On December 29, Bill Paganetti died in Reno. He was 85 years old.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of articles have been written about his passing, career, and family, and the history of the casinos he co-founded and their impact on the casino industry in northern Nevada. The articles all state that family and family values were the core of his philosophy of living and operating a casino. In the casino world of northern Nevada, he was somewhat of a legend. Paganetti is also noted for the freestanding Peppermill restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip.
For the last 50 years, the Las Vegas Peppermill has been a popular restaurant and lounge, a meeting place for locals and celebrities. According to Wikipedia, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lewis, Debbie Reynolds, Quentin Tarantino, Penn Jillette, and others socialized in the restaurant and lounge. The Peppermill also appeared in films and television programs, including The Cotton Club, Showgirls, Casino, The Trust, “CSI,” “No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain,” and “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”
A standalone restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip that has outlasted most of its resort neighbors for 50 years is without a precedent or equal. Distinctiveness is, in part, the reason for the success of Paganetti and his casinos. They weren’t just copies of other casinos. In 1971, Bill and his partner Nat Caraselli opened a restaurant on the south side of Reno, the Peppermill Coffee Shop and Lounge. For eight years, it was just a coffee shop. But in 1979, the two took on two more partners, the Seeno brothers, and added gaming. The brothers’ expertise helped the Peppermill at every stage of the company’s growth. The Seenos were second-generation builders from California and their knowledge of contracting, construction costs, and financing were essential elements in the expansion of the company.
In 1979, the Peppermill Coffee Shop and Lounge added a few slot machines. The next year the property became a full-fledged casino. It has been growing ever since. What accounts for its success? It had a solid management structure; the four owners sat as a board of directors and there was a team of professional managers. The managers were allowed to manage, but had to get the board’s approval for anything major, and the board required detailed plans, costs, and returns on investment. It was not a one-man band or a cowboy outfit.
The Peppermill stayed close to its coffee-shop roots, concentrating on serving the best food possible with service at the same standards. It also excelled in slot performance and for that, Paganetti gets the credit. Bill learned slots and slot analysis. Because he was conversant with mathematics, he was better at understanding the slot floor than nearly any other owner in the business. Peppermill’s slots were liberal and gave players a good bang for their buck. The slots complemented the food; people came to eat, but stayed to gamble.
Peppermill is also known for its distinctive interior design and décor. Together with the architect Peter Wilday, the property created its own individual, indeed unusual, identity. Later the property added to its interior design with living art. Once a year for a long time, a team of photographers traveled the world to capture photographs and videos of scenes from nature. Beautifully filmed, those living art pieces are featured through the property on video screens, with the images changing often. Those displays turned the property into a virtual travel museum, in which diners and gamblers could travel the world by just walking the property. The costs of the project ran in the millions of dollars. But it added an element to the décor that differentiated the Peppermill from other casinos and not just in Reno, but everywhere.
People say that Bill Paganetti changed the landscape of gaming in Reno. In a sense he did. Together with the Atlantis, Bill and his partners moved the center of gaming from the traditional downtown core to the southern neighborhoods. The Peppermill and Atlantis thrive on the tourists who fill their hotels, but their bread-and-butter business comes from people who live in the area. Peppermill has kept its restaurants and slot machines full with locals and parking is the secret. Peppermill and Atlantis have thousands of surface-level parking spaces. The downtown properties have limited parking and that is in tight and difficult-to-use parking garages.
Bill Paganetti’s contribution was good food, liberal slots, and plentiful, convenient, and free parking. Bill and his partners built something truly different and unique. The Peppermill is the Peppermill and no one walks around the place wondering which casino it is; the colors, the moving, almost breathing, scenes from nature, and other elements in the décor are not found anywhere else. But it was not done with pure singular genius. Peppermill is the work of a team that includes the board of directors and the managers. It is also the work of careful planning, detailed analysis and a commitment to its original principles: good food and good service. If Bill Paganetti had a genius, it might just have been in his choice of partners and his willingness to listen, adapt, and be different.
