New Reno Public Market Offers a Little Something for Everyone

   A trend in many cities in recent years is the creation of “public markets,” which typically are large, open public spaces with a variety of different restaurants available.

   Unlike the old mall food courts, which mostly offered fast-food chain options, restaurants in public market food halls are usually locally-owned and offer a wider variety of more ethnically-diverse dining choices.

   Earlier this year, Reno gained its first one of these types of places with the opening of the Reno Public Market on the site of the former Shopper’s Square mall on the northeast corner of Plumb Lane and South Virginia Street.

   Additionally, the project includes new retail businesses, including the Maker’s Paradise Art Collective, a Sprouts Farmers Market and Wandering Wyld Collective, which supports local crafts people and artists.

   The centerpiece of the market, however, is the food hall, which offers some 18 different vendors ranging from Life’s a Batch, a delightful cupcakery with organic, paleo, and vegan baked creations, to Bone Appetit Bar-B-Que Grill, which serves up delicious ribs, beef brisket, pulled pork, and other smoked dishes.

   Other vendors include: A La Parrilla Latin Food, Burger NV, Brazilian Gourmet Market, Pie-Ya pizza, Bite Me, offering sliders and loaded fries, Crepes and Craft, Fuego Street Tacos, Wok & Roll, V’s Churro Bar and Los Cipotes Salvadoran restaurant.

   For drinks, the food hall has Miches Vatos, which specializes in michelada cocktails, the Morning Glory juice bar and the Honey Bar, with a wide selection of beers, wine and cocktails.

   Future tenants will include the Truckee-based FiftyFifty Brewing Company, which will offer a selection of its award-winning craft beers, and the Noodle Station, which will serve noodles (naturally) as well as bao and beer.

   The food hall dining area, which covers two stories of the market, is enhanced by the presence of a small stage, called “Faye’s,” where diners are regularly entertained by local musicians, DJs and other performers.

   The Reno Public Market sits on the former site of the Casazza family ranch. In 1923, Anthony Casazza purchased 140 acres of ranchland situated between what is now Plumb Lane and Vassar Street.

   After operating the ranch for the next four decades, in the early 1960s the Casazza family converted the property into a retail shopping complex called Shoppers Square. Over the years, Shoppers Square was home to a variety of small businesses, a grocery store, and big box stories, such as Marshall’s.

   With the development of the massive Reno Experience District, on the opposite side of Plumb Lane, a luxury apartment and retail complex, which replaced the former Park Lane Mall, the Casazza family, along with developer Foothill Partners, embarked on a complete revitalization of the Shoppers Square property, which was transformed into the Reno Public Market.

   Visitors to the market will find an attractive, kind of post-industrial vibe to the place, with its exposed metal beams and girders and concrete floors. During the first four days of its opening last January, more than 12,000 people streamed through the market to sample its offerings.

   Reno Public Market is located at 299 E. Plumb Lane in Reno. Its hours are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and closed on Tuesdays.

   For more information, go to: https://www.renopublicmarket.com/.