High-profile restaurant sitereturns to its informal roots

Nate Lance views his new Amendment 21 Grill and Sports Bar in downtown Reno as a fairly straightforward proposition of rebranding a high-profile property.

But it's a little trickier than that.

The location at 425 S. Virginia, across the street from the federal courthouse a little south of Liberty Street, has seen a couple of high-end restaurants come and go since Adele's at the Plaza closed in 2002 after a 10-year run.

But Lance wants to reach back farther, tapping memories of The Board of Trade, a wildly popular watering hole at the South Virginia Street location in the 1980s.

Lance, the principal operator of Amendment 21, brings 20 years of restaurant management and ownership experience to the 4,900-square-foot sports bar.

A dining room that once was dominated by high-back booths now is opened up. By summer, Lance hopes to remove a glass-block wall along the fa ade to create sidewalk dining. Plasma and projector screens display sporting events, and patrons who want to create their competition can play on multiple networked Xbox 360 gaming consoles or the bar's pool tables and dart board.

The menu includes a lot of traditional sports bar fare burgers, wraps, pizza but Lance says he also sought to include lighter items to help draw women.

While other operators have looked at the restaurant's market as lawyers, stockbrokers and other professionals in nearby office buildings, Lance thinks Amendment 21 can tap into nearby residential neighborhoods.

"Nobody looks at this as a neighborhood restaurant, but Old Southwest begins just a couple of blocks from here," he says. "We want to reach out into those neighborhoods."

As Lance and Mike Malody, his financial partner on the project, talked with potential customers, they learned that a perceived lack of parking at the location presents a challenge.

They note the restaurant provides free validated parking in the parking garage above the location the entrance, however, is on Sierra Street and they've made arrangements to provide free parking for customers after 5 p.m. at a lot south of Amendment 21.

The restaurant, whose name is drawn from the U.S. Constitutional Amendment repealing prohibition, employs about 20.