The Changing of The Guard on First Street

A late Wednesday afternoon in mid April, the hum around First Street is just starting to ring. First Street following the Truckee River isn’t really much until you get between Arlington and Sierra, that’s where the excitement is.

There’s a ton of places to begin on First Street, after an alien abduction, your captures dropped you on the corner of Arlington and First you would pretty much have the Reno world at your fingertips. There are two sports bars, a coffee house, a wine bar and a tap house. The Jungle, (the coffee house) and the tap house appropriately named the Sierra Tap House, have been on the scene the longest. The Jungle opened in1992 and The Sierra Tap House in 2006. Java Jungle and the Tap House share a common building, Java jungle upstairs facing First Street and The Tap House downstairs facing the Truckee River. These two businesses have a healthy clientele and enjoy the new first street scene.

The Tap House has an old Reno kind of feel, almost like the bar in The Shining. Bottles lined across shelves above the bar. There’s a broad range of people, old timers and twenty something’s all enjoying a beer. The door was open, fresh air and the sound of the river flooded in. The manger Josh Pratt has been there five years and has enjoyed his time there, a tall blonde punk rocker kind of guy. In the early years of the emerging First Street the only people that really came down were residents of the condos like the Arlington Tower or people who lived along the river walk.

“The classic neighborhood place, the Tap House and Silver Peak were what really got anyone down here.” Pratt said.

An older white haired gentleman sitting at the bar knew all about First Street. “You wanna know about First Street? I’ll tell you, and if you take one thing away is it’s changed for the better!” The man’s name was Scott Hauer; a semi retired pit boss at The Eldorado who has spent a lifetime in downtown Reno. At any given time you’ll see him on First Street watching a game at The Stick sports bar, or having a beer at the Tap House.

Back in the day, Hauer confessed, the only thing on First was Colombo’s, there wasn’t much else. (The Tap house used to be a wedding chapel, and Our Bar across the street was an antique and trinket stores.) Colombo’s was where all the “black and whites” would go after their shifts, Hauer explained.

“You know, black and whites are casino employees, or ‘penguins,’ black pants white tops.” Hauer said.

Old First Street and Colombo’s was for the penguins. Everyone else went to the casinos if they ventured downtown at all, so the casino employees went to anywhere but the casinos. After years of flooding and the casino industry fading away Colombo’s closed and seemingly not much was left for First Street. That all changed when someone saw money signs in that corridor.

“It’s called investment,” Hauer said, “Everyone want’s something nice, but no one wants to invest!”

Silver Peak was the first to open in 2004. A movie theatre and a parking gallery soon followed.

“Everything started to change with Silver Peak and the tap house coming in.” Hauer said. More tourists were leaving the casinos and coming down here, which seemed odd at first. This was a huge step for First Street because casinos are supposed to have all the amenities and walking around downtown Reno isn’t for the tender hearted. Both Pratt and Hauer agreed that Silver Peak and the Tap House were the domino effect for the rest of the neighborhood.

Fast forward ten years later, there’s Our Bar, right on the corner of Roff and First. Directly across the street is The Jungle and their newest addition, Jungle Vino. Below Jungle Vino, on the river walk is The Sierra Tap House. Down on Sierra and First is Silver Peak, Antonio’s Mexican restaurant, Pizanos Pizza, and The Stick Sports lounge. At any giving point in time you can wander down and have a relaxing outing or stay up late with all the college students (and try to avoid hurling in the river.) If you ask Camron Younie an off shift Tap House bartender and college student sitting at the Tap House bar why he comes down, he’ll tell you,

“It’s where everybody seems to go now, I enjoy working down here and I always meet my friends here.” Younie said. Hauer agreed that college students come down in droves from the university.

First Street has always been bound for something great. There’s The Truckee River, there’s the investment, there’s the good times and there’s the people, First Street is the new downtown, where all the lights are, where the action is. As Richard Nixon put it about there being no greater time to be alive than America in the 1960’s, there’s something very special about First Street, downtown Reno in the 2010’s.