Sometime this fall, The Mint Bar is slated to open. The site was once home to the Reno National Bank, which opened in 1915, and later became a Planet Hollywood and a part of Harrah’s. In 2013, Planet Hollywood changed into an Ichiban Japanese Steak House, rounding out 100 years on the corner of Virginia and Second streets in downtown Reno.
The Mint will have a bar, giant screen, and slot machines. The number of slot machines is being kept vague. The project was awarded a Nevada gaming license and received city approval for slots in 2023. The license is under the general category of “unlimited” and articles in the Reno Gazette Journal put the number of slots at 200. The operator, Fine Entertainment, has focused on its entertainment components, downplaying the gaming. But as every bar and restaurant operator in Nevada knows, slot machines can pay the rent.
The Mint is part of a master development with residential, restaurants, and retail elements and includes all the buildings that constituted Harrah’s Casino-Hotel. The project has been broken into pieces, each to be partially financed and developed by separate entities. Fine Entertainment has the first floor of the former casino. In a sense, the Mint represents the end of one era and the start of a new one downtown.
Reno is undergoing a transformation from a casino hub to a technological hub. The change was driven by new technologies, Nevada’s tax structure, and the availability of land and relatively cheapenergy. That is the positive momentum that is bringing jobs, tax revenue, and a new culture. With Tesla, Panasonic, and others of their kind, the Reno of the 21st century is not the Reno of the 20th century.
The 20th century Reno was centered around the building housing the Mint on the main drag, Virginia Street. Once upon a time, Virginia Street was also part of the main highway running north and south through Nevada. A little farther north, Virginia Street was crossed by another street and another highway, Fourth Street or Highway 40, the Lincoln Highway. In between is a railway connecting California with the east coast. Harrah’s and its casino cohorts on Virginia Street catered to the travelers who went up and down the state and back and forth across the country. There on Virginia Street, they built an industry that for a short time was the capital of gambling in the country.
The casino industry in Reno started with Harold’s Club in 1935. Harold’s was a gambling parlor, but lacked the games that today define the industry. Slot machines and table games were legal, but they were just a part of novelty gaming of the time; it was a gimmicky buyer-beware atmosphere. Nothing much changed until after World War II.
Following the end of the war, America was on the move, driving cars and going on vacation. Reno welcomed them. Bill Harrah, too, started in that pre-war gimmick-game world. However, after the war, Harrah initiated the modern casino era with Harrah’s Club. Openng in June 1946, it had craps, roulette, blackjack, faro, keno, 40 slot machines, and two bars. Over the course of his life, Harrah continued to expand and refine his concept of a casino. The gaming industry followed suit, as Harrah’s was a model for other operators.
Bill Harrah sought to have the best, to deliver a refined and elegant experience to his customers. He used the latest business practices, traveled the world looking for better ideas and concepts, and trained his employees to use the modern methods and maintain the high standards he set. In the book Every Light Was On, published by the University of Nevada Press based on interviews conducted by Dwyane Kling with former Harrah’s employees, the employees describe the elaborate checks and balances Harrah used to ensure the excellence he sought.
William Fisk Harrah died on June 30, 1978. It was a pivotal moment for the Harrah’s organization and the Reno gaming market. That same year, five new casinos opened in Reno, four with hotel rooms. Those five casinos and a couple of others to follow ushered in a growth cycle that lasted about 15 years. For Harrah’s Club, now Harrah’s Casino, it meant new owners and a headquarters relocation. The corporation moved out of town, changed names, and embarked on an expansion plan that would have stunned its founder.
In the portfolio of a national corporation, the Reno property was a minor event. Reno quickly became a backwater, as casinos in New Jersey, Las Vegas, and other jurisdictions produced more revenue and captured corporate attention. Things got worse. In 1990, Indian gaming came along, as it expanded and reached California, Oregon, and Washington, Reno fell further behind. Finally, in the wake of the Great Recession and COVID, the corporate owner closed and locked the doors of Harrah’s.
It has taken five years for the building to find a new purpose. When the Mint opens, it will be the first step in finding that new purpose. In a strange twist of fate, the Mint will be very much like Harrah’s Club of 1946, a bar with some gambling. Harrah’s Club grew a very long way from that to become a hotel-resort. But Reno was not able to keep up. The Mint Bar is more suited to the current casino environment. It will not bring prosperity to Reno. Instead, the Mint Bar will reimagine life on Virginia Street as a bit of mint.
