the Sparks Police were embroiled in another truth-telling controversy. On Oct. 13, 2013, police responded to a report of a suicidal woman with a gun. As the RN&R reported on Feb. 27, 2014: On the early afternoon of Sunday, Oct. 13, Monica Ritchey, 45, was depressed. Among other things, she was concerned about a police warrant and the possible loss of spending time with her grandchildren, according to police reports. Her daughter Brittnie Andrews said a lot of things weren’t going right for her and, “She was just done.” She was drinking alcohol and taking prescription medications, which had been prescribed for mental issues like depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Andrews speculates that the PTSD may have originated with the death of a daughter after surgery a few years ago, but she said there were other factors, like a divorce. “She said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, I just want to blow my head off,’” Andrews said. “This was ‘normal’ when she was depressed. She’d call and say these things, and I knew she had guns at the house. … This time I felt like something was really wrong. So I called my sister [Darcie Latham].” When the daughters entered the home on Woodhaven Lane in Sparks, things were already out of control. 4
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“She was all the way across the room— and she said, ‘Don’t come any closer. If you come any closer, I’m going to blow my head off.” She fired a .22 caliber pistol into the floor just to show she was serious. The sisters went outside and called 911. By the time police had arrived, Ritchey had switched handguns to a .38. After police arrived, it was a matter of minutes before Ritchey shot Latham in the hip, and officers returned fire, mortally wounding Ritchey. Latham survived. [Editor’s note: This story is developing, and Darcie Latham’s attorney, Richard A. Salvatore, alleges that police—not Ritchey— shot Latham.]
Sparks Police were misleading the public, Sparks Police continued its evasions and omissions. What the hell is the problem with the truth over there, SPD? How does this reconcile with the sworn mission of police to uphold the law, including the laws regarding the public’s right to know? Six months knowing the truth was out there, but unwilling to reassure the public with transparency and honesty? That was the whole point of one of Nevada’s foundational public records rulings, Donrey vs. Bradshaw, in which the Nevada Supreme Court found that officials should release information regarding ongoing investigations if the public had a heightened interest and should know the truth.
That editor’s note was prescient: It was later confirmed that police officer indeed shot Latham. That truth was revealed, however, only after local media, the RN&R included, started asking a lot of questions. This was the subject of the RN&R’s editorial in our Sept. 4, 2014, print edition, “Sparks PD should stop hiding from the truth.” It said, in part:
Going back even earlier, one of the more significant stories I covered in the first portion of my career involved yet another mess by the Sparks Police. I wrote about the matter on Jan. 18, 2001, in the RN&R:
On Aug. 28 came the public admission that a member of the Sparks Police Department shot Darcie Latham. He shot her without knowing who he was aiming at or that the person he was shooting at was unarmed. It was a 50-50 chance, he was given bad intel, and we’re not second-guessing the decision, just pointing out the culpability on the part of local government when it comes to helping Latham reach a full recovery. While we acknowledge that it was a bad situation … our problem is the admission of deception from the Sparks Police. “Initial reports indicated Darcie Latham was shot by her mother Monica Ritchey,” Sparks Police Chief Brian Allen said, as quoted by (the) Reno Gazette-Journal. “However, as preliminary interviews took place, it was learned by investigators that a Sparks Police Department officer shot Mrs. Latham in the upper leg region.” Initial reports contained that information because the Sparks Police Department released documents stating that Monica Ritchey shot her daughter. They’ve been available online ... since we ran the first installment of our Fatal Encounters series—a story about how government sets up roadblocks to prevent the public from knowing about deadly police violence. When other media—namely Joe Hart at KRNV—followed up our report that RenoNR.com
When Timothy Joe Mobly was captured in Mexico and returned to Washoe County earlier this month, it was joyous news. It meant a very bad person was behind bars, where he belongs. And it meant that everyone involved with an ugly case could finally move on. Mobly had been on the run from the law since April 30, 1999. That was the day he was supposed to be sentenced for kidnapping and raping two women—ages 17 and 24 at the time of the attacks—who he met on the Internet in two separate incidents in late 1998. I became very familiar with this case when I was the crime reporter with the Sparks Tribune. Shortly after the attack on the 17-year-old, I did a brief story based on a press release sent out by the Sparks Police Department. Like the SPD press release, my story did not even mention the fact Mobly and his partner in crime, Aaron Matthew Cross, had victimized a woman before the 17-year-old. Shortly after that story ran, I received a phone call from a crying woman. Her name was Jennifer W., then a 24-year-old student at the University of Nevada, Reno. What she told me was hard to imagine—she said that she had reported her attack to the police more than a month before the attack of the 17-year-old. She claimed they didn’t believe her and even called her a liar. “That 17-year-old girl never had to have this happen to her,” she told me.
Some quick phone calls confirmed the fact that Mobly and Cross had indeed been charged with attacking Jennifer W. But the Sparks police would not respond on the record to Jennifer W.’s allegations, as her case was still pending. After some great consternation and debate, we decided at the Tribune to run the story. Jennifer W. was relieved that her side was finally being heard. Soon afterward, The Associated Press picked up the story, and the Reno Gazette-Journal followed. … Cross and Mobly, seeing the evidence stacked against them, eventually agreed to a plea bargain, in which Cross admitted guilt to two counts of sexual assault against the 17-year-old, while Mobly admitted guilt to three total counts against the women. But when sentencing day came, Mobly, who was released on $20,000 bond, did not show up. Jennifer W. became hysterical and had to leave the courtroom several times before regaining her composure. It was at the sentencing that the true ugliness of the crimes Mobly and Cross committed was revealed. Prosecutors said that in the case of the 17-year-old, she escaped from the men’s home while they were driving her car to the desert past Fernley. When a victim’s car is dumped, that victim usually ends up dead. … Since the sentencing, and since the Sparks police settled a lawsuit filed by Jennifer W. for $24,999 last year, the fervor from this ugly case—so ugly that certain details of it have not yet been publicly told and may never be publicly told— was quieted, although it never went away. Jennifer W. moved on with her life the best she could, leaving Nevada—although she is reportedly helping out a writer with a book. The Sparks Police Department moved on and is trying to restore its reputation, which was … badly damaged by the case. However, the fact that Mobly was on the loose hung over everyone’s heads. But now that Mobly is behind bars, everyone can finally put the case behind them—the best that they can. To reiterate a line from our Sept. 14, 2014, editorial: What the hell is the problem with the truth over there, SPD? Subscribe to our From the Archives newsletter, published every Monday, at RenoNR.com.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
| BY JIMMY BOEGLE
We’ve been quite busy since we were last in newsprint! Greetings! The vast majority of you are reading a Reno News & Review print edition for the first time in 9 1/2 months—and we have a lot of updates for you. First and foremost: Consider this a reminder that even though we’re not in print every month, we’re still doing the local journalism that we’ve always been doing. Bob Grimm reviews movies each week; Jessica Santina is still reviewing plays and reporting on the local arts scene; Michael Moberly is still writing about drinks each month; and so on. Under the wonderful stewardship of managing editor Kris Vagner, you’ll still find Western Lit book pieces, guest commentaries, Matt Westfield’s On Nevada Business column, our 15 Minutes interviews, music features, our team’s excellent visual arts coverage, and so on. Kelley Lang is still previewing events, as she has for most of the last three decades. And, yes, we’re still producing longform news stories, like Frank X. Mullen’s examination of local police-drone programs, which you’ll find in this issue on Page 8. We’ve even added some new features, such as Mark Earnest’s every-other-week Music Notes column, with news and updates from
the local music scene. Every Monday, I write our From the Archives newsletter, which looks back at interesting coverage from the RN&R’s nearly 33 years of archives, and places it in the context of today. The only difference between now and the RN&R of 9 1/2 months ago is that we’re not printing most of this news; instead, it’s online at RenoNR. com, and/or arriving in email inboxes. That said, I know a lot of you still prefer to read news in print—and for that reason, we launched our three-timesper-year glossy magazine earlier this year. In the spring (March), summer (June) and winter (December), we’re compiling volumes of fantastic, still-timely stories published at RenoNR.com over the previous three months, and offering the magazines for $9.99, or $35.99 for a year-long mail subscription of four issues (including our newsprint Best of Northern Nevada issue). You can subscribe at RenoNR.com/print. You can purchase the
most recent issue there, too, or pick one up at Recycled Records. Of course, all of this news is still available for free at RenoNR.com, and the PDFs of these print editions are available for free download. We’re even giving copies of each glossy-magazine quarterly to the Washoe County Library system for people to enjoy at the various branches. We also have some new things in the works. In early November, we’ll be publishing our first Annual Guide, both in print and online. It will be a publication for both newcomers and locals who want to get to know Reno area better! The Annual Guide will include must-knows about fire preparedness, primers on local arts and music venues, a piece on how locals do casinos, and all sorts of other inside knowledge about the Reno-Sparks-CarsonTahoe area. Watch RenoNR.com for details. Finally, we’re working on a series of stories looking at the aftermath of the Bug, Fred Mountain, Stallion and Hawk fires.
RenoNR.com
Those of us in Northern Nevada have always known wildfires were a danger; heck, my mom has been evacuated from her home in Steamboat at least three times over the years. But these recent fires—especially in the context of what happened in Los Angeles in January 2025— showed that the threat is far bigger than most of us previously imagined. There are a lot of amazing stories to be told following these fires—and there are a lot of questions these fires brought up that need answers. Watch RenoNR.com in the coming weeks and months for this special coverage. I suspect some of these stories will end up in our next couple of glossy quarterlies, too. All of us here at the RN&R are excited to be back in newsprint to bring you our special Best of Northern Nevada issue. We wish we could be in newsprint more often, but given the financial and logistical realities of printing in 2026, we’re doing the best we can. And to reiterate: Even though we’re no longer in print every week or every month, the Reno News & Review is still here, producing the same type of award-winning local coverage that we’ve been producing since 1993, every day at RenoNR.com. As always, thanks for reading.
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ON NEVADA BUSINESS
| BY MATT WESTFIELD
For the extreme overland crowd TruckHouse, the nation’s premiere overland truck builder, is based here in Reno I stood in the 25,000-square-foot TruckHouse facility gazing upon an incredible behemoth—a shiny, new truck getting ready to roll out to the customer. It costs more than a new Ferrari. It is incredible to behold. (I say this as a car-and-truck guy with five 4-wheel drive trucks, including the greatest of all—the 1972 International Scout II.) It was a giddy moment, looking at this overland expedition gamechanger. Six years ago, Matt Linder had come to my office at the University of Nevada, Reno, College of Business’ Ozmen Center, looking for help on his business plan. He and his partner were interested in the $50,000 first prize to jumpstart their new biz, TruckHouse. Linder believed there was a need in the offroad vehicle industry for a “marine-quality” overland vehicle. Why does that matter? Because he was a boat builder working on high-end Tahoe boats, and perfect-fit, white-glove quality was non-negotiable. Only the best for my yacht! This means quality parts and precision master-building that minimize any rattling, squeaks, creaking or other unwanted noises on the water. Linder believed this philosophy was not being carried over to the extreme “overland” crowd—the dedicated folks who go for extreme camping, and want a self-contained, off-road, living-quartered vehicle with high clearance for rocks and rivers. Yes, and they have an abundance of spare cash for these sorts of vehicles. In his mind, a person should not necessarily need to get out of the truck to go into the back living area. They should be able to get from the driver’s seat back into the bed anytime, anyplace. It should be a molded, lightweight, one-piece system fitted to the frame, not sitting in the truck bed rattling around. It needs to completely replace the bed and be affixed to the chassis better than the bed was, with custom frame attachments—of utmost strength and durability, yet very lightweight. Carbon fiber, titanium, aluminum, molded fiberglass, and some of the best and most expensive structural foam core in the world (imported from Sweden, of all places) will be needed to keep it light and durable. How did he know how to envision the future of expedition overlanding? He built one for himself out of an old Toyota. I came down from my old office in the middle of campus to look at this truck he’d spent years building in his spare time, utilizing the master-building skills he had learned in boat refurbishing. I’ll never forget walking into that truck 6
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and seeing all he’d done to build a custom, self-contained living area for up to two people. Up three steps and behind the passenger side door, the bed was above the cab to my right, but underneath was a big hole to climb through to the back or front, without having to go outside. It was impressive to see his first build all of those years ago. When Linder and his partner—then-business administration grad-student Nicolo Monforte— beat out 30 teams to win UNR’s Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition, Linder got to work. One of the things we discussed early on was that clients would need to put down a 50% to 66% deposit for custom work. The reason: If I’m building a custom product for you, I cannot sell it to anyone else should you cancel the order. If I understand my business—its costs/margins/ logistics—I should be able to cover most of the cost of building an order with a 66% deposit, likely in two or three tranches. If the customer cancels, I haven’t lost anything. I can also build my startup company on revenue instead of relying on investors or debt, like most companies. Fast-forward to three days ago, when I was standing in front of Linder’s huge Ram 3500, with the truck performance and engineering upgrades by renowned off-road customizer AEV (American Expedition Vehicles), made in Detroit and sent to Reno for the incredible modifications that make this the premiere expedition vehicle in the world, according to the experts. According to the auto news website Mopar Insiders, “This camper redefines expedition vehicles, ensuring adventurers can explore remote destinations with confidence and comfort. With its innovative design, advanced technology and exceptional craftsmanship, the BCR exemplifies TruckHouse’s dedication to off-grid excellence.” Linder told me that having AEV in Detroit as the TruckHouse partner is amazing because all of the work that AEV does to engineer, modify and raise the truck. They put 40-inch tires on it, yet it still maintains the Ram warranty. These partnerships are critical, and they have catapulted TruckHouse into the upper reaches of the expedition crowd. They are currently backlogged two years, with 12 trucks in various stages of being built, all with their patented HiPR Foil airflow system on the front of the cabover. Linder is already dreaming up his next highend, off-road innovation, while working long days to keep up with the onslaught of TruckHouse’s popularity. He has 30 guys working several stations, starting with a raw Ram AEV chassis, and finishing with the polishing of the appliances inside each custom rolling home. It was cool to see the assembly line they’ve built to bring these trucks to the discriminating public. RenoNR.com
Matt Linder set out to bring the same high-end craftsmanship he learned as a custom boat builder to vehicles for extreme camping. Today, he leads a 30-person crew as the CEO of TruckHouse, the overland truck building company in Panther Valley. Photo/David Robert satisfying about watching someone develop new Five Questions for Matt Linder skills, become more confident, solve problems they couldn’t solve a year ago and eventualHow has building this ly teach those skills to someone else. We’re company changed your life? obviously here to build incredible vehicles, but It has changed my life dramatically. Before seeing the careers and opportunities we’re creatstarting TruckHouse, I spent a lot more time ing along the way has become one of the things skiing, competing, traveling and pursuing other I’m most proud of. interests. For the last six years, I’ve been pretty singularly focused on building this company What will define your success? and our goal of producing world-class expedition vehicles. Building TruckHouse has required That’s actually something I’m still working to an enormous amount of my time and energy, but define for myself. I’ve always been extremely driven, and one of the dangers of that is continit has also pushed me to grow in ways I never would have otherwise. I feel like a very different ually moving the goalposts. I think about it like climbing a mountain: If you never define where person today than I was when we started. the summit is, you can spend your entire life putting one foot in front of the other and climbWhat’s been the toughest ing without ever allowing yourself to arrive. part of building this company? For me, success will mean defining that sumThe time commitment. Manufacturing is mit, not just financially or professionally, but incredibly challenging, and what we’re doing takes that to another level. We build our vehicles personally, and being able to recognize when I’ve reached it and be proud of what I’ve built, in-house using aerospace-grade materials and the people I’ve impacted, and how I lived along manufacturing processes, so everything is the way. R&D-intensive, time-consuming and expensive. There are very few shortcuts. What’s next for Matt Linder? Building a company around something this Right now, it’s continuing to build TruckHouse, technically difficult has meant working 80- to but also building it into a company that doesn’t 100-hour weeks for much of the last six years. depend on me for everything. Sustaining that level of commitment while conMy focus is on systematizing the company, tinuing to make good decisions, lead a team and developing great leaders and making sure I’m push the company forward has probably been never the bottleneck to our growth. I want the hardest part. TruckHouse to create more careers, employ more people here in Reno, expand into multiple What has brought you the greatest product lines and continue pushing what an satisfaction running this company? expedition vehicle can be. Ultimately, I want The people, without question. Watching the us to build the best expedition vehicles in the team grow, both in size and as individuals, has world and build a company and team capable of probably been the most rewarding part of buildcarrying that mission far beyond me. ing TruckHouse. There is something incredibly
Community Is Our Priority. Since 1993, the Reno News & Review has been telling the community’s stories. Our mission is to inform readers like you— and to help you build stronger connections with your community. However, advertising revenue is down, and we need reader support! Help the RN&R meet this moment! Please consider becoming a sustaining supporter, or make a onetime donation, by visiting RenoNR.com/support-our-publication, or by sending us a check using the coupon to the right. You can support the RN&R directly (non-tax-deductible)—and now can make a tax-deductible donation via our fiscal sponsor, the Alternative Newsweekly Foundation (ANF). Via ANF, we can accept cash, grants and donations from donor-advised funds. We can even accept stock or crypto! Questions? Email jimmyb@ renonr.com, or call 775-324-4440.
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| Fall 2026
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| BY FRANK X. MULLEN
‘RN&R’ wins four national alternative newsmedia awards The Reno News & Review won four awards (for work done in 2025) in the 2026 AAN (Association of Alternative Newsmedia) Awards—a number bested by only seven other publications. Frank X. Mullen won first place in the “Feature Story—Shorter Form” category for his historical and cultural deep dive, “Facing our darker history: As the feds censor narratives about racism, local officials tell the truth about Reno’s Chinatown and its government-ordered destruction.” The judge said, “Spectacular writing and retelling of history in light of today’s political climate and administration’s violence toward history. Well done!” Max Stone won second place in the “Arts Feature—Shorter Form” category with his profile, “A complicated legacy: Dani Putney, the non-binary child of a mail-order bride, comes to peace with a fractured identity.” The judge said: “Max Stone crafts a terrific profile of a local poet which perfectly encapsulates the very essence of what an alt-weekly feature should be, highlighting several marginalized communities in the singular form of Dani Putney, and ensuring that this type of coverage is what will keep alternative voices shining brightly into the future.” Jason Sarna won second place in Health Care Reporting for his news feature, “Psychedelic therapy: Nevada patients, doctors and lawmakers push for a legal pathway.” The judge said: “The substance of the entry is clear and guides the reader through the complexities of this issue in a way that readers should find engaging and relatable. The depth is still there, but explanation is clear.” The final award was an honorable mention in the “Special Section—Print” category for the Best of Northern Nevada 2025. The judge said: “‘Best of’ issues are a staple of regionally oriented issues, but this one is unusually comprehensive with a sprightly design, which elevates it above the usual.” These accolades are the result of our team’s commitment to great journalism, and great journalism does not come easy. If you see Frank, Max or Jason out and about, shake their hand, and buy them a drink! —Kris Vagner 8
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Reno Police Officer Hunter Mercurio stands behind the RPD drone based at the Reno Public Safety Center at 911 Kuenzli St. Two more docked drones are stationed at fire stations on Moana Lane and in South Reno. Photo/David Robert drones,” she wrote in an email to the RN&R. The difficulty in getting what is clearly public information from Sparks baffled Beryl Lipton, senior investigative researcher at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which promotes internet civil liberties. “It’s not a very complicated thing for them to provide that information publicly,” she said. “They have it in their system, a record of where each drone flew, and when and why. … When we see that agencies don’t have a (transparency) portal, that’s a bit of a red flag. Why don’t they just provide that information?”
Cops’ eyes in the skies Police say flying cameras enhance public safety, but critics warn about potential civil-liberties abuses That drone that recently flew over your backyard could have been piloted by a criminal casing your property, a company with an interest in real estate, a neighbor with a new hobby—or the police searching for a suspect. How can you know who is spying from above? If the unmanned aircraft is a Washoe County Sheriff’s Office drone, the quadcopter’s flight path can be traced on the county’s public transparency portal, which also displays statistics of the aerial deployments over time. The county’s real-time flight-path dashboard is among the few in the nation with that much detail about drone operations available to the public, open-records advocates said. The Reno Police Department also has a real-time online dashboard displaying statistics of its drone deployments and may soon add maps of flight paths like Washoe County’s portal. The more information that is available to the public, the more people will understand and trust the drone program, said Officer Hunter Mercurio, a Reno Police spokesman. “When people see a drone nearby, they will be able to check our portal and see if it’s a police drone and see the flight path,” Mercurio said. “We’ll continue to expand RenoNR.com
transparency when we can.” Reno, Washoe County and the Sparks Police Department have “docked” drones, which are stationed on rooftops and can automatically fly to the scene of a police call within minutes using GPS. Pilots miles away can fly those machines remotely. The unmanned aerial systems are part of the national Drone as a First Responder (DFR) initiative. That program is poised for exponential growth since the Federal Aviation Administration streamlined the approval process for operating drones beyond pilots’ visual line of sight. Smaller quadcopters, kept in police vehicles, can be deployed in the field by officers who are licensed drone pilots. While Reno and Washoe County make their drone-flight information easily available to the public, Sparks requires the filing of formal open-records requests to access data about its DFR program, including its police drone policy document. Reno and Washoe County have their drone policies posted online. Although Sparks recently launched a new city website, no drone data will be included, said Withanee Milligan, a Sparks spokeswoman. “While it might be an initiative we consider in the future, we currently don’t have anything similar to Reno’s dashboard in reference to
Big Brother is flying
Wide differences in the transparency policies of police DFR programs are among the many challenges of rapidly advancing surveillance technology. In a nation where government and privately owned stationary cameras are everywhere, license plate readers like Flock collect every plate number that passes them, and rogue police officers have used Flock data to stalk ex-wives and others, the stealth and mobility of the flying eyes make a lot of folks even more nervous. Drone cameras can see over walls, peer into high windows through telephoto lenses, find people in the dark by using infrared flashlights or detecting the heat of their bodies—and can potentially be used for mass surveillance. Civil libertarians also warn that police drone patrols can put specific “high crime” neighborhoods or minority communities under constant monitoring. A Nevada law passed in 2015 prohibits the use of police drones for routine surveillance or patrols, and limits their flights to active police calls. The statute requires search warrants or the presence of emergency circumstances for a drone to be deployed for uses other than police dispatch calls. Law-enforcement officers said the strict state law and their departments’ drone policies prevent civil-liberties abuses. They said police departments embrace the technology, because it is a gamechanger for dispatched police calls. “The Drone as a First Responder program is very beneficial, because they can help either by preparing our officers for what to expect when going into a situation, or they can de-escalate a call completely where it may not even warrant police response,” said Mercurio. To promote the value of police drones, local agencies occasionally post videos of their deployments on the internet. For example, the Reno Police Facebook page has clips of a suspect allegedly ditching drugs when stopped
by police, and another video of the capture of an armed suspect who exited a vehicle and was allegedly hiding from officers. The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office posted a video of its drone locating people who were target-shooting near residences and later arrested. A RN&R review of drone-deployment information from Reno Police and the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office shows that the vast majority of the drone flights are related to minor crimes or incidents, as is the case nationally. The drone companies claim that police departments using the systems report canceling physical police responses on 20% to 30% of routine calls after aerial assessment proves units are not needed. The firms say the aircraft reach emergency scenes in about 90 seconds. In about seven months of operation, RPD drone flights have resulted in about 17% of police responses being cancelled, according to the city’s dashboard, which shows the quadcopters have reached the scene of police calls before other RPD units 63% of the time when the docked drones were deployed. “It’s just been an extra set of eyes to really help us see things that maybe the officer on the ground can’t see, or help de-escalate a call to where we don’t even need to respond to that call,” Mercurio said. “So, it saves resources and time.” Lipton said Nevada’s law is unique, but concerns about drones exceed the potential for warrantless searches or conducting intentional surveillance of random people. “It’s good that Nevada has that law,” she said. “But how the drones can be used sort of depends on individual operation and individual policies. The concerns go far beyond whether they can see into backyards.” Drone cameras capture images of wide swaths of the ground, Lipton said, even when operators route them away from homes. “There are a lot of other things that people need to be worried about when it comes to how drones
are observing those areas, especially because at this point, video footage is easily subjected to additional analysis that people aren’t really aware of,” she said. Drone technology advances so fast that laws and policies have trouble keeping up with the changes, she said. “There are still a lot of open questions about how that information gets stored and shared, and what it looks like to expunge information when it does get shared with other police departments. “That’s a concern with drones and all forms of surveillance technology,” Lipton continued. “What is the (data) container holding this information, and what are the vulnerabilities of that container? We’ve seen that people who were not authorized to access that information can access that data sometimes, as we saw recently in San Francisco.” In that example, live feeds and recordings from San Francisco Police Department drones were accidentally exposed on the open internet for several months. Security researchers discovered an improperly secured software link that broadcast real-time thermal and color camera operations, tracking data and pilot details publicly before being disabled. “(At EFF), we talk a lot about how difficult it is to keep data in the container that you wanted to be in,” Lipton said. Once a police department’s information is shared with other agencies, she said, copies can be made, and “then that information is somewhere else the creator doesn’t know about, and it moves beyond the space where (the originator) thought it was contained.” The three local police agencies, which each have contracts with different drone companies, say they expunge the videos after 30 days unless the footage is part of an open case. Videos are stored in the drone companies’ digital clouds rather than at police departments. Neither state law nor the police agencies’ in-
A Reno Police drone hovers in front of the Reno Public Safety Center. Photo/David Robert
dividual drone policies have specific guidelines about sharing data with other jurisdictions, like police departments do with license-plate reader information. The Reno Police Flock Safety transparency portal, for example, has a list of hundreds of outside agencies with which RPD shares camera data. “I don’t think it’s paranoia to think that, sans policy or state law, police departments have broad discretion to share data,” said Lipton, who has read the Nevada law and local agency policies regulating the use of drones, which she said contain a lot of vague language. “A lot can fall under the umbrella of ‘lawful purpose,’ and there’s a lot of wiggle room in phrases like ‘continuously monitor’ or even ‘conduct surveillance.’ Washoe County’s policy, for example, states that its drone data may be shared with other public-safety agencies for ‘legitimate investigative or public safety purposes.’” Another concern about drone footage is that it can easily be integrated with data from other police and private camera networks, including license-plate readers like Flock, Lipton said.
Who guards the guardrails?
Sparks plans to replace its 47 Flock license-plate readers (Reno has 29 Flock cameras) with plate readers from Axon, the company that already provides body cameras, drones and other equipment to the city’s police department. The city also hosts a voluntary system that allows police to access private security cameras in the city. The city’s website describes the linking of private and government security cameras, which utilizes artificial intelligence, as a “force multiplier” for surveillance during emergencies and criminal activity. Reno also has a camera-sharing network. The Reno and Sparks police departments share data at the Real-Time Information Center within the Reno Police Department. That facility “consolidates live video and data feeds from public and private cameras, body-worn cameras, sUAS (drones) and sensors into one unified interface,” according to the city’s press release. Civil-liberties advocates say the growing number of drone programs, police agencies’ integration of camera data from multiple sources and the evolution of government camera systems are indicative of a blanket of surveillance coming down on communities. Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said public disclosure and strict laws prohibiting the misuse of government drones aren’t enough to curb civil-liberties violations. He noted that Nevada law rightly requires police to obtain court-issued search warrants to surveil any person or location where there is “a reasonable expectation of privacy.” “The biggest challenge with respect to that provision of law, as is the case with the advent of different types of technology—whether it’s drone usage, automatic license-plate readers, RenoNR.com
and so on—is that the actual understanding of how oversight works with respect to these technologies largely remains either incomplete or wholly fiction,” Haseebullah said. Those provisions in the law rely on police to comply with the restrictions, he noted, but if officers break through those guardrails, the public wouldn’t be aware of the misuse. That’s because “law enforcement agencies are generally hesitant to release records. They’ll simply say they’re complying with the law and leave it at that,” he said. Independent oversight, he said, solves the problem of police policing themselves. “We have seen too many stories all across the country for far too many years of government agencies investigating themselves and finding no areas or no issues of misconduct.” Haseebullah said. “That is a reoccurring theme.” Law-enforcement officials interviewed for this story acknowledged there is the potential for the abuse of any new technology, but said their internal systems guard against such misuse. The benefits of police drones far outweigh the potential for civil liberties violations, they said. “The counterargument I would give, which is one I give consistently, is that civil liberties violations only ever occur under the guise of public safety,” Haseebullah said. “… There could be any number of narratives provided to justify almost any layer of civil-liberties violations or intrusion.” As surveillance technology advances, he said, the threats to civil liberties increase. Even now, the legality of drone programs “remains dubious” due to their conflict with Fourth Amendment guarantees against warrantless search and seizure, he said. “Invasiveness, intrusion and consistent surveillance around the clock—certainly the ability for a law-enforcement agency to, warrantlessly, potentially fly a drone over someone’s home— remains a very, very grave intrusion into one’s civil liberties overall,” Haseebullah said. Nevada, he said, should have a “part-time regulatory structure” that can keep up with the exponential growth of surveillance technology. He noted that there’s nothing in state law that requires outside oversight of police drone operations. “As drone technology becomes more sophisticated—drones become smaller, more nimble, easier on their end to capture imaging and video information—the layers of abuse that could be rampant are beyond reproach,” he said. The public, Haseebullah said, should have full access to data about police use of drones in their communities, because “the only way that we will have accountability is with transparency. “That means that all of these records need to effectively be shared for free to the public and to the requestor,” he said. “But, beyond that, there needs to be at least some layer of external oversight of all these surveillance apparatuses that exist.” | Fall 2026
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NEWS
| BY LYNN LAZARO The TMRPA community conversation for its Data Center Engagement Effort drew in more than 150 attendees at the Reno Public Market on Aug. 5. Photo courtesy of the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency “I know that you had made efforts to contact the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, but I see a lot of agencies send out emails to tribes,” Harry said. “… I really hope that you can … drive out to Nixon, go to the tribal office, and really engage in conversation with the tribal leaders.”
A work in progress
Comments on data centers A look inside the process of seeking public opinion on a significant local—and national—issue After the city of Reno approved the Keystone, Oppidan and Webb data centers in early 2025, the Regional Planning Commission tasked the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency (TMRPA) with studying how data center developments would affect the city of Reno, city of Sparks and Washoe County region. On Aug. 20, 2025, the TMRPA held the first community conversation to discuss their research on high-energy-demand users such as data centers. After receiving feedback from the community, the agency launched the Data Center Engagement Effort, which included interviewing stakeholder organizations including local, county and state government; labor groups; and environmental groups. The effort also included a public survey asking the community for their thoughts on the potential impacts of data centers. On Aug. 5 of this year, TMRPA shared its findings in a community conversation hosted at the Reno Public Market with more than 130 attendees. 10
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At the time of the presentation, 34 organizations had been interviewed, and 150 people had filled out the public survey. Opposing views were presented side by side and not attributed to the organizations from which they came. For example, one view was that public opposition to data centers is “emotional and media driven” while another commenter said the concerns are genuine and worth taking into consideration. Multiple attendees criticized this side-byside comparison and said that answers should be weighted to take into account that industry voices will lean in favor of data centers because of the potential for financial gains, while community voices have been consistently against data centers. Other criticisms included the lack of Spanish versions of the website and survey, when Spanish is the second-most-spoken language in Nevada. Autumn Harry, a member of the Water Over Data Alliance and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe pointed out the lack of interviews with tribes. By the time of the Aug. 5 meeting, the TMRPA had only managed to get an interview with the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. RenoNR.com
The Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency addressed many of these concerns right away. By the time the group presented updated information to the Regional Planning Governing Board during that board’s Aug. 13 meeting, TMRPA was already working with the University of Nevada, Reno’s Latino Research Center to translate the survey. By the following week, a Spanish version was posted to the Data Center Engagement Effort webpage. The TMRPA also contacted the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and announced plans to include the tribe’s voice in the final report. TMRPA director Jeremy Smith said that an interview in Nixon, slated for Aug. 17, was delayed due to wildfires, and that the agency and the tribe have a good line of communication. The TMRPA also suggested to the Regional Planning Governing Board that if it wanted to implement a weighted approach to stakeholder and public sentiments, a firm should be hired to
make sure that it’s done correctly. “The survey design was done in-house and very much as an engagement tool, not a targeted market survey,” Smith said in a later interview. Interviews and survey responses are being used to draft recommendations for potential data-center policies at the local and state level. As of Aug. 5, these include adopting design standards that minimize environmental impacts and strengthening Nevada’s regulatory capacity for high-energy data centers. The TMRPA has no power to enact these recommendations. When a final list is presented, it will be up to local and state authorities to decide whether or not they will act on them. By mid-August, TMRPA had interviewed a total of 38 organizations, and the survey had more than 9,000 responses, which Smith attributes to the community rallying together to share the survey on social media after the community conversation at RPM. Ninety-six percent of those responses were against data centers; some called for an outright ban. “I don’t know if (responses are) always ‘banned forever,’” Smith said. “Maybe it’s ‘ban until the rules are in place’ or ‘banned for a couple years as we figure it out or get the infrastructure.’” By the next planning board meeting, scheduled for Oct. 8, Smith hopes that the board can share a final report on its findings. “I think that we’re going to make sure that the concept of a ban is loud and clear, and that’s a viable option for how to move forward,” Smith said. “That is clearly coming from the people, right? We’re not going to shy away from it at all.”
Jeremy Smith has been with the TMRPA since 2011 and took on the role of director in 2019. Photo/Lynn Lazaro
Snapshot: Scouts host postplaya trash and gear collection On Sunday, Sept. 6, Reno Scout Troop 1847 was in the midst of its third-annual, three-day After Burn—Trash Drop-Off and Gear Fundraiser, in collaboration with Gear Hut, the Kiwanis Bike Program and Burners Without Borders, at the large parking lot at 5205 Mill St. Burners dropped off bags of trash for a suggested $10 donation. The Scouts and their adult supervisors also collected items including unopened packaged food, bottled water, toiletries, bikes, bedding and reusable camping gear. The troop handles cleaning, sorting and redistributing the goods. The event benefits organizations including the Kiwanis Bike Program, the Hope Community Church food pantry and the Reno Burrito Project. Julie Tullgren—a Scout mom and one of the event’s primary organizers—said this is the event’s third year. She said the troop is hoping to use some of the proceeds to help another Scout troop that recently lost its equipment in the Hawk Fire. Michael Pesendorfer and Eva Hochradl, Burners from Austria; Scout mom Julie Tullgren; and Scouts Jacob Masri and Gabe —Words and photo by David Robert McCalden.
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The RN&R has gone glossy!
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W
elcome to the 2026 Best of Northern Nevada issue! This is where we celebrate all of the business owners, creatives and other people, places and things that make up Northern Nevada’s unique, special character. We here at the RN&R are not the ones who decide which people, places and things are the best—we leave that up to you, our readers. Well, you have spoken! You’ve seen to it that many of your perennial favorites kept their top spots in the poll this year. You showed some real love for newcomers (and relative newcomers), too. What most caught my eye as we reviewed the results was just how many of our region’s best-kept secrets you revealed this time around by voting an impressive number of first-time runnersup into the results. If you’re looking for a
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nonprofit to volunteer with, a golf course to play or a Central American café to try, be sure to look at both the winners and the lists of finalists! And if you weren’t sure which dive-bar backyard dumpling purveyor also serves high-quality, opulently garnished hot dogs … well, read on. That’s one of many things I learned from this year’s poll. I bet you’ll find some new inspiration in here, too. Because Reno culture keeps evolving, we added some new categories this year—so now the Best Of issue is a place where you can learn what your neighbors’ favorite pickleball courts and international markets are. Good to know. Producing the Best Of issue always makes me reflect on the incredible talent, hard work and integrity that so many members of our community put into making life here great for all of us. Hats off to all of the winners and finalists—and thank you to everyone who voted! —Kris Vagner, managing editor
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BEST ROMANTIC RESTAURANT
Beaujolais Bistro
BEST WHISKEY/BOURBON/ SCOTCH SELECTION
Chapel Tavern
Runners up: 2. Death and Taxes 3. Whisky Lounge 4. Craft Wine & Beer 5. Shim’s Tavern BEST COFFEE
Midnight Coffee Roasting
Runners up: 2. Hub Coffee Roasters 3. Coffeebar 4. Bibo Coffee Co. 5. Get Roasted
BEST GLUTEN-FREE DINING
Great Full Gardens
Runners up: 2. Arario 3. Elixir Superfood & Juice 4. Wild River Grille 5. Old Southwest Social House BEST CHEF
Nathan Cook, Big Water Grille (formerly at The Shore)
BEST FROZEN YOGURT
Yogurt Beach
Runners up: 2. Honey Treat Yogurt 3. Freshberry Frozen Yogurt BEST TAHOE RESTAURANT
T’s Mesquite Rotisserie
Runners up: 2. Gar Woods Grill & Pier 3. Jake’s on the Lake 4. Soule Domain 5. Sprouts Natural Foods Cafe 6. Alibi Ale Works
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BEST BAKERY
Beloved’s Bakery
Runners up: 2. Perenn Bakery 3. Josef’s Vienna Bakery & Café 4. C’s Mad Batter Cakery 5. Dolce Caffé BEST GREEK RESTAURANT
Niko’s Greek Kitchen
Runners up: 2. Aladdin’s Market & Kitchen 3. Nick the Greek 4. Nick’s Greek Deli 5. The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill RenoNR.com
Runners up: 2. Mark Estee 3. David Holman, Atlantis 4. Jonathan Chapin 5. Jacob Gordon BEST BLOODY MARY
Two Chicks
Runners up: 2. PJ & Company 3. Chapel Tavern 4. Squeeze In 5. The Lobby Lounge at the Nugget Casino Resort
Runners up: 2. Calafuria 3. Atlantis Steakhouse 4. TIE Roxy at the Eldorado Wild River Grille BEST FINE DINING
Western Village Steakhouse
Runners up: 2. Beaujolais Bistro 3. Wild River Grille 4. Bistro Napa at Atlantis 5. Johnny’s Ristorante Italiano 6. Bricks BEST LOCAL FARM/ PRODUCE GROWER
Andelin Family Farm
Runners up: 2. Prema Farm 3. Reno Food Systems 4. Ferrari Farms 5. Holley Family Farms BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT
Casale’s Halfway Club
Runners up: 2. Johnny’s Ristorante Italiano 3. Zozo’s 4. Marcolino’s Italia 5. Mario’s Portofino 6. Pasta Fresca BEST WINE BAR
Whispering Vine Wine Co.
Runners up: 2. Craft Wine & Beer 3. Belleville Wine Bar 4. Zephyr Wine Bar 5. Archive Wine + Beer BEST BAGEL
Truckee Bagel Company
Runners up: 2. Desert Sun Bagel Co. 3. My Favorite Muffin 4. Tahoe Bagel Co. 5. Einstein Bros. Bagels
BEST SOUPS
Süp
Runners up: 2. 999 Phở 3. Great Full Gardens 4. The Cheese Board BEST FOOD TRUCK
TIE Daddy’s Tacos Silver State Pie Company
Runners up: 3. Slater’s Ding-a-Wing 4. Doggy Style Korean Corndogs 5. NOLA Sliders BEST RESTAURANT
Worth the Long Wait Kauboi Izakaya
Runners up: 2. Two Chicks 3. Western Village Steakhouse 4. Bistro Napa at Atlantis 5. Toucan Charlie’s Buffet & Grille at the Atlantis 6. Wild River Grille
BEST BRUNCH
Stone House Café
Runners up: 2. Two Chicks 3. Perenn Bakery 4. Squeeze In 5. Champagne & Chocolate BEST FRENCH RESTAURANT
Beaujolais Bistro
Runners up: 2. Bistro Napa at Atlantis 3. Belleville Wine Bar BEST THAI RESTAURANT
Moo Dang
Runners up: 2. Bangkok Cuisine 3. Thai Lotus 4. Thai Chili 5. A Taste of Thai
Staff Pick
BEST TRADITIONAL MILKSHAKE SANS KIWI, BOBA OR KALE
Scooper’s
4040 Kietzke Lane, Reno 1356 Prater Way, Sparks
Every generation tries to improve on traditional treats, whether it’s putting pineapple on pizza, adding tapioca pearls to tea, or eschewing old-style custard for something called chai masala crème brûlée. I’m OK with that. Culinary fusions make eating more interesting—but I draw the line at messing with milkshakes. Basil, rosemary, olive oil and botanicals like lavender, elderflower or hibiscus syrup should be nowhere near milk and ice cream. Yet, here we are in 2026. There’s a cure for such heresy. Several shops across Northern Nevada still pour out the old malt-shop milkshakes, and Scooper’s makes my shakes. They are thick and creamy, made with real milk without injected air. The traditional chocolate, vanilla and strawberry shakes remain popular, but Scooper’s also has flavors that do complement the milk and ice cream, including boysenberry, banana, peanut butter, white chocolate and marshmallow. I may try one of those someday, but for now, I remain a milkshake Luddite, quaffing a chocolate shake or malt served with a side of nostalgia. Yeah, I’m a Boomer, buster, so keep your boba and botanicals to yourself. —Frank X. Mullen
Fabi Enrique and Jerry Molina are among the cooks behind the magic at Ana’s Taco Grill. Photo/ David Robert
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FOOD & DRINK BEST CHEAP EATS
In-N-Out Burger
Runners up: 2. Super Burrito 3. Gold ‘N Silver 4. Pho Cafe Hong Kong Diner 5. Cluckers Chicken 6. Baldini’s Brickyard Grill
Aladdin’s Market & Kitchen
BEST HAWAIIAN RESTAURANT
Runners up: 2. Dorinda’s Chocolates 3. Dolce Caffé 4. Bouchée Confections 5. Wild Sugar
Kenji’s
Runners up: 2. Loco Ono 3. L&L Hawaiian Barbecue 4. Kika’s All Kine Grindz 5. Hinoki Poke BEST CHICKEN WINGS
Noble Pie Parlor
THANKS for voting us Reno’s best burger and fries!
115 Ridge Street
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BEST MIDDLE EASTERN/ AFRICAN RESTAURANT
Runners up: 2. Slater’s Ding-a-Wing 3. Royce Burger Bar 4. Bully’s Sports Bar & Grill 5. Wings Korean Chicken 6. Wing King
Runners up: 2. Suri’s Mediterranean 3. Silk Road International Market BEST DESSERTS
Josef’s Vienna Bakery and Café
BEST SANDWICH SHOP
Full Belly Deli
Runners up: 2. Michael’s Deli 3. Deli Towne USA 4. Rubicon Deli 5. Beach Hut Deli
Staff Pick
BEST FRIENDLY COFFEE SHOP
The Roost
651 Booth St., Reno Theroostreno.com
Down by Reno High School, on the corner of California Avenue and Booth Street, sits a three-window coffee shack, in the ’90s tradition of classic drive-through coffee shops, called The Roost. There, you will find a line of cars on both sides of the building waiting patiently for their morning caffeine fix. What makes this little shack outstanding is the friendly staff inside, who, despite long lines, always have the best attitudes and kindest smiles. But the most impressive thing is that, even though the largest national chain opened a store less than a block from their windows, The Roost’s lines are still long, and their service is better than ever. This is my favorite example of how to compete in the service industry: When the competition comes knocking, treat people better, and you will be just fine. —Michael Moberly
BEST BURGER
Royce Burger Bar
Runners up: 2. In-N-Out 3. Beefy’s 4. Juicy’s Giant Hamburgers 5. Lucky Beaver Bar and Burger BEST SMOOTHIE
Keva Juice
Runners up: 2. Elixir Superfood & Juice 3. Jamba 4. Planet Smoothie BEST KOREAN
Arario
Runners up: 2. Ijji 4 Korean Bar-B-Que 3. Bab Cafe 4. Tofu House 5. Siu Korean BBQ BEST MARGARITA
El Adobe Cafe
Runners up: 2. Mexcal 3. TIE Casa Grande Los Compadres 5. Bertha Miranda’s BEST VEGETARIAN FOOD
Great Full Gardens
Runners up: 2. The Fix 3. Thali 4. Elixir Superfood & Juice 5. Wild River Grille BEST SPARKS RESTAURANT
Great Basin Brewing Company
Runners up: 2. BJ’s Nevada Barbecue Company 3. Western Village Steakhouse 4. Sparks Water Bar 5. Nugget Oyster Bar
BEST TACO
best food truck in reno ! voted
Ana’s Taco Grill
Runners up: 2. Jimboy’s Tacos 3. Taco Shop 4. Daddy’s Tacos 5. Mexcal 6. El Adobe Cafe BEST PIZZA
R Town Pizza
Runners up: 2. Cosmo’s Snack Bar 3. The Blind Onion Pizza and Pub 4. Smiling With Hope Pizza 5. Noble Pie Parlor 6. SouthCreek Pizza Co. 7. Pizzava BEST JUICE/JUICE BAR
Elixir Superfood & Juice
Silver State Pie Co. Est. 2023
Personal Pot Pies, Hand Pies, and Sweet Pies! Contact us today to book us for your next event! Weddings | Corporate Events | Private Parties www.SilverStatePieCo.com (775) 444-2710 ThePieDaddies@gmail.com @silverstatepieco
facebook.com/silverstatepieco
Runners up: 2. Keva Juice 3. Jamba 4. Morning Glory 5. Alpine Nutrition
BEST INDIAN RESTAURANT
India Kabab & Curry
Runners up: 2. Maharaja Royal Bites 3. Royal India Cuisine 4. Thali 5. Bawarchi Indian Cuisine BEST DOUGHNUTS/PASTRIES
DoughBoys Donuts
Runners up: 2. Perenn Bakery 3. Jelly Donut 4. Josef’s Vienna Bakery & Cafe 5. Donut Bistro
Established in 1998
Big Water Grille
Thank you for voting for Executive Chef Nate Cook as the Best of Northern Nevada. 341 Ski Way, Incline Village • 775-833-0606 • www.bigwatergrille.com RenoNR.com
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FOOD & DRINK BEST WINE LIST
Whispering Vine Wine Co.
Runners up: 2. Craft Wine & Beer 3. Atlantis Steakhouse 4. TIE Roxy at the Eldorado Wild River Grille
BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT
Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant
Runners up: 2. Ana’s Taco Grill 3. Los Compadres 4. El Adobe Cafe 5. Casa Grande
BEST SEAFOOD RESTAURANT
Land Ocean
BEST VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT
Golden Flower
BEST MINDEN/ GARDNERVILLE RESTAURANT
Runners up: 2. 999 Phở 3. La Mint 4. Silver Chopsticks 5. SF Kitchen 6. Donut Bistro
J.T. Basque Bar and Dining Room
BEST LATE-NIGHT DINING
Two Chicks
Noble Pie Parlor
Runners up: 2. In-N-Out Burger 3. Pizzava 4. Inclined Burgers and Brews Midtown 5. Café Milano at Peppermill 6. Café Central at Silver Legacy
Runners up: 2. Overland Restaurant 3. Minden Meat and Deli 4. Cook’d BEST BREAKFAST
Runners up: 2. Peg’s Glorified Ham and Eggs 3. PJ & Company 4. Squeeze In 5. The Cup Cafe
BEST STEAK
Western Village Steakhouse
Runners up: 2. Atlantis Steakhouse 3. Biggest Little Steakhouse 4. Ruby River 5. Ramsay’s Kitchen at The Silver Legacy 6. Anthony’s Chophouse at the Nugget
BEST CHINESE RESTAURANT
Kwok’s Bistro
Runners up: 2. Palais de Jade 3. CJ Palace 4. Silver Chopsticks 5. Wang’s Table
Runners up: 2. Oceano at the Peppermill 3. Atlantis Oyster & Sushi Bar on the Sky Terrace 4. Wild River Grille 5. Nugget Oyster Bar BEST FRENCH FRIES
Royce Burger Bar
Runners up: 2. In-N-Out Burger 3. The Fix 4. Bighorn Tavern 5. Archie’s Giant Hamburgers 6. PJ & Company BEST COFFEE ROASTER
Midnight Coffee Roasting
Runners up: 2. Hub Coffee Roasters 3. Laughing Cat Coffee 4. Bibo Coffee Co. 5. Wood-Fire Roasted Coffee Company
Clint Peterson is part of the team carrying on Casale's 89-year-old tradition of serving hearty, traditional Italian fare. Behind him is Jaxon Northon’s painting of Inez “Mama” Casale, daughter of the restaurant’s founders, and her son, Tony Stempeck, from our 2018 Best of Northern Nevada issue. Photo/David Robert 18
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BEST CARSON CITY RESTAURANT
BEST BOBA
Red’s Old 395 Grill
Num Num Boba
BEST BASQUE RESTAURANT
BEST RENO RESTAURANT
Runners up: 2. Sassafras Eclectic Food Joint 3. The Cracker Box 4. Nashville Social Club 5. Tee Jay’s Corner Cafe Louis’ Basque Corner
Runners up: 2. J.T. Basque Bar and Dining Room 3. Villa Basque Café BEST BARBECUE RESTAURANT
BJ’s Nevada Barbecue Company
Runners up: 2. Brothers Barbecue 3. Butchers Kitchen Char-B-Que 4. Carolina Kitchen & BBQ Co. 5. Famous Dave’s BEST CENTRAL AMERICAN
El Paisano
Runners up: 2. TIE Bistro Habanero Cuzco Peruvian Cuisine 4. A La Parrilla 5. D’licious Caffe BEST INTERNATIONAL MARKET
Aladdin’s Market & Kitchen
Runners up: 2. Asian Mart 3. 168 Asian Market 4. Reno International Market 5. Silk Road International Market BEST FARMERS’ MARKET
Riverside Farmers’ Market
Runners up: 2. Sparks United Methodist Church Farmer’s Market 3. Shirley’s Farmers’ Market at the Village on California Avenue 4. Carson Farmers’ Market
Runners up: 2. Bubble Tea Station 3. 1, 2, Tea 4. RareTea 5. Oddcha Arario
Runners up: 2. Great Full Gardens 3. Wild River Grille 4. Centro Bar & Kitchen 5. Marcolino’s Italia 6. Toro Bravo BEST MARTINI
Death and Taxes
Runners up: 2. Roxy at the Eldorado 3. The Emerson 4. 10 Torr Distilling and Brewing 5. Wild River Grille BEST OUTDOOR DINING
Wild River Grille
Runners up: 2. Stone House Café 3. Sparks Water Bar 4. The Shore Reno 5. Toro Bravo BEST CATERING COMPANY
TIE Brothers Barbecue Cherry Bomb Catering
Runners up: 3. Roundabout Catering 4. Fig Tree Catering
Thank you for keeping us No. 1 for the past five years! We appreciate you more than you know! 1537 S. Virginia St. • 775-686-6360 Dance lessons + entertainment seven nights a week! purecountrycanteenreno•
purecountrycanteen
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Dining in Truckee. Dining on Tahoe.
FOOD & DRINK BEST SALAD
Great Full Gardens
Runners up: 2. Süp 3. Full Belly Deli 4. Wild River Grille 5. SouthCreek Pizza Co. 6. Rubicon Deli BEST TRUCKEE RESTAURANT
530.587.2626 • www.barofamerica.com Thank you for voting us Best Truckee Restaurant!
Tokyo Sushi
BEST VEGAN FOOD
Costco
Runners up: 2. The Fix 3. Thali 4. Two Chicks 5. House of Mexica
Bar of America
BEST SUSHI
Runners up: 2. Hinoki Sushi 3. Kuma Sushi 4. Sakana 5. Sushi 7
Great Full Gardens
–Mark Twain
Runners up: 2. Ijji 2 3. Haru 4. Kuma Sushi 5. Tadaima Shabu Shabu
Bar of America
Runners up: 2. Jax at the Tracks 3. Alibi Truckee Public House 4. Great Gold 5. Wagon Train Coffee Shop
“Drink whiskey with me—go to Bar of America.”
BEST JAPANESE RESTAURANT
Kauboi Izakaya
BEST HOT DOG
Runners up: 2. Sinbad’s Hot Dogs 3. Scooper’s 4. Coney Island Dogs and Burgers 5. Dumpling Queen
Staff Pick BEST COFFEE SHOP TO WORK REMOTELY
Chrome Coffee Works
131 Pine St., Reno Instagram.com/chromecoffeeworks
As a person who works many remote jobs, I get stir-crazy at home and find I can often focus better at coffee shops. However, it seems like I always have at least one gripe: Either there aren’t enough tables; the tables are too small; it’s too crowded; there aren’t enough outlets; it’s too noisy; the Wi-Fi is iffy; the drinks are too expensive; the lighting is bad; or it closes way too early. In 2024, Chrome Coffee Works entered the scene, taking up residence on Pine Street with its light-pink exterior and retro lettering. Chrome gets so many things right, such as the abundance of seating—and, most importantly, each seat has easy access to an outlet, so you never have to worry about your devices dying. The design is stylish and slightly minimalistic, with a distinct character inspired by vintage neon signage, traditional tattoos and classic coffee shop vibes. The menu is pretty simple, and they do it well. The breakfast burritos are tasty, and both of my usual orders—drip coffee or an iced americano—make me want to quote Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks: “That’s a damn fine cup of coffee.” —Max Stone 20
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COLLABORATIVE FRAME Voted Best Frame Shop, Nevada Fine Arts is a hub for ideas, advice and supplies By Lynn Lazaro Mandy Medlin purchased Nevada Fine Arts in 2024. “Since I’ve been in here, I would say I’ve made zero art, because I’m learning the art of running a business,” she said. Medlin works with acrylics and trinket creations and hopes to explore printmaking, ceramics and pastels. Photo/ Lynn Lazaro
W
hen Mandy Medlin moved from Arkansas to Reno in 2018, Nevada Fine Arts was where she first found community through art classes and workshops.
In February 2024, she bought the business. Taking ownership of the independent art-supply store was a dream come true for Medlin, who had helped run businesses before but never owned one. Under her leadership, the store has been voted Best Frame Shop for two consecutive years by RN&R readers. “What a victory,” Medlin said. “You know, when you get an accolade like that, it appears like maybe it came with ease, but there’s always a struggle behind trying to make it be the best.” Framing is challenging work, Medlin said. She works with other frame shops in town to make sure customers get what they need. If
there’s a project the Nevada Fine Arts staff can’t do, or questions they can’t answer, they’ll reach out to other frame shops for referrals or advice. “We make sure that our relationships between employees and staff—other frame shops in the community—come first, and that we take care of other people, Medlin said. “We try to make it fun and make the investment worth it. At the end of the day, frames are not cheap.” The store also works with artists to provide framing discounts to people who buy their work. “If artists want to collaborate with us … maybe we put brochures at their booth,” Medlin said. If artists distribute Nevada Fine Arts sticker, their clients can show them at the shop for a discount, she added. Most of Nevada Fine Arts’ frame customers are collectors, and sometimes the art they are having framed is by an artist who has been to the store. “It’s like, ‘I know the artist who has just been working on that,’” Medlin
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OF MIND
Nevada Fine Arts offers more than 2,000 frame styles and works closely with customers to ensure appropriate materials and techniques are used for their artwork, photographs and collectibles. Photo/Lynn Lazaro
said. “So, it’s really cool to see it come full circle like that through the store.” There’s a lot of give and take at Nevada Fine Arts. Store employees, who are artists themselves, can offer advice to shoppers. Artists might find themselves next to one of those employees at a market or show. When an artist is ready to frame their work for their next show or sale, the framer at Nevada Fine Arts can help them find the best frame to showcase it. “It’s a really neat ecosystem here at Nevada Fine Arts,” Medlin said. “When it’s flowing, it’s a beautiful, flowing river of joy and collaboration.” Nevada Fine Arts is also a community space where artists can host their own workshops or attend others, connect with fellow artists, and see their work in the store’s gallery. It was also home to an international show that went viral—the 4x4 Art Show, which featured four-inchsquare, 2D and 3D art pieces. The store received close to 3,000 submissions and sold about 600 pieces.
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T L U U RE C
BEST DOG PARK
Rancho San Rafael Regional Park
Runners up: 2. Link Piazzo Dog Park at Hidden Valley Regional Park 3. Plumas Park 4. Idlewild Dog Park 5. Cyan Park
BEST SPECIAL EVENT AT LAKE TAHOE
Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival
Runners up: 2. Music on the Beach at Kings Beach 3. Heavenly Village Summer Concert Series 4. American Century Celebrity Golf Championship Tournament 5. Lake Tahoe Concours d’Elegance BEST LOCAL BAND
New Wave Crave
BEST RADIO STATION
Alt 92.1
Runners up: 2. KUNR Public Radio 3. 105.7 KOZZ 4. KWNK 97.7 FM 5. K-Bull 98.1 FM BEST NONPROFIT GROUP
Eddy House
Runners up: 2. Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful 3. Our Center 4. Note-Able Music Therapy Services 5. Northern Nevada Sons and Daughters of Erin
BEST CHARITY RACE OR WALK
Moms on the Run
Runners up: 2. Reno-Tahoe Odyssey 3. Wobble Before You Gobble 4. Leprechaun Race 5. Relay for Life Northern Nevada BEST MONTHLY/REGULARLY SCHEDULED EVENT
First Thursday at Nevada Museum of Art
Reno Dance Company
Runners up: 2. Reno Wine Walk 3. The Twampsons Drag Brunch 4. Ritual at Dead Ringer Analog Bar 5. Crocodile Nixon Improv & Comedy
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BEST LOCAL DANCE COMPANY
Runners up: 2. Sierra Nevada Ballet 3. Art in Motion 4. Ballet Folklorico Flor de Castilla 5. Studio J Dance Collective |
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Runners up: 2. As If! 3. Kathy Lantz and Sugar High 4. Drunkn’ Assumtion 5. JeNes N The Juice 6. TIE Rick Hays & American Steel Sierra Roc BEST ANIMAL SHELTER
Nevada Humane Society
Runners up: 2. SPCA of Northern Nevada 3. Canine Rehabilitation Center and Cat Sanctuary 4. Catmandu BEST SPECIAL EVENT IN DOWNTOWN RENO
Artown
Runners up: 2. Hot August Nights 3. Western Lights Festival 4. Reno River Festival 5. BBQ, Brews & Blues Festival
BEST ART GALLERY
Nevada Museum of Art
Runners up: 2. Potentialist Workshop 3. TIE Sierra Arts Gallery Stremmel Gallery 5. Pitch Black Printing 6. Richardson Gallery of Fine Art BEST MOVIE THEATER
Galaxy Theatres Legends
Runners up: 2. Cinemark Century Summit Sierra 3. Galaxy Theatres Victorian 4. Cinemark Century Park Lane 16 and XD 5. West Wind El Rancho 4 Drive-In BEST SPECIAL EVENT IN CARSON CITY
Nevada Day Parade
Runners up: 2. Halloween at Governor’s Mansion 3. Rockin’ Rib-Fest at Casino Fandango 4. Levitt AMP Carson City Music Series 5. Capital City Brewfest BEST LOCAL THEATER COMPANY
Reno Little Theater
Runners up: 2. Brüka Theatre 3. Good Luck Macbeth 4. Restless Artists Theatre 5. Ageless Repertory Theater BEST OPEN MIC
Reno Improv (on hiatus)
Runners up: 2. Open Mic Poetry at Shim’s 3. Open Mic With Kat Heart at Lead Dog Brewing 4. Open Mic Comedy at Abby’s Highway 40 5. Open Mic With Molly Moser at Dayton Taphouse
Staff Pick BEST BOOK ABOUT DEAD PEOPLE IN THE BLACK ROCK DESERT
Black Rock Dead: True Tales From One of Nevada’s Most Treacherous Deserts By Christopher Brooks and Christina Preston
Black Rock Dead: True Tales From One of Nevada’s Most Treacherous Deserts isn’t just the best book about Nevada’s desert deaths—it’s likely the only one. The recently published volume documents the accidents, illnesses, battle casualties, homicides and suicides that have occurred in the Black Rock and nearby environs. The chronology stretches from the doomed wagon trains of 1846 to Burning Man. The authors did deep research, digging up tales gleaned from oral histories, government reports, pioneer journals and newspaper accounts. In the mid-1800s, the Black Rock Desert earned the title of “death route” for star-crossed pioneers; it remains a treacherous landscape for modern travelers. The stories include the true-crime tale of the murder of Peter Lassen in 1859, the saga of “Shoshone Mike” Daggett in 1911, and the more recent fates of folks who were just looking for a fun afternoon in the canyons or on the playa, but became stranded in a place where cell phone service doesn’t exist; daily temperatures can swing from scorching to freezing; and water is scarce. Some of the entries in this well-researched catalogue of suffering are short bulletins. Other tales—such as the Shoshone Mike massacre—are related in detailed chapters. The book is a macabre compendium of the unfortunate souls who were murdered, died of thirst, froze to death, killed themselves, or were burned, drowned, crushed. The Black Rock, apparently, is haunted by more ghosts than any cemetery. It’s not a “fun read,” but it’s an interesting one. Black Rock Dead is available on Amazon in hardcover or paperback. —Frank X. Mullen
BEST LOCAL PODCAST
Worst Little Podcast
Runners up: 2. Mix Tapes 3. The Wind 4. 4th Street Live Podcast 5. Ballot Battleground: Nevada BEST LOCAL TV NEWS
KOLO 8 News Now
Runners up: 2. 2news (KTVN) 3. News 4 (KRNV)
BEST SPECIAL EVENT IN DOWNTOWN SPARKS
Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook Off
Runners up: 2. Hot August Nights 3. Hometowne Christmas Parade and Tree Lighting 4. Star Spangled Sparks 5. Rail City Taco Fest
Nevada Humane Society CEO Jerleen Bryant with Brody, a 5-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier. (Sorry readers, this cute pup is not up for adoption. But plenty of other pets are!) Photo/David Robert
BEST SPECIAL EVENT IN MINDEN/GARDNERVILLE
Genoa Candy Dance
Runners up: 2. Concerts in the Park 3. Carson Valley Days 4. Third Thursday Wine Walk
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THANK YOU, NORTHERN NEVADA! BEST CREDIT UNION/BANK
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Thank you for voting us BEST BREAKFAST & BLOODY MARY !! We love you Northern Nevada!
GA C M
S O N I S A ING L B
&
BEST CASINO-RESORT POOL
Peppermill
BEST CASINO
Peppermill
Runners up: 2. Grand Sierra Resort 3. Atlantis 4. Legends Bay Casino 5. Eldorado 6. J Resort BEST CASINO BUFFET
Toucan Charlie’s Buffet & Grille at the Atlantis
Runners up: 2. The Grand Buffet at the Grand Sierra Resort 3. The Buffet at J Resort BEST POKER ROOM
Peppermill
Runners up: 2. Grand Sierra Resort 3. Atlantis 4. Silver Legacy
Runners up: 2. Grand Sierra Resort 3. Atlantis 4. Nugget Casino Resort BEST CASINO RESTAURANT
Western Village Steakhouse
Runners up: 2. Oceano at Peppermill 3. Atlantis Steakhouse 4. Bistro Napa at Atlantis 5. Charlie Palmer Steak at the Grand Sierra Resort 6. Duke’s Steak House at Legends Bay BEST CASINO-HOTEL FOR A ROMANTIC GETAWAY
Peppermill
Runners up: 2. Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa and Casino 3. Atlantis 4. Grand Sierra Resort 5. Nugget Casino Resort
BEST CASINO HAPPY HOUR
Bistro Napa at the Atlantis
BEST CASINO BAR
Peppermill Fireside Lounge
Runners up: 2. Roxy at the Eldorado 3. Peppermill Terrace Lounge 4. Crystal Lounge at the Grand Sierra Resort 5. Chandelier Bar at Legends Bay BEST SPORTSBOOK
Peppermill
Runners up: 2. Grand Sierra Resort 3. Atlantis 4. Circa at Legends Bay 5. Caesars Race and Sportsbook at Silver Legacy
BEST CASINO FOR LOCALS
Peppermill
Runners up: 2. Grand Sierra Resort 3. Atlantis 4. Legends Bay Casino 5. Nugget Casino Resort 6. Club Cal Neva BEST CASINO HOTEL
Peppermill
Runners up: 2. Grand Sierra Resort 3. Atlantis 4. Eldorado 5. J Resort
3800 S. Virginia St., Reno Atlantiscasino.com/dining/fine-dining/atlantis-bistro-napa
It’s 5:20 p.m. on a Thursday. I have not eaten anything all day, and work was annoying—so I need food and a nice, strong cocktail. The hubby and I have just arrived at the Atlantis to partake in one of Reno’s best happy hours, at the bar/lounge area of Bistro Napa—although here, they call it “Social Hour,” and it’s actually two hours, 4 to 6 p.m. daily (holidays excluded). For these amazing two hours, all of the small plates, flatbreads and beverages on the special lounge menu are half-price. This means Bistro Napa’s Hibiscus Manhattan—made with Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel and Australian Hibiscus—is just $9. Count me in. But there’s a problem: Every single one of the tables and bar seats in the lounge is occupied. Ugh. Normally, I don’t wait to stalk tables or bar seats—but for Bistro Napa’s social hour, I’ll make an exception. To repeat: $9 Hibiscus Manhattans! Around 5:40, we see a gentleman sitting by himself at a table get up to leave. The second he’s out of his chair, we (carefully and politely) rush to the table and sit down. Score! We place our order with minutes to spare before the 6 p.m. deadline: first and foremost, two orders of the amazing prime-rib sliders (which come with delicious skinny fries). The ahi tuna. The wild mushroom flatbread. Because the hubby was really craving fries, a full order of the skinny fries. The Thai beef lettuce cups. And, yes, my beloved $9 Hibiscus Manhattan. The total bill, before tax and tip: $68. Amazing. (Be sure to tip the servers on the full price before the 50 percent discount. They work very hard during social hour!) —Jimmy Boegle RenoNR.com
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L T I F H E G I N
BEST GAY HANGOUT
The Selden
Runners up: 2. Five Star Saloon 3. The Emerson 4. OTC Bar & Nightclub 5. Carl’s The Saloon BEST LOCAL BREWERY
BEST CONCERT VENUE
BEST CRAFT COCKTAILS
The Emerson
Runners up: 2. Death and Taxes 3. Derby Barber & Supply 4. Rum Sugar Lime 5. Chapel Tavern 6. Bistro Napa at Atlantis BEST TRIVIA NIGHT
40 Mile Saloon
BEST COMEDY CLUB
BEST BAR
Runners up: 2. Death and Taxes 3. Rum Sugar Lime 4. Amari 5. Atlantis Steakhouse TIE Laugh Factory Reno Improv
Chapel Tavern
Runner up: 3. Magique/Celebrity Showroom at The Nugget
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Runners up: 2. Abby’s Highway 40 3. Ceol Irish Pub 4. Corrigan’s Lost Highway 5. Alturas Bar
Fall 2026 |
Runners up: 2. The Emerson 3. Abby’s Highway 40 4. 10 Torr Distilling and Brewing 5. Derby Barber & Supply 6. Ceol Irish Pub RenoNR.com
BEST BOWLING ALLEY
BEST STRIP CLUB
Runners up: 2. Peppermint Hippo 3. Wild Orchid 4. Fantasy Girls
Fireside Lounge at Peppermill
Runners up: 2. Craft Wine & Beer 3. Sierra Tap House 4. The Glass Die 5. Final Draught Coconut Bowl at Wild Island
Men’s Club
BEST DIVE BAR
Piñon Bottle Co.
Great Basin Brewing Company
Runners up: 2. 10 Torr Distilling and Brewing 3. Parlay 6 4. Bristlecone Brewing Company 5. Pigeon Head Brewery 6. The Brewer’s Cabinet
BEST ROMANTIC BAR
BEST BEER SELECTION
Bristlecone Brewing Company (Fly Guy)
Runners up: 2. Reno Public Market (DJ Trivia) 3. 10 Torr Distilling and Brewing (DJ Trivia) 4. Lead Dog Brewing (DJ Trivia) 5. Final Draught 6. Sierra Tap House (DJ Trivia) BEST DISTILLERY
10 Torr Distilling and Brewing
Runners up: 2. Frey Ranch 3. Underworld Distillery 4. The Depot Craft Brewery & Distillery 5. Ferino Distillery
Runners up: 2. Grand Sierra Resort 3. High Sierra Lanes 4. National Bowling Stadium 5. Gold Dust West Bowling Center (Carson City) Grand Sierra Resort
Runners up: 2. Holland Project 3. The Alpine 4. J Resort 5. Reno Public Market
Staff Pick
BEST TRANSFORMATION OF A DIVE
The Elbow Room
2002 Victorian Ave., Sparks Theelbowroomsparks.com
For most of 2021 and 2022, this unpretentious (maybe even super-basic) dive bar was home to some of the coolest punk and metal shows at the end of the COVID lockdowns. The raucous live music stopped after those two halcyon years—but the latest owners, who bought it in 2024, turned it into a place for adultfocused pinball playtime. There are 14 pinball machines where the stage and mosh-floor used to be, and the bar often hosts tournaments on Fridays. It’s a cool idea that is helped along by the friendly staff members, who sometimes do some potluck-style food on weekends. Drinks are relatively cheap; the vibes are relatively chill; and this place has managed to keep its off-the-beaten-path charms. I have to admit I miss it as a venue— seriously, it was wild and wonderful every time—but I will still accept it into my dive-bar heart as one of the most intriguing places in our fair cities to grab a brew (and try your hand at being a pinball wizard). —Mark Earnest
Staff Pick
BEST MUSIC VENUE YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW IS A MUSIC VENUE
Corrigan’s Lost Highway
1526 S. Wells Ave., Reno Instagram.com/corrigans_losthighway
This place, a lighthouse for fun along Wells Avenue for many decades, is trying hard not to be a normal venue. It has two interchangeable names. There’s nothing even close to a regular music schedule, with maybe a show a month—if they feel like it. The music is either outdoors on a huge stage or from a tiny tent. Or, the band is tucked into a very horizontal corner, blasting at you with both barrels. Yet, this place rules for music fans. The band selection is impeccable, with a range from quieter indie rock to completely insane metal. The sound quality is killer. There’s no cover charge, although donations are encouraged with subtlety and go directly to the bands. And, even when there’s not a show on its property, it becomes a place to hang during shows at the very close Holland Project (for those of us above 21, that is). It’s clear that they have no intention of becoming a regular venue, which is absolutely a smart idea. That gives Corrigan’s (or Lost Highway, or whatever) a nonslick, near-basement-or-backyard vibe that I hope it keeps forever. —Mark Earnest
BEST COCKTAIL MENU
Death and Taxes
Runners up: 2. TIE The Emerson Rum Sugar Lime 4. Chapel Tavern 5. 10 Torr Distilling and Brewing 6. Underworld Distillery BEST KARAOKE
BEST DANCE CLUB
TIE Pure Country Canteen Ritual at Dead Ringer Analog Bar
Runners up: 3. The Selden 4. Cypress 5. Novi at Eldorado
BEST ALL-AGES SPOT
Holland Project
The John and Rylee Show at Abby’s Highway 40
Runners up: 2. Reno Public Market 3. Greater Nevada Field (Aces Ballpark) 4. The Eddy 5. The Alpine
BEST PLACE FOR A FIRST DATE
Bully’s
Runners up: 2. Shim’s Tavern 3. Reno Public Market 4. Wing King 5. Buster’s Slots & Bar The Glass Die
Runners up: 2. Fireside Lounge at Peppermill 3. Wild River Grille 4. 10 Torr Distilling and Brewing 5. Piñon Bottle Co.
The Grand Sierra Resort has the largest theater in town. Is that why RN&R readers voted it the best concert venue? Or is it the sound quality, comfy seats, or big, national acts like the Smashing Pumpkins? Photo/David Robert
BEST SPORTS BAR
Runners up: 2. El Adobe Cafe 3. TIE Archie’s Giant Hamburgers Coach’s Grill and Sports Bar 5. Dubs Sports Lounge RenoNR.com
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Thank you for selecting us as the Best Wedding Reception Site
Lavender Ridge 7450 West 4th Street, Reno • 775-224-3969 www.lavenderridgereno.com
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A cut above Haircuts, products, cocktails and coffee: How does Derby Barber and Supply—voted Best Barber Shop—do it all? By Susan Winters
L
ike many barbershops and cafés on a Saturday morning, Derby Barber and Supply has a steady stream of clientele. While the pace may be brisk, it is never hurried or loud. Large windows in the soundproof wall separating the lounge from the bustle of the barbershop floor allow folks enjoying a cold brew in the lounge to be part of the scene. Like many barbershops and cafés on a Saturday morning, Derby Barber and Supply has a steady stream of clientele. While the pace may be brisk, it is never hurried or loud. Large windows in the sound-proof wall separating the lounge from the bustle of the barbershop floor allow folks enjoying a cold brew in the lounge to be part of the scene. Running a viable small business can be daunting in today’s volatile economy. Yet Vincent Gravallese, proprietor and master barber, runs a successful barber shop, a café/ bar and a grooming product line—all under one roof. Is there a magic wand tucked away in those long sleeves worn by Gravallese and his barber personnel? “From the get-go, I was wondering how I could get all three of my passions locked into one place,” said Gravallese. RN&R readers selected Derby Barber & Supply as the Best Barber Shop, while Derby’s Bridget Varney won Best Barber; Vincent Gravallese came in second. The shop is also a runner-up in the Best Bar and Best Craft Cocktails categories. Derby opened in 2015 on West First Street with three chairs and a basic tavern license, with the focus of serving craft beer and whiskey to the shop patrons.
Client Mark Nesbitt enjoys a whiskey while Vincent Gravallese cuts his hair. Photo/ David Robert
Traveling though Italy with his wife, Shelly, on their honeymoon in 2016, Gravallese became intrigued by the all-day cafés where patrons could order an espresso at 6 in the evening or a negroni at 4:30 in the afternoon. He loved the coffee and cocktail vibe, so he considered how to modernize it and make it his own. The couple sampled coffee from all
over the U.S. before choosing Puff Coffee from Portland, Ore. Gradually, Derby expanded to six chairs, and the libations list increased to include a couple of cocktails, pour-overs and cold brews. In 2018, Gravallese collaborated with a chemist to develop grooming products for modern styling that are healthy for the RenoNR.com
consumer and safe for the environment. The Gravallese Co. product line is plant-based and chemical-free, used at Derby and sold to shops and salons throughout the U.S. and Canada. Shelly Gravallese, whose previous roles included color specialist and education leader, is currently the director of formulation and production, overseeing the lab and manufacturing. “Shelly and I are very involved on the ground level with our employees,” Gravallese said. “I think it is super-important.” When Derby moved to 406 California Ave. in June 2025, the bar/café evolved into a broader experience. The barbershops with bars that Gravallese has encountered on his travels kept the bar and shop areas separate. He briefly considered separating the café and barbershop, but decided the blended environment would provide a unique experience. Gravallese’s primary advice for those considering a multi-business model: Create good systems with good people. It’s a straightforward practice, but not easy. He acknowledged that developing the right systems involved a lot of hard work. “Take your time hiring people; pay what people are worth,” he said. “You hire quality people; you get quality work.” Though operational needs for each product and service vary, the craftsman approach of equipping qualified personnel with quality training, tools and materials applies to all aspects of the business. “Trend-proof, long hair or short hair, it doesn’t matter—you can do it all,” Gravallese said of having a staff with a diverse skill set. The shop has a 1940s ambience, with marble-topped bar and café tables, and paintings of jazz musicians adorning the walls. The barbers’ attire of ties, vests and slacks sets a professional tone and creates a sense of place and time. Though fond of post-war Americana, Gravallese also keeps an eye toward emerging trends. The product line recently switched to aluminum packaging for better recycling and lighter for shipping. During his travels on behalf of Gravallese & Co., he checks out the clubs for the latest craft cocktails. “Fun and cutting-edge, doing things other people aren’t doing and taking care of people along the way, both client and employee— that what makes business truly sustainable,” Gravallese said. Learn more at www.derbybarber.com.
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D S O O G ICES
V R E S
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BEST GARDEN NURSERY
Moana Nursery
Runners up: 2. Rail City Garden Center 3. Sierra Water plant shop 4. Old Stone House Gift and Garden BEST HEAD SHOP
Art Dogs and Grace
Runners up: 2. Smok’n Ray’s Smoke Shop 3. Knuckle Dusters Vape Shop BEST NEW CAR DEALERSHIP
Dolan Auto Group
Runners up: 2. Lithia Reno Subaru 3. Bill Pearce Motors 4. Corwin Ford 5. Lithia Hyundai of Reno BEST CARPET CLEANING COMPANY
Evergreen Carpet Care
Runners up: 2. Stanley Steemer 3. Sterling Carpet Care 4. TIE CJ’s Recommended Carpet Care Details Carpet Solutions BEST PET DAYCARE
Animal Oasis
BEST GROCERY STORE
Trader Joe’s
Runners up: 2. WinCo Foods 3. Great Basin Community Food Co-op 4. Raley’s 5. Smith’s Food and Drug 6. Whole Foods BEST WEDDING RECEPTION SITE
Lavender Ridge
Runners up: 2. Sierra Water Gardens 3. The Elm Estate 4. Red Hawk Golf and Resort 5. Historic Huffaker School at Bartley Ranch 30
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BEST MOTORCYCLE DEALER
Reno Harley-Davidson
Runners up: 2. Battle Born Harley-Davidson 3. Michael’s Reno Powersports 4. EuroCycle Reno 5. Slabsides Reno
Runners up: 2. TIE Camp Bow Wow Fantasia Pet Resort 4. Adventure Pet 5. Charlie’s Place 6. Urban Hound BEST CANNABIS DISPENSARY
The Dispensary
BEST BOUTIQUE CLOTHING STORE Runners up: 2. Silver State Relief Runners up: 3. SoL Cannabis 2. Bad Apple Vntg 4. Jade Cannabis Co. 3. Nomad Boutique 5. Greenleaf Wellness 4. Sierra Belle Boutique 6. Three Nations Cannabis 5. JaDa Loft Boutique 6. Labels Consignment Boutique Junkee Clothing Exchange
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BEST OUTDOOR GEAR SELECTION
Scheels
Runners up: 2. REI 3. Gear Hut 4. Reno Running Company 5. Blue Zone Sports BEST BANK
Greater Nevada Credit Union
Runners up: 2. Great Basin Federal Credit Union 3. Wells Fargo 4. U.S. Bank 5. Bank of America 6. Nevada State Bank BEST SPECIALTY FOOD STORE
Trader Joe’s
Runners up: 2. Great Basin Community Food Co-op 3. Sprouts Farmers Market 4. Armando & Sons Butcher Shop 5. The Wheyfarer BEST PLACE TO GET PIERCED
Black Hole Body Piercing
Runners up: 2. Evolution Tattoo 3. Under Your Skin Tattoo & Body Piercing 4. Desert Rose Tattoo 5. The Bevel Theory
BEST JEWELRY STORE
Michael and Son’s Jewelry Co.
Runners up: 2. Midtown Diamonds 3. Diamond Vault 4. Rogers Jewelry Co. 5. BVW Jewelers BEST SKATE SHOP
Classic Skate Shop
Runners up: 2. Zumiez 3. The WheelHouse 4. Scheels
Junkee Clothing Exchange and salesperson Hannah White both exude flair for days. Photo/David Robert
BEST HOME FURNISHINGS STORE
RC Willey
Runners up: 2. Scandinavian Designs 3. Consign Furniture 4. Bob’s Discount Furniture 5. The Find 6. Mor Furniture for Less BEST ADULT THEMED STORE
Chocolate Walrus
Runners up: 2. Suzies Adult Superstore 3. Adam and Eve 4. HUSTLER Hollywood 5. Crazy Sexy Hot BEST OPTICAL SHOP
Costco
Runners up: 2. Reno Family Eye Care 3. DeMers Family Vision Group 4. Downtown Vision 5. NVision Optix
BEST LIQUOR STORE
Total Wine & More
Runners up: 2. Lee’s Discount Liquor 3. Craft Wine & Beer 4. Ben’s Fine Wine & Spirits 5. Cork N Bottle Liquors BEST PLACE TO BUY A FIREARM
Scheels
Runners up: 2. TIE Bizarre Guns Mark Fore and Strike 4. Cabela’s 5. Sportsman’s Warehouse 5. Juggernaut Arms
BEST RESOURCE FOR ECO-FRIENDLY WITCHES
Coyote Supply Co. 30 Mary St., Suite 11, Reno Coyotesupplyco.com
Nature provides everything a modern witch needs for their practice: herbs for spell work, moonlight to charge our crystals, and rituals that move with the changing of the seasons. But, of course, we can all use some help—so if you’re a witch who wants to honor the Earth with an eco-friendly approach to your practice, stop by Coyote Supply Co. the next time you’re in Midtown. The small space is filled to the brim with ethically sourced ritual tools, an all-vegan lineup of items (minus the beeswax candles), and a book collection that can help deepen any witch’s practice. You can find books on Celtic herbalism, Asian shamanism, Appalachian folk magic and Mexican-American folk magic—alongside zero-waste guides. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, the witch behind the register might be able to offer some recommendations. When I first started my spiritual journey, boss witch Brianna Punsalang—whose practice is rooted in Celtic, Appalachian, Chinese and Philippine folk magic—was kind enough to recommend books on Filipino spiritualism. When Punsalang and Michael Gomez opened the store in 2019, their intention was to create a safe space for fellow BIPOC LGBTQIA+ witches to shop sustainably. They did a remarkable job. —Lynn Lazaro
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GOODS & SERVICES BEST MOVING COMPANY
Wolf Pack Moving
Runners up: 2. College Hunks Hauling Junk & Moving 3. Carneys Full-Service Movers 4. All Out Movers 5. Toko Movers BEST PLACE TO GET A CAR REPAIRED
Greg’s Garage
Runners up: 2. CoAuto 3. Bill Pearce Courtesy Honda 4. A+ Automotive and Smog BEST TATTOO PARLOR
Evolution Tattoo
Runners up: 2. Desert Rose Tattoo 3. Aces Tattoo 4. Seven Swans Tattoo 5. Lasting Dose Tattoo 6. Black Cat Tattoo
BEST ANTIQUE STORE
Junkee Clothing Exchange
Runners up: 2. Midtown Antiques 3. The Nest 4. Reno Antiques 5. Eddy Street Vintage Market BEST VETERINARIAN CLINIC
Klaich Animal Hospital
Runners up: 2. Desert Hills Animal Hospital 3. Pyramid Veterinary Hospital 4. Aspen Animal Wellness 5. Pinion Veterinary Hospital 6. Brinkby Animal Hospital BEST FRAME SHOP
Nevada Fine Arts
Runners up: 2. Michael’s 3. Eagle Framing and Art Gallery 4. Frame Shop at Lakeside 5. The Framery BEST GYM
South Reno Athletic Club
BEST BOOKSTORE
Grassroots Books
Runners up: 2. The Radical Cat 3. Barnes and Noble 4. Thistle & Nightshade BEST TANNING SALON
Pacific Sun
Runners up: 2. Beautifaux Bronzing 3. Sunsation 4. Sunless Silhouettes BEST CREDIT UNION
Greater Nevada Credit Union
Runners up: 2. Planet Fitness 3. American Iron 4. Orangetheory Fitness Spanish Springs 5. Crunch Fitness BEST FLOWER SHOP
Sparks Florist
Runners up: 2. The Florist at Moana Nursery 3. Bumblebee Blooms Flower Boutique 4. Devonwoods 5. Sweet Thorns BEST PLACE TO BUY A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT
Runners up: 2. Great Basin Federal Credit Union 3. United Federal Credit Union 4. Mountain America Credit Union 5. OE Federal Credit Union
Bizarre Guitar
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Runners up: 2. Guitar Center 3. Absolute Music 4. Mountain Music Parlor
Need a new hair stylist? You can find Mercedes Sandoval at Image Studios, at 5093 S. McCarran Blvd. Photo/David Robert
BEST BRIDAL SALON
Swoon Bridal
Runners up: 2. Blue Garter Bridal & Tux 3. Studio Inspire Bridal 4. Herstory Bridal and Design
BEST DRY CLEANERS
Bobby Page’s Dry Cleaners
Runners up: 2. Peerless Cleaners 3. Mia’s Professional Cleaners 4. King Dry Cleaners 5. Royal Cleaners
BEST CAR WASH
Sierra Express Car Wash
Runners up: 2. Buggy Bath Car Wash 3. Hutch’s Car Wash 4. Starlite Express Car Wash 5. Scrubbs Express Car Wash BEST BEAUTY SALON
The Copper Sage
Runners up: 2. Siren Salon 3. Tribe Salon 4. Outsiders Hair Studio & Salon 5. Teal Beauty Lounge 6. BLEACH BEST THRIFT STORE
SPCA of Northern Nevada Thrift Store
Runners up: 2. St. Vincent’s Thrift Shop 3. Savers 4. FreeStyle Clothing Exchange 5. Thrift and Gift on Vassar BEST PLACE TO BUY PLAYA GARB
Junkee Clothing Exchange
Runners up: 2. SPCA of Northern Nevada Thrift Store 3. Savers 4. The Nest
BEST PLACE TO BUY VINTAGE CLOTHES
Junkee Clothing Exchange
Runners up: 2. Bad Apple Vntg 3. The Nest 4. FreeStyle Clothing Exchange 5. Waggish & Co 6. Betty’s
BEST BARBER SHOP
Derby Barber and Supply
Runners up: 2. Maxwell’s Barbershop 3. D’s Cutz 4. Heyday Barber Co. 5. Commonwealth Barber Company BEST PLACE TO BUY SEXY UNDERWEAR
Chocolate Walrus
Runners up: 2. Victoria’s Secret 3. Adam and Eve 4. Suzies Adult Superstore 5. HUSTLER Hollywood BEST PRINT SHOP
Pitch Black Printing Co.
Runners up: 2. Reno Print Store 3. Reno Type 4. DigiPrint Corporation 5. Allegra Marketing Print Mail
BEST USED CAR DEALERSHIP
Dolan Auto Group
Runners up: 2. Carmax 3. Bill Pearce Motors 4. Lithia Hyundai of Reno 5. Budget Motors BEST PILATES STUDIO
Club Pilates
Runners up: 2. Pilates Studio of Reno 3. Sunday Pilates 4. Control Pilates by Dani 5. Perfect Fit Pilates BEST HARDWARE STORE
Ace Hardware (general)
Runners up: 2. Carter Bros. Ace Hardware 3. The Home Depot 4. Shelly’s True Value Hardware 5. Lowe’s
GOODS & SERVICES BEST SHOE SELECTION
DSW
Runners up: 2. Scheels 3. Dillard’s 4. A Proper Fit 5. Global Goods Shop BEST SPA
Peppermill Spa Toscana
Runners up: 2. Spa Atlantis 3. SoulSpa 4. Dolce Vita Wellness Spa 5. The Spa at Grand Sierra Resort 6. The Refuge Spa at the Renaissance
BEST PLACE TO GET AN AUTO SMOGGED
Instant Smog
Runners up: 2. The Smog Place 3. Smog Monkey 4. Fast Smog 5. A+ Automotive and Smog BEST EVENT PROMOTER
Fresh Bakin’
Runners up: 2. Amplified Entertainment 3. Liquid Blue Events 4. Heather Hughes BEST VAPE SHOP
Smok’n Ray’s Smoke Shop
Runners up: 2. Slushees Vapor 3. Sunny’s E Cigarettes 4. Cloud9 Vape & Smoke Shop 5. Knuckle Dusters Vape Shop
BEST CARING BOUTIQUE GYM
Elysium Wellness Club 400 Mill St., Suite 101, Reno Elysiumwellnessreno.com
I found Elysium Wellness Club in July 2024 while I was going through a difficult period of mental illness. I knew I had to find a new gym that suited my needs. When I first wandered into Elysium—tucked inside an eccentric yet unassuming brick building on the corner of Mill Street and Holcomb Avenue—I knew it was the right place for me. With matte black and burnt orange walls; warm, low lighting; a plant wall; aesthetic backlit mirrors; a range of weights and equipment; and genderneutral bathrooms, it was everything I’d ever wanted in a gym. And I felt calm, a stark contrast to my previous gyms with oppressive fluorescent lighting, weights slamming, people hogging machines and an overall ambience of stress. Elysium co-owners and power couple Alyssa Ybarra, a licensed therapist, and her husband, Dylan Hoff, a personal trainer, created this welcoming space for people to find holistic well-being, focusing on mental health as well as physical. Ybarra has personally helped me so much in the past two years. She truly cares about each member, and that is not something you can find at a typical gym. Did I mention it has impeccable lighting for gym selfies? —Max Stone
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GOODS & SERVICES BEST MORTGAGE COMPANY
Guild Mortgage
Runners up: 2. Greater Nevada Mortgage 3. Gateway Mortgage 4. Gold Star Mortgage 5. Evergreen Home Loans BEST PLACE TO BUY CDS OR VINYL
Recycled Records
Runners up: 2. The EP Listening Lounge 3. Discology 4. Fine Tooth Records at The Radical Cat
BEST SELECTION OF LOCAL ART
Holland Project
Runners up: 2. Nevada Museum of Art 3. Potentialist Workshop 4. Artists Co-Op Gallery of Reno 5. Brewery Arts Center BEST HOUSE CLEANING SERVICE
Molly Maid of Reno Sparks
Runners up: 2. Sparkling House Cleaners 3. Spring Fresh Cleaning Service 4. TIE House Cleaning LLC L&M Professional Cleaning
BEST PLACE TO SEE PIONEER TRAIL RUTS IN THE TRUCKEE MEADOWS
Hidden Valley Regional Park
The entrance at the end of Mia Vista Drive, Reno
Concrete and asphalt long ago sealed off most traces of the wagon-train emigrants, who crossed the Truckee Meadows in the 1840s and for decades thereafter—but one pioneer trail segment has survived into the 21st century. The deep trail ruts within Hidden Valley Regional Park wind over brush-covered flats and rolling hills between what is now the Hidden Valley community and Sleepy Hollow Drive to the south. A portion of the trail is enclosed within a chain-link fence with an opening for visitor access. North and south of that section, the ruts continue for about a half-mile until they vanish in the sagebrush. Whether the Donner Party trundled over the route on their way to a spring at Rattlesnake Mountain remains a matter of debate among historians. However, there’s plenty of evidence the path was used by wagons well into the Comstock era of the 19th century. I’ve walked the route many times and often found traces of the emigrants and gold seekers who trod the path in the 1800s: a short length of iron chain; the lid from a can of “Pioneer Baking Soda;” ox shoes; broken tools; and other pioneer detritus. Leave such artifacts where they lie; federal law prohibits removing them. The presence of wild horses, hawks, eagles, coyotes and other desert wildlife also make the short hike memorable. To reach the historic trail, head to Hidden Valley Regional Park in southeast Reno. Drive south from Mira Loma Drive onto Hidden Valley Drive; turn right on Mia Vista Drive to the parking lot; and follow the dirt trail through the gate to experience a slice of history. —Frank X. Mullen
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BEST YOGA STUDIO
Juice Box Yoga
Runners up: 2. The Studio Reno 3. Sweet Apple Yoga 4. Temple Yoga 5. House of RA BEST PET SUPPLY STORE
Pet Station
Runners up: 2. PetSmart 3. Petco 4. Natural Paws 5. Bone-ito BEST WINE SHOP
Total Wine & More
Runners up: 2. Whispering Vine Wine Co. 3. Craft Wine & Beer 4. Grocery Outlet 5. Zephyr Wine Bar + Bottle BEST PET BOARDING
BEST CLOTHING STORE
Junkee Clothing Exchange
Runners up: 2. Bad Apple Vntg 3. Kohl’s 4. Nomad Boutique 5. Waggish & Co
BEST LANDSCAPING COMPANY
Moana Nursery
Runners up: 2. Cory’s Lawn Service 3. All Seasons Lawn & Landscaping 4. Reno Green Landscaping 5. DRC Landscaping BEST USED CLOTHING STORE
Junkee Clothing Exchange
Runners up: 2. SPCA of Northern Nevada Thrift Store 3. FreeStyle Clothing Exchange 4. Labels Consignment Boutique 5. Waggish & Co
BEST CANNOLI DELIVERY IN RENO
Café Evié and Rolli Cannoli www.cafe-evie.com
When I tell you that I have found the best cannoli in Nevada, I want you to understand the enormity of this discovery. As a proud New Jerseyan living in Reno, my quest for a good cannoli is something bordering on obsessive. I’ve scoured the West Coast for anything resembling the mythic Italian pastries of my childhood. To my family, the cannoli is a symbol of memories in the making, and we often celebrate milestones—like my son’s first birthday—with cannolis overnighted from Brooklyn. You’ve probably tasted Café Evié and Rolli Cannoli’s desserts without even knowing it. They create many of the delicious cakes and delicacies served at highend restaurants in the Reno-Tahoe area. The husband-and-wife team, Evie and Johnnie Sorrentino, grew up in New York and brought their knowledge of Southern European desserts to the high desert. To experience these mouthwatering pastries, call or email Rolli Cannoli, and Johnnie will deliver them directly. For cannoli purists, I recommend the Johnnie Cannoli kit—and you can pipe your own fresh cannolis right from the pastry bag. If you’ve never had a cannoli before, and you want a full smorgasbord of flavor, try the 10-pack. May you celebrate your next special moment with the magic of a cannoli. —Jessi Sprocket Janusee
Animal Oasis
Runners up: 2. Pet Play House 3. Charlie’s Place 4. Adventure Pet 5. Urban Hound BEST PLACE FOR MUSIC LESSONS
School of Rock
Runners up: 2. Mountain Music Parlor 3. It’s All About Music 4. Musicology 5. Music With Confidence BEST BICYCLE SHOP
Reno Bike Project
Runners up: 2. TIE College Cyclery Free Lap Collective 4. Sierra Cyclesmith 5. REI
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Culinary time capsule A perennial Best of Northern Nevada winner, Western Village Steakhouse has endured for 43 years and counting By Michael Moberly
W
hen you ask people what the best steakhouse in Northern Nevada is, most of them—including our readers collectively—have the same answer: Western Village Steakhouse. With its low ceilings, leather booths and slight neon tint, it feels like a slice of the oldcasino charm that’s been scrubbed from most of the region. I once heard it described as an aged diva dressed for a night out on the town. The vibes at Western Village Steakhouse are impeccably Nevadan, in the best possible way. No wonder its name appears five times in the Best of Northern Nevada readers’ poll results: It took first place for Best Fine Dining, Best Steak, and Best Casino Restaurant, and is a runner-up for Best Sparks Restaurant and Best Restaurant Worth the Long Wait. The restaurant, which opened in 1983 along with the rest of the Western Village Casino, is often the first place people think of when it’s time to celebrate. “We like the steakhouse, because we consider it ours," said Rick Gray, a retired marketing and PR consultant, who visits Western Village for birthdays and anniversaries, and when friends are in town. Rick and his wife, Teri, have been going there since the ’80s and have seen it change over the years, but one thing has remained: “The
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“Western Village Steakhouse just
seems more authentically Northern Nevada. The room is elegant, but it’s dated, and I think that only adds to the charm.”
room is elegant, but it’s dated, and I think that only adds to the charm.” –J osh Berreman, Added Berreman: “I local chef and culinary love to get a martini the arts teacher size of my head.” Vibe aside, the food service and attention to detail are great without at Western Village it feeling stuffy like some other high-end Steakhouse is worth the trip. Not many places places,” he said. are left in Reno/Sparks where you can get a As more celebrity and chain steakhouses 16-ounce Niman Ranch, 35-day-aged New replace the flagship casino steakhouse, we are York striploin for less than $75. The menu losing what was once a competition to have also offers all the steakhouse hits: giant wedge the best in-house food and beverage programs, salads; creamy, dreamy French onion soup; and are instead witnessing a race to see which and, of course, because it’s a culinary time national concept will bring the most visitors. capsule, escargot bourguignonne. Do not forget a $16 Grey Goose dirty “Western Village Steakhouse just seems martini with blue cheese olives, which is a more authentically Northern Nevada,” said fabulous price, considering some steakhouse Josh Berreman, a local chef and culinary arts happy-hour pricing at another casino starts teacher at Debbie Smith CTE Academy. “The RenoNR.com
at $18 a cocktail. Throw in classic tableside preparations of salads (Caesar and spinach) and “flaming” desserts like cherries jubilee and bananas foster, and you’ll leave fatter and happier. History, quality and value are all on display at this cathedral to the Northern Nevada ideal: You should be able to go to a steakhouse in your best dress jeans, get a great meal with great service, and pay a reasonable price. It’s not too much to ask—and I am grateful that Western Village Steakhouse is still up to the task.
Learn more at www.westernvillagesparks. com/dining/the-steak-house.
FIRST PLACE 26
READ ME
FIRST PLACE 26
Thank you for voting us “the best” year after year! (Since 2010) 777 S. Center St. #100 775.323.1494 noblepieparlor.com
Thank you, Reno! 1565 S. Virginia St. • 775-420-4267 • Thaimoodang.com
ANOTHER WIN FOR THE HOME TEAM THANKS FOR VOTING US BEST SPORTS BAR!
FIRST PLACE 26 BULLYSSPORTSBAR.COM RenoNR.com
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Congratulations to Dr. Andy Pasternak on being voted Best Family Physician! Locally Owned, Independent Family Medicine Member of Independent Physicians of Nevada
10467 Double R. Blvd., Reno • 775-853-9394 • silversagecenter.com
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S D I K Y& L I M A
BEST LIBRARY
Downtown Reno Library
Runners up: 2. Northwest Reno Library 3. Spanish Springs Library 4. UNR Knowledge Center 5. Sierra View Library at Reno Town Mall
BEST PLACE FOR TWEENS (AND THEIR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES) TO CRAFT Tooti Frooti
BEST TOY STORE
141 Vesta St., Reno Tootifrooti.shop
TIE Scheels Toys N More (closed)
It seems like whenever family visits Reno during the summer, perfect weather gives way to scorching temps, making certain outdoor activities unbearable for a tween who hates the heat. Luckily, I stumbled on a local toy shop that hosts monthly craft workshops—with an open studio, bookable a day in advance. At Tooti Frooti, owner Francesca Martinez offers a plethora of kawaii (basically Japanese for “cute and loveable”) goods. She’s also set up Gigil Studios, a workshop space for decoden crafts—fancifully decorated hair clips, pencil cases and the like using charms, baubles and silicone “fake whipped cream.” Booking an appointment is simple—go online; purchase an item to decorate ($10-$40); and show up. One-hour sessions include a quick lesson and unlimited charms to complete your masterpiece. Monthly workshops are listed on Tooti Frooti’s website. With such a friendly staff and affordable creative options, the Gigil Studio experience should be a permanent fixture on a tween’s visit rotation. —Misty Kinser
Runners up: 3. Learning Express 4. Tooti Frooti
BEST FAMILY OUTING
Reno Aces
Runners up: 2. The Discovery 3. Andelin Family Farm 4. Rancho San Rafael Regional Park 5. Reno Public Market BEST INDOOR ACTIVITY FOR KIDS
The Discovery
Runners up: 2. Coconut Bowl at Wild Island 3. Urban Air Trampoline and Adventure Park 4. Roller Kingdom 5. Scheels BEST WEEKNIGHT ACTIVITY
Reno Aces
BEST ARCADE GAMES
Press Start
Runners up: 2. Coconut Bowl at Wild Island 3. Fun Quest at the Grand Sierra Resort 4. Dave & Buster’s 5. Round1 Bowling & Arcade
Runners up: 2. Food Truck Friday 3. Magic Carpet Golf 4. Coconut Bowl at Wild Island
Thanks For Voting Us
BEST DRESSED p print sho
BEST PARK
Rancho San Rafael Regional Park
Runners up: 2. Idlewild Park 3. Pah Rah Mountain Park 4. Plumas Park
WWW.PITCHBLACKPRINTINGCO.COM RenoNR.com
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L A I N T O I S E R E
BEST LOCAL ACTIVIST
Blue Sky Events
BEST LOCAL ACTOR/ACTRESS NOT NAMED JEREMY RENNER
Jeramie Lu
Runners up: 2. Alicia Barber 3. Stacey Spain 4. Just Knate 5. Jacob Green
Jessica Coxxx
Runners up: 2. Emilie Mardock 3. Mary Bennett 4. Michael Davanzo 5. Benit Hensley BEST ORTHODONTIST
Pitts Orthodontics
Runners up: 2. O’Gara-Gilbert-Silvaroli Orthodontics 3. Welmerink & Utter Orthodontics 4. Dr. Andrew Leland 5. Dr. Katharina Fung BEST LOCAL TV NEWS ANCHOR
Joe Hart, KRNV
BEST CHIROPRACTOR
TIE Ricky Delacruz, Delacruz Chiropractic Amanda Rammel, The Back Doctors
Runners up: 3. Todd Stevenson, Peak Performance Chiropractic 4. Kyle Hemsley 5. Daniel Barlow, Westside Chiropractic 6. Cameron Smith BEST MASSAGE THERAPIST
Tony Avila
Runners up: 2. Lainey Henderson 3. Rachel Schlingheyde 4. Cher Wilkerson 5. Jasmine Molnar, Sacred Wellness 40
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BEST VISUAL ARTIST
Joe C. Rock
Runners up: 2. Nathaniel Benjamin 3. Anna Chavez 4. Ahern Hertel 5. TIE Gilbert Leiker Rowena Piñero BEST PERSONAL TRAINER
Camie Cragg
Runners up: 2. Trey Valentine 3. Ralph Rodriguez 4. Carey Kytle 5. Kaden Harter RenoNR.com
BEST WEDDING PLANNER
Lily Baran
Runners up: 2. Kristen Remington, 2news (KTVN) 3. Arianna Bennett, 2news (KTVN) 4. Rebecca Kitchen, KOLO 8 News Now 5. Dave Lewis, KOLO 8 News Now 6. Chris Murphy, KRNV BEST HAIR STYLIST
Mercedes Sandoval
Runners up: 2. Amy Edmonds 3. TIE Carlee Maloy Jenny O 5. Katie Catt, Siren Salon and Spa
Runners up: 2. eNVy Event Management 3. That Blissful Moment 4. Annie Magera, Event Planning by Annie BEST PHOTOGRAPHER
Runners up: 2. Chris Stanton 3. Eric Marks 4. Nicholas McCabe BEST LOCAL ATHLETE
David Wise
Runners up: 2. Anna Costello 3. Krysta Palmer 4. Robby Snelling BEST REAL ESTATE AGENT
Christy Kuzmik
Runners up: 2. Riley Harrison 3. Tammie Cox 4. Kyla Bevel 5. Ginger Marphis BEST FAMILY DOCTOR
Dr. Andrew Pasternak
Runners up: 2. Dr. Zachary Baumgardner 3. Dr. Sarah Marschall 4. Dr. Alexandra Watson 5. Dr. Michael Haley BEST PLASTIC SURGEON
Dr. Tiffany McCormack
Runners up: 2. Hall & Wrye Plastic Surgeons 3. Dr. Kyle Yamamoto 4. Dr. LaDawn Talbott 5. Dr. Erez Dayan
BEST NAIL TECHNICIAN
Riley Catt, Catt’s Claws
Runners up: 2. Bridgett Ocampo, Siren Salon and Spa 3. Mariah Rose, Holy Grail Nails 4. TIE Rebecca’s Beautified Nails Tawny Lund BEST DENTIST
Dr. Monica Lee
Runners up: 2. Dr. Patrick Silvaroli 3. Dr. Alexander Vaughn 4. Dr. Scott Futch 5. Dr. Melissa Amaral 6. Dr. Melinda Kuhn
BEST ATTORNEY
Sarah Hardy-Cooper
Runners up: 2. Emily Mansoor 3. John Arrascada 4. Jenny McMenomy 5. Richard Davies
BEST LOCAL MUSICIAN
Kat Heart
Runners up: 2. Laura Rocke 3. Spike McGuire 4. Rick Hays 5. April Higuera BEST LOCAL SONGWRITER
Greg Gilmore
Runners up: 2. Spike McGuire 3. Rick Hays 4. April Higuera 5. Jenes Carter
BEST KNOWLEDGEABLE ITALIAN GROCERY PURVEYOR
Bella Italia
606 W. Plumb Lane, Suite 4, Reno Bellaitalia-store.com
Fussing over recipes is more or less what I live for, and, last spring, I decided to level up my fresh pasta game. Reddit cooks told me to switch from all-purpose flour to semolina, and Yelp told me the place to get it locally is Bella Italia, a tiny specialty foods shop nestled into the Arlington Gardens Mall. Lorena Merighi, who owns the shop with her husband, Marco, recommended mixing two flours, advised me that the dough would act differently than what I was used to, and gave me a thorough tutorial on how to handle it. My dough was stretchy and cooperative on the first try, thanks to her expertise—and my cheese raviolis were a hit. Not only does Lorena know her European flours inside out; she knows the intricacies of every last pasta, sauce, meat, cheese, condiment and imported sweet she stocks. She recommended an olive oil for the specific use I had in mind—drizzling it on burrata—and it could not have been more perfect for the job. The gummy-butnot-too-gummy lemon candies I bought tasted like fresh citrus: super-satisfying and unlike any candy I’d had before. If you’re on my Christmas list, a treat from Bella Italia might just be your next gift. Meanwhile, I eagerly await Lorena’s next recommendation. —Kris Vagner
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PERSONALITIES BEST DANCE INSTRUCTOR
Sara B Dancin’
Runners up: 2. Kelly August 3. Vaquera Vikki 4. Jeanette Conkey 5. Jennie Oropeza
BEST OPEN STUDIOS
Third Saturdays 1995 Dickerson Studios and Gallery 1995 Dickerson Road, Reno Instagram.com/1995_dickerson
You never know what you might see on a third Saturday at the open studios on 1995 Dickerson Road. A vibrant watercolor sunrise emerging from a faded dictionary page, perhaps. A skeletal face peering from a bowling pin. Or an abstract painting receiving a final coat before shipment to its forever home. Finished paintings reside alongside works in progress. Tables and cabinets overflow with upcycled materials, art supplies and possibilities. You won’t see doors or art isolated on a stark gallery wall like an insect specimen pinned to a card. The pea-soup-green warehouse in a multi-color row is 1995 Dickerson, the studio home for 14 visual artists. Two have been working there for more than 15 years. Valuing companionship and collaboration over walls and doors, the artists work independently, but not in insolation. Such camaraderie extends to Saturday wanderers as well. It’s like hanging out in the garage of the cool neighbor you’d like to know better. —Susan Winters
SAFE, QUALITY PIERCINGS
Celebrating 10 years
—as Reno’s Best Bagel—
FIRST PLACE 26
N. NEVADA’S BEST SINCE 1994
Thank you, Reno!
912 S. VIRGINIA ST. MIDTOWN, RENO (775) 329-6010
Mention this ad the next time you visit for a FREE bagel with cream cheese.
APPOINTMENTS AVAILABLE
WALK-INS WELCOME
Truckee Bagel Company • Reno www.truckeebagelcompany.com RN&R
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BEST TATTOO ARTIST
Melissa Varney
Runners up: 2. Ron Rash 3. Jon Potter 4. Mark Moots 5. Chris Melzo 6. Chloe Tatts
BEST AESTHETICIAN
Lisa Caldwell, Spa Toscana
Runners up: 2. Lisa Manss, SoulSpa Reno 3. Kathleen Burns, Solstice Skin 4. Isabella at Siren Salon and Spa 5. Natalie Rogers, Western Essence Aesthetics BEST LOCAL AUTHOR
Alicia Barber
Runners up: 2. Michael Branch 3. Willy Vlautin 4. Dave Mulligan 5. Jacob Green
BEST COMMUNITY CONDUIT
BLACKHOLERENO.COM
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Runners up: 3. Devon Reese 4. Naomi Duerr 5. Eddie Lorton
Runners up: 2. Vincent Gravallese, Derby Barber and Supply 3. Damon Lloyd Watson, Downtown Barber Shop 4. Jimmy Deem, Heyday Barber Co. 5. Derrick Smith, D’s Cutz
Michael Tragash, Yelp community manager
We are honored to be voted Best Bagel for the 10th consecutive year.
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BEST LOCAL POLITICIAN
TIE Hillary Schieve Beth Smith
BEST BARBER
Bridget Varney, Derby Barber and Supply
RenoNR.com
A lot of people have strong feelings about Yelp, but in Reno, there is a legion of supportive, enthusiastic, fun Yelpers who genuinely show up and support local businesses. They are led by our region’s Yelp community manager, Michael Tragash, who has been the mastermind behind some of Reno’s most dynamic events, spanning nearly every community we have. Every month, you will find another creative way to interact with a part of our citizenry you may not have seen before, from a local Diwali and Bollywood celebration, to fun date nights with free tastes just for RSVPing. His legendary partnership with the Discovery Museum—an event first called Yelpstronomy, then renamed Beyond the Bite—featured local businesses pushing their creativity in interactive ways and is still the gold standard for food and beverage events. I can’t wait to see what he’s up to next. —Michael Moberly
BEST GYNECOLOGIST
Dr. Susan DiGrazia Perry
Runners up: 2. Dr. Sherrie Hald 3. Dr. Bruce Farringer 4. Dr. Randall Jack 5. Dr. Iolanda Edsall
BEST LOCAL RADIO DJ OR DJ TEAM
Chris Payne, Rock 104.5
Runners up: 2. Rayne, Alt 92.1 3. Max Volume, 105.7 KOZZ 4. Bill and J Lynn, Sunny 106.9 5. Kevin Smith and Jay Slater, 105.7 KOZZ BEST CLUB OR EVENT DJ
DJ Jeremy McGuigan
Runners up: 2. Mo Ayala 3. Xenobia 4. Ken Allen, Amplified Entertainment 5. Vaquera Vikki
Sara B Dancin’ teaches dance classes all over town—including line dancing at The Selden and “wine dancing” at Reno Public Market. Here, she’s teaching senior line dancing at the Evelyn Mount Northeast Community Center. Photo/David Robert
T
Thank you Reno for supporting your favorite bar for over 19 years.
THANK YOU RENO FOR YOUR VOTES! IYKYK. We felt the love. Reno’s Legacy Coffee Roaster Airway Drive at Longley laughingcatcoffee
We look forward to celebrating our 20th with you next Summer.
1099 S. Virginia Street
PROUD TO BE NORTHERN NEVADA’S CHOICE. Thank you for voting us Best New Car Dealership and Best Used Car Dealership.
RenoNR.com
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S R O O D T
Locals who frequent Idlewild Skatepark said it’s not just for boards—it’s also a great place to defy gravity with rollerblades and scooters. Photo/David Robert
BEST PLACE TO EXPERIENCE BIODIVERSITY, ANTHROPOCENE-STYLE
BEST HARVEST FESTIVAL
Andelin Family Farm
Runners up: 2. Sierra Nevada Lavender and Honey Festival 3. Ferrari Farms 4. Fallon Cantaloupe Festival & Country Fair
BEST PLACE TO SKATE
Idlewild Skatepark
Runners up: 2. Roller Kingdom 3. Rattlesnake Mountain Skate Park 4. Miguel Ribera Skatepark BEST PLACE TO SWIM
Lake Tahoe
Runners up: 2. Moana Springs Community Aquatics and Fitness Center 3. Sand Harbor State Park 4. Pyramid Lake 5. Idlewild Pool BEST BICYCLE RIDE PATH/DESTINATION
Truckee River Bike Trail
Runners up: 2. Tahoe East Shore Trail 3. Peavine Mountain 4. Veterans Parkway Bike Path 5. Truckee River Legacy Trail 44
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BEST SKI RESORT
Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe
Runners up: 2. Heavenly Ski Resort 3. Palisades Tahoe 4. Northstar California Resort 5. Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort BEST PICNIC SPOT
Idlewild Park
Runners up: 2. Rancho San Rafael Regional Park 3. Galena Creek Regional Park 4. Lazy 5 Regional Park 5. Crissie Caughlin Park BEST PICKLEBALL COURTS
Hidden Valley Regional Park
Runners up: 2. Dick Taylor Memorial Park 3. 3rd Shot Pickleball 4. Reno Tennis Center RenoNR.com
BEST HIKING TRAIL
Tahoe Rim Trail
Runners up: 2. Hunter Creek Trail 3. Galena Creek Trail 4. Thomas Creek Trail 5. Caughlin Ranch Trails BEST SNOWBOARDING
Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe
Runners up: 2. Heavenly Ski Resort 3. Palisades Tahoe 4. Northstar California Resort BEST GOLF COURSE
Red Hawk Golf and Resort
Runners up: 2. Sierra Sage Golf Course 3. Wildcreek Golf Course 4. TIE Silver Oak Golf Course Wolf Run Golf Club 6. Washoe County Golf Course
Rancho San Rafael Regional Park 1595 N. Sierra St., Reno
Rancho San Rafael is a great place to see native animals—birds all over the park, dragonflies around the ponds, frogs inside the sprinkler boxes. It’s also weirdly good for seeing animals that shouldn’t be here—from obviously out-of-place creatures like a tame gray and white bunny to established, introduced species like American bullfrogs and red-eared slider turtles, native not to Nevada but to the eastern and central parts of the country. Rancho’s three kinds of squirrels make a special mash-up. The California ground squirrels are long-time natives, while the fox squirrels—obvious non-natives from the East—mysteriously appeared in Reno only in 2024. The western gray squirrels are in a more ambiguous category; they apparently moved in on their own from the Sierra Nevada, so they’re technically native, but they probably can only survive in town because of the urban forest. Basically, Rancho is an archetype of wildlife-watching in the Anthropocene (aka the epoch of vast human alterations to the planet—aka now). The old-school environmentalist in me wishes I could snap my fingers, Thanos-like, and make the non-native organisms disappear. Another part of me, though, sees a fox squirrel at Rancho and just thinks, “Wow, that is so cool!” —Alan de Queiroz
THANK YOU FOR VOTING FOR US AS THE
BEST RADIO STATION!
WIN A TRIP TO COLUMBUS, OHIO, TO SEE TWENTY ONE PILOTS ON OCT. 17!
(+456 2.#%'
LISTEN TO ALT 92.1 FOR DETAILS!
FIRST PLACE 26
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GET THE APP OR STREAM AT WWW.X949RENO.COM RenoNR.com
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ARTS
| BY JESSICA SANTINA Perez wrote and acted in The Heebie Jeebie Juice Box Company, the second installment in a murder-mystery trilogy, at Good Luck Macbeth. Photo/Jana Sayson health care—doing authorizations and referrals for Northern Nevada HOPES. “I love working with people, and I currently work from home right now, so sometimes it feels crippling, because I just want to talk to someone live,” they said. The entertainment work helps provide that needed balance.
Origin of a storyteller
‘Brazen, bold and unapologetically myself’ Playwright, actor and drag performer Angelo ‘Lily’ Perez knows the power of storytelling Anyone who has watched Angelo “Lily” Perez in one of their drag performances at The Emerson would probably be surprised to learn that when the effervescent, fearless Lily (short for Liliana) is offstage and out of costume, they’re an introverted homebody. “I’ll tell you a little secret,” they said while sipping a beer on a quiet weeknight at The Emerson. “After a drag show, I immediately get out of drag. I will sit in that corner”—they point to the end of the bar—“have a beer or a shot, and
either look at my phone or read a book. … I like my downtime. I love cooking. I love staying home. I’m thinking about getting a cat.” This makes their acting even more impressive because, when onstage, they’re dynamic, a lightbulb of shining, vivacious energy. Whether writing a play—they’re currently finishing the third installment in a murder-mystery trilogy—acting in one, directing fellow actors, or leading a troupe of drag performers, they bring 100 percent. It’s a good counterweight to their day job in
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Born in the Philippines, Perez considers themself a native Nevadan; the family moved to Reno when Perez was only 3 years old. Perez said they had always been a reader, but it wasn’t until sixth-grade at Anderson Elementary School in Reno, in teacher Dennis Dyer’s class, when the joy of creating worlds through writing became a passion, too. “(Mr. Dyer) would always assign the class a prompt at the beginning of every week to write about,” Perez said. “Anything from, ‘If you were stuck on a deserted island …’ to, ‘Describe a day in outer space.’ Every Friday, before school ended, he would spend an hour reading all our stories out loud to the class. That was one of the things that got me into storytelling.” Another important role model was Perez’s Filipino aunt, Joanna, a transgender woman. “She was the one who taught me to just be brazen, bold and unapologetically myself,” Perez said. “So, I have a lot of close relations with people who have inspired me through the years and have reinforced my love for performing and storytelling.” Perez majored in English, with an emphasis on creative writing and poetry, at Truckee Meadows Community College. The performance work came years later, in 2015, when Perez—who was in their mid-20s and inspired by icons such as RuPaul—first began doing drag and experimenting with costumes, hair and makeup. Their social circle included friends who performed in shows at local LGBTQ+ bars and clubs, including Faces and the 5 Star Saloon. Before long, Perez was getting drag work as Liliana—a name chosen in honor of their mother, Lilian—and eventually became a headliner at The Emerson’s drag brunch in 2019. These days, Perez can be found doing drag at The Emerson as well as The Selden, Reno’s new LGBTQ+ bar, conveniently located across the street. Perez describes the show as high-energy, with stunts, splits, choreography and what they call “park and bark”—a knockout ballad. It was at The Emerson, at the tail end of the pandemic, when Perez had the idea of injecting a little more storytelling into the drag-brunch experience. “I approached Tyler (Colton), the owner, about this murder-mystery that I had,
which would include drag queens, lip-sync performances and live singing, but also have the audience involved in it.” Colton went along with it, but it soon became clear that the other performers didn’t share Perez’s enthusiasm for a scripted show. Discouraged, Perez shelved the project. Fortunately, The Emerson’s loss became the local theater scene’s gain: After Perez was cast in their first mainstage theater role in Good Luck Macbeth’s Puffs in 2022, they “caught the acting bug” and saw, for the first time, real theater potential for that shelved murder-mystery, which they retooled to capture their love for pop culture and slasher films. The finished play, Murder Mystery at the Mother Regina—Perez also directed the show and played a small role—enjoyed a three-week run at Good Luck Macbeth in early 2025. The whodunit was such a success that Perez’s follow-up, Murder Mystery at the Heebie Jeebie JuiceBox Company, took the stage at GLM in spring of this year, directed by Mojo Montelongo. Perez said turning the reins over to someone else was a valuable learning experience, and they welcome creative input from fellow directors and actors. Perez is now writing the third installment. “I’ve always envisioned it to be a trilogy,” they said, explaining that they’ve already been in discussions with GLM’s executive director, Melissa Taylor, about a potential run for that show next spring.
What’s next
Fresh off an extended run in Reno Little Theater’s hilarious, hugely popular summer show, The Play That Goes Wrong, with their next mystery script in the works, and with multiple roles in a new drag production of Rocky Horror Picture Show at The Selden throughout October—not to mention a full-time job—Perez is taking a bit of a hiatus from the drag work. This creates space for Rocky Horror, writing and maybe even getting that cat. But the hiatus won’t last for long—they love the work too much, and they hope people will continue to support it. “I always encourage people to just leave a space better than how you found it,” they said. “I’m always just very grateful for any opportunity and any blessing that comes my way, and I appreciate everyone supporting me and loving me and being there for me.” The Selden, located at 960 S. Virginia St., presents a new drag production of Rocky Horror Picture Show at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday; and 1:30 p.m., Sunday, from Friday, Oct. 9, through Saturday, Oct. 31. A ticket that admits two for bar seating is $33.29; a ticket that admits four for table seating is $133.17. Opening-night tickets cost extra, Visit www.theseldenreno. com/events-1.
ART OF THE STATE
| BY DELANEY URONEN Ruth Hilts, a Reno artist who passed away in March at the age of 102, collected dirt and minerals from different parts of Nevada to use in her landscape paintings.
Mineral on mineral on mineral With dust, dirt and debris as inspiration, the Lilley Museum’s new show poses big existential questions It doesn’t matter if you frequent the art museum or are encountering it for the first time—the objects there will confront you with the same set of questions. What is this? Why choose these materials? Why create this at all? And, if you’re lucky, why does this make me feel this way? Earth’s Winding-Sheet, the new exhibition at the Lilley Museum of Art, takes dust, dirt and debris as its central subject. Dust may seem a surprising focus for an art exhibition. It is a substance composed of an incredibly diverse universe of detritus: eroded minerals, motes of soil, dead skin cells, specks of wood, bits of fur and hair, textile fibers, pollen and even burnt meteorite particles. But compare these scraps to more traditional artistic mediums. Clay is sourced straight from the ground, and many paints, charcoals and inks derive their pigment and
staying power from mineral, plant or even animal substances. After all, these are the materials available to us on this planet, in this cosmos, and even inside of our own bodies. How we reorganize them may be up to us, but they will always delineate the parameters of our existence. “Do we have the capacity as humans to create a new thing?” asks curator Stephanie Gibson. It’s an interesting question, and the exhibition seems to suggest that the answer is both yes and no. Conscious of this central contradiction, the artists featured in Earth’s Winding-Sheet draw from the spectrum of dust to make work that explores their relationship to the elemental matter of our existence. A display of the watercolors of Ruth Hilts makes this tension between the new and the primordial quite clear. The paintings were made exclusively with hand-ground pigments Hilts termed “Nevada Earth Colors.” These
pigments, collected from dirt and minerals in different parts of the state, are stored in Gerber baby food jars and displayed as a work of art in their own right. Each appears as a microcosmic desert world—a shifting, sloping horizon of colorful sand and its own dusty atmosphere are contained in each jar. Above, the watercolor paintings that utilize these pigments depict mineral-heavy landscapes not unlike the land from which the colors came. If Hilts’ paintings allow us a link to a specific place, the exhibition’s video installations expose dust’s infiltration of time. In her short film reclamation, Sindhu Thirumalaisamy makes digital scans of different concrete structures in St. Augustine, Fla. In the video that results from stitching thousands of these frames together, one close-up glitches into the next. Under the watery eye of the lens, the concrete is exposed for what it is—small pebbles like the beach of a shallow lake, shells embedded in hard, processed mineral beds like a fossil record. And the concrete is a historical record—the video’s content includes footage of Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the United States. Built by the Spanish starting in 1672, this structure was first used as a military prison that detained Native Americans and eventually served as a thoroughfare for the escape of fugitive British slaves to Spanish Florida. On some level, Thirumalaisamy’s video is a work of mineral on mineral on mineral. The concrete itself is a composite containing shells, rocks, sand and pulverized stone. This is, in turn, mediated by a camera made of metallic hardware and rechargeable batteries. Finally, these records are presented to us through a television screen, displayed on more minerals
and glass that have been melted and re-molded into a flat shape. Layered like this, these minerals supply us with a kind of portal, not only through space and time, but to new feelings, new thoughts and new relationships to the materials that populate our lives. Is it possible that art objects hold the potential to move us in a way similar to a sublime mountain range—because they are quite literally made of that mountain range? Earth’s Winding-Sheet makes it obvious that this remixing of finite material occurs in the work of art regardless of medium, and that museums and galleries have the ability to recontextualize our realities. It’s difficult to look out over the actual mountain range and comprehend the stakes of our current environmental crisis, let alone its potential solutions. Working our perceptions out on these smaller scales can allow us to conceive of the bigger, interconnected picture by breaking the very complex down into digestible portions. To these ends, Kim Abeles’ food-shaped smog accumulations remind us that we are always consuming these bits of our degraded environment, while Brie Ruais’ sweeping clay gestures record the way her body moves across the material. It’s important to remember that we possess this potential for influence. Many pieces in the exhibition repurpose the refuse of commercial and imperial production and domination in ways that make their impact easy to understand. If they can effectively model the environmental degradation we now face as a result of these legacies of exploitation, they can also model how we might bend the materials upon which our lives depend into new configurations. Earth’s Winding-Sheet is on view at the Lilley Museum of Art at the University of Nevada, Reno, at 1664 N. Virginia St., through Saturday, Nov. 21. Learn more at www.unr.edu/lilley.
In “Two Cycling on an Axis” by Brie Ruais, solid clay resembles a fluid gesture. RenoNR.com
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WESTERN LIT
| BY FRANK X. MULLEN Velma Bronn Johnston, aka Wild Horse Annie, on a horse named Ranger. Photo courtesy of University of Nevada Press
Hero to horses
Author Terri Farley tells the tale of Wild Horse Annie, who saved mustangs from becoming dog food
In 1950, a Reno executive secretary followed a trail of blood dripping from a truck full of terrified, injured and dying mustangs. When she caught up with the truck and saw the tortured animals, the woman’s life veered in a new direction—one that ultimately resulted in federal protections for wild horses. A 1971 law banned the then-common practice of rounding up mustangs by chasing them with aircraft and shipping them to slaughterhouses to become dog food. Horse Girl: How Velma Bronn Johnston Became Wild Horse Annie and Outsmarted the Mustang Killers of the West, by award-winning Nevada author Terri Farley, is the result of six years of research and writing. It traces Johnston’s path from her birth in rural Nevada to her victory in the halls of Congress. In between, she battled 48
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polio, worked as an executive secretary, married a cowboy, started the Double Lazy Heart Ranch in Storey County, and fought a relentless 20year crusade to save the free-roaming mustangs of the West. Most of the story is taken from Velma’s notes that she kept for a possible autobiography. In Farley’s book, the reader gets the impression that Velma, who died in 1977, is sitting at the elbow of the author and relating her adventures as the tale unfolds. Velma Bronn was born in 1912 in the mining town of Ione. When she was 2, her family moved to Reno, where her father started a horse-drawn freighting business. She learned to feed, curry, ride—and love—the horses. Three years later, she was stricken with polio, a disease that left her body painful, bent and twisted. She endured the primitive treatments of the RenoNR.com
time and eventually went back to school, often enduring the taunts of classmates who made fun of her twisted frame. After she graduated from Reno High School, she worked as an executive secretary in a Reno bank and, later, at an insurance agency. Velma made her own clothes. Her outfits, designed to understate the zig-zag shape of her body, were based on the latest styles she saw in movies and fashion magazines. She dreamed of owning a ranch. After she married Charlie Johnston, a cowboy and former lawman, the couple saved enough to buy what they named the Double Lazy Heart Ranch in Storey County. Now in middle age, Velma was content with her husband, her horses and her ranch. Then came the encounter with the truckload of bleeding mustangs. She learned everything she could about the business of rounding up mustangs. Horse herds were chased out of canyons with aircraft, then vehicles would pursue them until a mustanger lassoed them with ropes tied to truck tires. The animals would drag the heavy tires behind them until they collapsed from exhaustion (as depicted in the 1961 movie The Misfits). When Velma went to the local Bureau of Land Management office, which granted permits for the roundups, she was told it was highly profitable business, and that she and her husband ought to do it themselves. Instead, she and Charlie gathered support, went to government meetings and campaigned for laws to end the roundups. The couple also went out on the range to find the makeshift corrals where the mustangers kept the captured horses awaiting transport to the slaughterhouses. At night, they tore down gates and set the animals free. Farley, who met Wild Horse Annie in Reno decades ago and had written about her before, said one of the things she learned when researching the book was “how physically brave Velma was” when carrying out her missions to free the mustangs. “With Charlie, she found a good partner in crime,” Farley said. “What they kind of said to each other was, ‘We’re not really horse thieves, (because) the horses belong to the American people; they belong to us, not the people making money killing them.’ They released them so that wouldn’t happen.” Mustangers, ranchers and federal officials opposed them. Velma persisted in the face of mockery, intimidation and threats. A BLM official called her “Wild Horse Annie,” and meant it as an insult. She embraced the nickname and signed it on the letters she mailed to politicians, teachers and others asking for support in pro-
tecting the mustangs. When her (usually male) opponents saw the prim secretary in stylish clothes and high heels at public meetings, they underestimated her abilities, strength and determination, Farley said. Velma had spies among the mustangers and would eavesdrop on her opponents’ conversations while silently taking notes in shorthand. She was direct, stubborn and willing to meet her opponents head-on. “To fight for what matters, you must have an unshakeable faith in the very rightness of what you are doing,” Velma wrote. Over the years, Reader’s Digest and other publications took notice of her work. Schoolchildren across the country sent missives to their elected officials. Congress received more letters on the wild horse than any other issue, save the Vietnam War. Activists and politicians got involved. In 1971, after President Nixon signed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, an interviewer asked Velma how she felt about winning her 20-year battle. “Have you ever wondered how it feels to touch a star?” she replied. “I could pretty well tell you about it now. The feeling is a combination of many things. Exhilaration over successful accomplishment of a difficult job, gratitude to all who have helped bring it about, of an inability to believe that the long hard fight is actually over, of a great pride belonging to a country where it is possible to fight for that in which we believe... (There is) a peace that comes with knowing that one small part of this Earth is a little better for our having righted the wrong. How does it feel to touch a star? It feels real good.” Farley noted that the fight to save the mustangs continues. Politicians try to chip away federal protections, and the Bureau of Land Management conducts regular helicopter roundups to gather herds they say are starving, or are too large for a given area. The helicopters chase the animals into traps, and some mustangs are maimed or killed in the stampedes. The survivors are given veterinary care and are then sent into adoption programs, for sales options, or (for the vast majority) to languish in long-term pastures, where about 37,675 mustangs now live out their lives, according to the agency. “I’m hoping that kids who read this book will kind of key onto her physical bravery and the spy stuff that was going on, and then they’ll be pulled into her cause,” Farley said. “… If Wild Horse Annie could see what is happening now, she would be horrified.” Terri Farley’s Horse Girl: How Velma Bronn Johnston Became Wild Horse Annie and Outsmarted the Mustang Killers of the West is available on the University of Nevada Press website. To read an excerpt, read the version of this story at RenoNR.com.
WESTERN LIT
| BY FRANK X. MULLEN Julia Bulette stands beside a Virginia City Engine Number 1 fireman’s hat. She was an honorary member of the volunteer fire company. Photo courtesy of the Nevada Historical Society
Murder, mystery, an alleged serial killer Robin Flinchum’s new book unravels the legend of Julia Bulette Julia Bulette, a prostitute who was murdered in her bed in 1867, remains a celebrity in Virginia City. Her image peers from posters, book covers and souvenir tchotchkes displayed in shop windows along C Street. Her visage adorns saloon walls and old postcards. In Virginia City, a plaque affixed to a stone column memorializes her. The monument overlooks the hollow where her killer, John Millain, swung from the gallows on April 24, 1868. In the 20th century, books, movies and television shows promoted Bulette as the “The Queen of the Comstock.” Legend says she was the madam of an upscale brothel called “The Palace” and navigated the streets of the mining town in a gold-trimmed coach. The black-lacquered carriage had a
coat of arms, featuring four aces and a resting lion, on its door. However, modern historians have debunked much of her legend, so what more is there to say? “My first thought was that nobody needs another book about Julia Bulette; it’s been done to death,” said Robin Flinchum, whose first book, Red Light Women of Death Valley, published in 2015, piqued her curiosity about Bulette’s case. “But there were a lot of unanswered questions, like people kept alluding to the fact that John Millain had killed women before Bulette. I wondered who those other women were. Why doesn’t anybody write about that?” After a decade of research, Flinchum’s latest book, The Redemption of Julia Bulette: Murder, Myth and the Hunt for a Serial Killer in Early Virginia City, rolled off the presses this year. The true-crime story is a window into the daily
life of the people of the Comstock, the sex workers who plied their trade there, early forensic policing, Western journalism and the system of frontier justice. She dug up facts about four other murders in San Francisco possibly linked to Millain. Bulette wasn’t a wealthy madam who lived an opulent lifestyle, Flinchum said, nor was she among the impoverished women who worked out of flimsy, streetside stalls, flaunting their nakedness as miners walked by. She had some measure of wealth in the earlier days of the mining camp but was recovering from an illness and living in a cottage owned by a friend when she was murdered. Bulette was an honorary member of a volunteer fire company and had a reputation of being charitable. Her murder made headlines and spurred public outrage in a town where casual violence was commonplace. Millain’s trial attracted the attention of newspapers around the West. Mark Twain, then working in San Francisco, returned to Virginia City to cover Millain’s hanging. Flinchum relied on such newspaper accounts of the time, diaries written as events unfolded, and probate files created when Bulette’s estate was settled. At the time of her death, Bulette still had jewelry and other possessions accumulated prior to her illness, but the value of those items did not cover her debts. After Millain’s execution, her case was remembered in Virginia City, and author George Lyman added many embellishments in his 1934 The Saga of the Comstock Lode. It wasn’t until the 1950s, when newspaper owner Lucius Beebe expanded on Bulette’s “Queen of the Comstock” image, that the myth
gained a much wider audience. In 1959, the first season of the Bonanza TV series devoted an episode to Bulette. The sex worker is portrayed as a saloon owner/madam who becomes the star-crossed love interest of Little Joe Cartwright. The episode, which casts 1940s femme fatale Jane Greer as Bulette, is available for free on YouTube. “Every couple of decades, something would come along and revive interest in Julia Bulette,” said Flinchum, an award-winning journalist. “Having her appear on Bonanza was huge, and that reignited interest in Virginia City, which was already trading on its past and its colorful characters. Bonanza brought a whole new tourism boom to Virginia City.” The great fire of 1875 destroyed the buildings where Bulette lived and worked, as well as public records that may have shed more light on the woman and her murder. Even so, Flinchum used all available sources to weave a compelling tale of the early Comstock and unravel some of the mysteries surrounding Bulette’s life and her murder. “I hope people will come away from this book with the sense that Julia Bulette was a real person—that she was a living, breathing human being, just getting along in the world the same as everyone else,” she said. “She and the four other women (murdered in San Francisco between 1856 and 1864) were real. … Julia didn’t live in some sort of Hollywood glamour. She lived and breathed and had hopes and dreams like any other person. She and the other women were not just cardboard cutouts. The Redemption of Julia Bulette: Murder, Myth and the Hunt for a Serial Killer in Early Virginia City is available on the Arcadia Publishing website. To read an excerpt, read the version of this story at RenoNR.com.
Robin Flinchum. RenoNR.com
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THE DISH
| BY DAVID RODRIGUEZ
Jasmeet “Jazz” Baduwalia Co-owner, Desi Flavors
Congrats to all of the Best of Northern Nevada winners!
Join our business roundtable at 11:30 a.m. every second Saturday @ The Innevation Center, 450 Sinclair, Reno BizAssembly.org
Jasmeet “Jazz” Baduwalia grew up in two kitchens. At his father’s restaurant, he’d watch his father work the line. At home, the bold flavors of Indian home cooking shaped him from a young age. Long before his acting career—he’s best known as the Blue Power Ranger in Power Rangers Beast Morphers—food was how his family showed love and brought people together. Jazz; his brothers Navraj and Sukhraj; and their father, Binder, opened Desi Flavors in May. It’s a fast-casual Indian spot where you pick your base—basmati rice bowl, burrito or warm naan wrap—and then load it up with proteins like butter chicken, before adding fresh chutneys, sauces and toppings. Desi Flavors is located at 9475 Double R Blvd. Visit www.desiflavorsreno. com. Photo by David Robert What’s the best thing you’ve eaten locally in the last month? (At) Camaron Pelado in Sparks, I had their molcajete with three meats, served sizzling in a volcanic stone bowl, and it was outstanding. Highly recommend. Your kitchen is on fire! (Metaphorically.) What are you cooking? If my kitchen’s on fire, I’m definitely making spicy chicken ramen. The broth is my favorite part.
READ ME!
Who is/was your strongest culinary influence? My dad is definitely my strongest culinary influence. He owned the first Indian restaurant in Reno, SS Super, then owned Taste of India and sold it in 2010. After retiring for 16 years, he’s back and bringing the same enthusiasm and authentic flavors. What is your go-to midnight snack? A big bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with almond milk.
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Which local restaurant deserves more attention, and why? Carnitas y Tortas Ahogadas Guadalajara in Reno. They serve the best Mexican food in town and definitely deserve way more attention. You have to try their tortas—they’re delicious. How does food contribute to our community? Food brings people together, and Indian food has always done that for my family. A lot of folks in Reno have only experienced it in a traditional sit-down restaurant setting. With Desi Flavors, we wanted to show a more casual, fun side—and make those bold flavors easy to enjoy, whether you already love Indian food or you’re trying it for the first time. Everyone knows butter chicken. Now picture it stuffed in a warm naan wrap. Simple but delicious. What is the one thing you won’t eat? I’m not the most adventurous eater. I tend to stick with the basics. Please share your favorite food memory from growing up. Coming home from school and my dad surprising us with a different dish every week. We never knew what he was going to make, and it always gave us something to look forward to. What is the one kitchen tool you can’t live without? A sharp knife. A sharp knife is a safe knife. What has been your most memorable meal? It has to be from my visits to India—a naan wrap with chicken tikka masala and a side of mango lassi.
LIQUID CONVERSATIONS
| BY MICHAEL MOBERLY Nightlife culture has changed over the past two decades—but people still want to have fun with other people. One recent night at The Selden, Reno’s newest LGBTQ dance club, they were doing just that. Photo/Eric Marks
Are bars still fun? Young people are drinking less, and numerous bars and clubs have closed in recent years. Why? Let me begin with a statement of fact: I, Michael Moberly, am no longer fun. I mean this in the sense that 2016 me would say to me now, “You are not fun.” I abstain from alcohol; I have a 2-year-old kid, so I am naturally sleepy most of the time; and, being in my late 30s, my tolerance for the general shenanigans found in the world after midnight is rather low. Early in July, I read an article in Bloomberg titled “The Fun Shortage Is Real, and It’s Making America Miserable,” and I thought: Wait, am I a part of this problem? Am I part of the cause of this fun shortage?
Turns out this article was talking about the decline in U.S. businesses dedicated to fun, including 7,000 bars and nightclubs having closed in the past two decades. A Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey shows double-digit percentage drops since 2003 in the hours spent each year on arts and entertainment activities, attending sports or recreational events, and attending or hosting social events. Plus, everything’s expensive as hell these days—prices are rising at the fastest pace in three years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. According to trade
publication Pollstar, concert-ticket prices have increased 41% since 2019, something we all have felt if we love live music. But the world has been poor before, and people still had fun. Heck, I was drunk and having a blast during the last recession. People always say bars are recession-proof, so what’s different now? A 2023 Gallup survey found that the share of adults under age 35 who say they ever drink dropped 10 percentage points over two decades, to 62% in 2021-’23 from 72% in 2001’03. So it’s clear there is a generation of young people who are less interested in drinking—but RenoNR.com
I know they still have to be interested in fun. This led me to a hard, real question: are bars still fun? As an expert in the world of drinks, it’s difficult for me to walk into a bar and view it objectively: I am looking at a bar through the analytical lens of a know-it-all. So, I decided to reach out to some people across the spectrum of bar interactions—an artist and curator, a restaurant owner, a spirits brand ambassador, a teacher, and a social media manager, and I asked them: “Are bars still fun?” • “Neighborhood bars are still fun,” said Alana Berglund, 37, the associate director of a nonprofit music venue. “They are not really promising you a good time; they sort of just exist, and then you can form your own community.” • “I always have fun at a bar if I’m with the right people,” said Chris Costa, 42, co-owner of Cosmos Snack Bar. “I feel like we live in a world of being plugged in with so much information that it’s important just to be present.” • “I personally think bars are as fun as they have ever been,” said Lucas Huff, 36, United States spirits ambassador for Foley Family Wines and Spirits. He added that the magic of bars is the combination of the space itself and the company you keep. • “I believe that bars can still be fun, but I definitely slowed down the older I get,” said Joe O’Gorman, 36, a teacher. “I just want to hang out with the people I love, and it doesn’t matter where that is.” • Abby Ocampo, a 28-year-old social-media manager, said she thinks bars can be fun, but it feels like the scene is getting oversaturated and overpriced. “If we plan on getting drunk together, then most likely, we plan on going to the bar,” she said. “If no drinking is involved, then not really. I don’t see myself going to the bar unless I’m with a group or a trusted friend.” One Saturday night, I went to Reno’s new dance destination, The Selden—and sure enough, people were having a ton of fun. People in their 20s were shaking their rumps with drinks in hand. But there was something else—vibe, energy and community. Then it hit me: Bars aren’t fun; people are. Shaking ass by yourself is not fun. Shaking ass with your best friend is. Everyone I talked to had the same general idea: I don’t care where I am; as long as I am with my community, I am having fun. There may be fewer places to have fun, partly because of rising costs and changing consumer habits, but what’s recession-proof isn’t bars— it’s community. | Fall 2026
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MUSICBEAT
| BY MARK EARNEST Guitarist and vocalist Shane Danner (left) started Rotten Monolith in 2014 in Portland. The band went on hiatus for a few years. Then, Danner, now back in Reno, teamed with Ian Callahan (center) and Kris Kelly (right) to form a new iteration. Photo/Mark Earnest
Occult, punk, prog and ‘just pure grit’ Rotten Monolith’s influences are anything but monolithic Sometimes when you see a rock band, it feels like a tight-knit band of brothers and sisters. It’s a unified front—crushing you like a Mack truck in an overwhelming style that’s also entertaining. This is a good way to describe Rotten Monolith, a group from Reno that features three close friends who definitely have their own vibe—even if they have a hard time describing exactly what they play. “I’ve never been able to pinpoint what we sound like,” said guitarist and vocalist Shane Danner. “Pretty much for me and my songwriting, I take inspiration from all sorts of things—but then it doesn’t really sound like 52
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any of those things that I take inspiration from.” It is clear that the members of Rotten Monolith are into metal more than any other genre, but it goes beyond a specific label or style of heaviness. There’s a lot of hardcore punk in the vocal delivery and types of riffs that Danner and bassist Kris Kelly perform, but there are also some progressive-rock influences with some multi-part epics in the setlist. Drummer Ian Callahan did coin a genre for the band, albeit in a joking manner: mystic metal. “If you read a lot of the lyrics that Shane writes, I think they are pretty esoteric,” Callahan said. Although there is at least one science-fiction/ RenoNR.com
fantasy themed song in the band (“about a space dragon,” Callahan said), Danner said he’s more influenced by the occult in his lyrics. “Most of the songs have occult overtones, but they’re also about struggling with life and how to overcome the struggles, whether it’s from occult understanding or just pure grit,” Danner said. “A lot of the songs were originally written with lots of depression going on, but it’s all sort of a hopeful message of how to transcend.” Danner, Kelly and Callahan are Reno natives and friends from their high school days, while Danner said he’s known Callahan since middle school. The three musicians, with Kelly on gui-
tar, were also in a screamo/hardcore band called Near Life Experience in the early 2000s after they all graduated from high school. In 2006, Danner moved to Portland, Ore., with his girlfriend at the time and stayed there for about 15 years. While there, he formed the first version of Rotten Monolith in 2014, which lasted until 2019. The hiatus for Rotten Monolith ended in 2022, when Callahan and Danner got together to jam on older songs from the band. Callahan said that at the time, he and Kelly’s previous band, Flood Fire Death Drought, was petering out. Once Callahan and Danner started playing, they talked Kelly into switching from guitar to bass to complete the current Rotten Monolith lineup. “I just love being in a band and playing music and hanging out with my best friends, so I just bit the bullet and borrowed a bass and started to learn how to play it,” Kelly said. He turned out to be what Danner called a fantastic addition to Rotten Monolith, especially as a second songwriter. When Kelly writes music, he said he tries to think like Danner, but it comes out with a different slant. “I am trying things out that don’t come to me naturally,” Kelly said, “We both have our own zones on the neck of the guitar that we like to live in, and they’re not the same zone. So, I’m trying to drift into his zone and then kind of pull things back to my zone. It changes the sound into something a little more blended.” The same goes for Kelly’s lyrics. “We write about vastly different things,” he said. “I’m still so rooted in punk-rock stuff that my songs tend to have a message in them. They aren’t as metaphysical or interesting as Shane’s songs.” So far, the band’s recordings are all from the Oregon version of the group, although the current members agreed that going into the studio with their newest material is a priority when they can find the time, hopefully this year. They’ve also talked about out-of-town shows when everyone’s work schedules permit. It seems like Rotten Monolith’s real priorities are to continue getting gigs and keep their friendship going for as long as they can. “I don’t know many grownups who are able to keep playing with their toys with their best friends,” Kelly said. “It’s pretty fucking sweet— pretty cool. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth it.” Learn more at instagram.com/ rotten_monolith.
MUSICBEAT
| BY MATT KING Squeek Steele.
Human jukebox Squeek Steele has a world-record skill—performing music from memory A local piano-playing superstar may be the closest thing on the planet to an actual human jukebox. Squeek Steele, an 87-year-old pianist and Virginia City resident, can play virtually song you’d like to hear. In 1988, she was cemented in the Guinness World Records for “Most Pieces of Music Performed From Memory,” and during her live shows, she mixes generations of music, going from classical to saloon standards, and country to contemporary. She performs at the Bucket of Blood Saloon in Virginia City nearly every summer weekend, among other shows. Steele began developing her impeccable music memory as a child, and she’s been playing songs by ear throughout her whole career. “I’m so old, when I went to college, you were not allowed to play anything but classical music or things leaning toward that,” Steele said. “But I play by ear as well as by notes, so a lot of things that I perform, I don’t use any music, because I can hear it in my head, and I just play it. … Say, I didn’t know ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ and you
played it for me. It’s a very short song, so I’d be able to play it back in a minute. Mozart was able to apparently listen to something that would be two or three minutes long and play it back.” This one-of-a-kind musical gift comes in “really handy” her during sets at the Bucket of Blood Saloon. “Somebody will come up to me and say, ‘Do you know this?’ and give me a title, and I’ll say, ‘I probably haven’t played that for 35 years; can you sing some of it?’” she said. “And then they sing some of it, or they kind of hum, or maybe we look it up on the phone, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I can play that.’ … I do that a lot at the Bucket.” Steele’s song memory ranges from pioneering piano pieces to relatively recent pop hits. “I do old country-Western and old folk songs and old rock ’n’ roll, and probably ’80s, early ’90s would be the end of what I can do—but all the way back to Cristofori, the guy who invented the piano in the 1600s,” she said. “I know a lot of stuff that’s 200 years old, or the two Lady Gaga songs popular from A Star Is Born.” Steele isn’t all about covers; she’s won awards for her original music, and has a long history of making up melodies.
“I did soundtracks for industrials and documentaries, and I actually got a National Park Service award for a score to a Grand Canyon hiking video—but the video itself didn’t survive the ’90s,” Steele said. “I improvised when I played for ballet, which I did for many years in Aspen (Colo.) for Ballet West out of Salt Lake, and then I played in Sun Valley (Idaho) for four years and New York City Ballet.” One of the most entertaining things Steele does: Improvise a score to a silent film on the spot. “I did that (in 2025). ARTOWN was at Trinity (Episcopal Cathedral), and I did a silent movie as part of another program. I didn’t really want to do a formal program, so I did a 30-minute silent movie,” she said. “Usually, I try to do something in the style of the silent movies, in the era, but if there’s a fire, I’m likely to play the Doors ‘Light My Fire.’” These days, Steele is generally able to perform however she pleases. “I have pretty much free rein over most of the festivals I play in,” she said. “I’m a church organist, and I changed my major from piano to organ at Oberlin, and I played many years in various churches, but I just now do it as a sub. RenoNR.com
I love to play the organ, but I’m tired of all the other stuff that goes with it.” While Steele expressed her affinity for oldschool sounds, I was curious how she felt about synthesizers. “Well, I’d rather not play them in the Bucket,” she said. On the road, however, Steele appreciates the transportability and varied tones of synths and keyboards. “I have a place in Álamos, Mexico, in the state of Sonora, and I often get gigs down there, and I just haul the keyboard,” Steele said. “A lot of the original soundtracks I wrote were a fourtrack or six-track, and I had to use synthesizers in it. I like synthesizers, because they provide a whole batch of sounds you haven’t heard. You hear pop music from the ’80s, and you can tell it’s the ’80s, because they’re using certain presets from synthesizers that are sort of out of vogue now. … You can often tell what era a piece is from by the synthesizer sounds they’re using. If I’m playing with a bass player and a drummer and a singer, they’re fine to use in the background—but I would not try to play Chopin on a synthesizer.” Steele’s playing remains impressive at the age of 87. “I have some exercises,” she said. “You play every day if you possibly can. Last week, I was in a place that had no pianos, but I can still do some exercises. I’m really lucky that I don’t have any arthritis in my hands. I’ve played my whole life; I’ve never not played. When I’m sitting at the Bucket, I’m often not even thinking what I am playing, and then I will think, ‘Oh, I think I’ll play blank next.’” Steele continues to perform at a high level— but she said she’s likely given up her hobby of mountain-climbing. “I climbed all 11 high points of the Lower 48 in my 60s,” she said. “I walked to the base camp of Everest before it was fashionable in 1980. There was no Lonely Planet; there was no guidebook of any kind for Nepal, but I had a friend I grew up with in Kentucky, and he was in the first American Peace Corps group to Nepal, so he was able to say, ‘Take your own cup; your own utensils.’ It was a 23-day trek to the base camp of Everest. At the time, Nepal had not opened that up for anybody. You had to be part of a group, or you had to be chosen, and you can’t really actually go into base camp. You climb another mountain next to it, or a big hill, and look down on it. It was 18 days to the base camp, and then five days back to an airstrip.” Learn more about Squeek Steele at goodoldsongs.com. | Fall 2026
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JONESIN' CROSSWORD
| BY MATT JONES
THE LUCKY 13
| BY MATT KING
Laura Jackson Music director and conductor of the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra
On Saturday, Oct. 17, the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra will begin its 58th season, led once again by Laura Jackson. Since 2009, the masterful conductor has not only led the talented group of local musicians, but has also debuted a number of global pieces, branched into youth orchestras, and mentored women conductors around the world. For more information on the Reno Phil and the upcoming season, visit renophil.com.
Across 1. Audibly stunned 6. Obstacle 10. Attempt 14. Firenze’s ___ Vecchio 15. Beginning of a Shakespearean soliloquy 16. Luau tuber 17. Introduction to cooking? 19. Chain selling meatballs (and other, larger things) 20. 300 setting 21. Happening 23. Tuesday offering? 25. Museum guides 26. Like random whistling, say 30. Southwest formation 31. Long-legged wader 32. The “T” in GTA 6 34. Friend-o 37. Cookware items 38. Exhausted 39. Curse 40. ___ Na Na (oldies
vocal group) 41. Japanese barberry feature 42. ___-Potty (music festival amenity) 43. Response in court 45. Where wrecks may lead to an x-ray? 47. Close off 50. Farm females 51. 2016 film whose poster was updated slightly in 2026 to fix the angle of a hand 53. One way to get around the U.S. 57. Subject of adulation 58. Forensic scientist’s findings 60. Golden Fleece ship 61. Invisible glow 62. Cars singer Gary 63. Chips supplier 64. Second-person plural pronoun, to Pittsburgh residents 65. Caught a little shuteye (which can be found in the four longest answers)
Down 1. Alerts from HQ 2. Paltrow lifestyle brand 3. Black Beauty novelist Sewell 4. First courses 5. Motivator’s message 6. ___-Foy, Quebec 7. Chicken Little denial 8. In ___ (trapped) 9. Settle in 10. Malt liquor hyped in ’90s hip-hop (and not the “man with seven wives” town) 11. Dismantled 12. “___ you the cutest?” 13. Regatta entrants 18. Racing speed 22. Rapper on Law & Order: SVU 24. Bony prefix 26. Amts. in recipes 27. Monument Valley locale 28. It means never having to say you’re sorry? 29. Like a 41-Across 33. “Rubber Duckie” singer
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“The Little Sleep”—I’ll just step away for a bit. By Matt Jones
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35. Against 36. Tilt to the side 38. Exclamation after getting home 39. Full of oneself 41. Greenish-blue 42. Bugonia star Jesse 44. Colombian plains 46. Satirical horror-metal band in giant foam costumes 47. Related to a hipbone 48. Pelvic bones 49. Tedious feeling 52. “Well, shucks” 54. “The ___ of the Ancient Mariner” 55. “Take ___!” (coach’s order) 56. The Simpsons news anchor Brockman 59. Ciudad de la ___ (Equatorial Guinea’s new capital, not to be confused with Bolivia’s)
What was the first concert you attended? The Kinks when they came through upstate New York in the late 1980s. It was loud, crazy and super fun.
© 2026 Matt Jones
What’s your favorite music venue? Warren Edward Trepp Stage at Sand Harbor. Whenever I’m conducting the Reno Phil there, I’m in heaven.
Find the answers in the “About” section at RenoNR.com!
What was the first album you owned? Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I know, I know. I’m a nerd. What bands are you listening to right now? “Route 66” for orchestra, Michael Daugherty; The Killers, Hot Fuss; Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs. What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get? Most hip-hop leaves me in the dust, EXCEPT Kendrick Lamar. “Not Like Us” is an artistic masterpiece, in my opinion. What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live? R.E.M. What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? Shania Twain.
What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head? “Now he’s falling asleep and she’s calling a cab, while he’s having a smoke and she’s taking a drag,” The Killers, “Mr. Brightside.” What band or artist changed your life? How? The composer Johannes Brahms. I was 12 years old, turning pages for the organist during a performance of Brahms’ Requiem mass while my dad was singing in the choir. I was transported to a different planet. I was so moved by the beauty of the music that my eyes filled with tears, and I could barely read the music! That day was the first time I wanted to conduct. You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? Taylor Swift: “Do you ever worry the idea for the next song may not show up?” What song would you like played at your funeral? J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. It’s beautiful, as well as nice and long. I plan to take the scenic tour to whatever afterworld I am headed for, just in case it’s not my first choice five-star. Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time? Beethoven’s Symphonies 5 and 7 recorded by Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic. The video is even better. What song should everyone listen to right now? Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. If you don’t have time for the whole thing, listen to the second movement. It will make your day better, I promise.
15 MINUTES
| BY KRIS VAGNER
Kaija MacKinnon
Best of Northern Nevada illustrator
Each year, the RN&R contracts with a local artist to illustrate our Best of Northern Nevada issue. This year, it’s Kaija MacKinnon. She grew up in New Jersey, graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla., and moved here in 2023 to study at the University of Nevada, Reno. She graduated in May with a master’s degree in fine arts. MacKinnon specializes in half-fantastical drawings of dogs, horses and humans in scenarios that are part adventure tale and part mystery story, with a dash of anime energy—and perhaps just a hint of darkness. To illustrate the Best of Northern Nevada issue, she drew people and animals from the circus—some performing their acts, some behind the scenes, others lost in their own thoughts. This is her first commission post-graduation, and she is in the market to do more. Visit www.kaijamackinnon. com. Photo by Kris Vagner How did you first get into making art? I think I was always drawing, from early elementary (school). I decided I wanted to go to art school. It was basically between drawing or working with animals, which are both risky paths, and I decided to go on an art path. Then I got accepted into the school in Florida. That solidified the route that I wanted to go. In your illustration work, there are a lot of animals—forest creatures, storybook creatures, and also pets. Tell me about your connection to them. Do animals represent something about humans to you? I was a homeschooled kid and grew up riding and training horses. That was primarily what I did before I went to college. So, they were always … my social sphere. And I have a Doberman working dog who I did a lot of service training with when I moved
to school and couldn’t afford a horse. I’m very introverted and very attached to them in that way. And that obsession just kind of leads into what I draw. In your Best of Northern Nevada illustrations, there’s joy and kindness—and also melancholy. What converged in your mind to come up with that combination? How did you come up with the theme? I’m newer to Reno, and Circus Circus is the immediate connection that I make to Reno. I just associate the Arch, and then the big clown sign. That’s always a fun narrative to draw. There are a ton of characters going on in a circus environment. I also went to Ringling in Florida, which we called “The Clown School,” because it’s Ringling Brothers-connected. … It’s definitely something that passed down, which is kind of funny. I really gravitate toward narrative and storybook stuff, and I feel like that’s just a really easy, automatic narrative to add. What was in your mind that congealed into that combination of joy and melancholy? That’s a common balance in my work that happens organically. A lot of my work outside of commercial illustration is very mental-health-related. I also love children’s books very much. That combination of having a softer character going through things that are a little heavier has always been interesting to me—(as is) how to combine those themes without relying so heavily on one or the other, trying to keep a balance, since there’s always a gray area. I’ve been learning to correlate illustration with fine art a lot lately, which has been a really interesting integration. So, the fact that you’re able to see the moods within such a commercial illustration project is something that I hope continues, and I’m glad it is visible in the work so far. RenoNR.com
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