Watering holes along Reno’s most iconic highway.
What’s in a name? If you’re a dive bar called Abby’s Highway 40, maybe your name says it all. Or maybe not, since you’ve had many names over the years — Quilici Bar, Reno Bar, Rumpus Room, and, finally, Abby’s — all at the same address.
Highway 40? Maybe you know it as the Lincoln Highway or Fourth Street. Any of these names describe the primary route through Reno, from the 1920s until the completion of Interstate 80 in 1974. Roy Quilici recognized Fourth Street as a booming commercial center. In 1940, he built the brick building that stands today and opened his namesake Quilici Bar.
Changes Begin
By 1945, Quilici sold the bar to George Mross, who renamed it Reno Bar and claimed, “We serve the largest glass of beer or whiskey in town at popular prices.”
The Quilicis remained connected to Fourth Street, and in 1953, they built a small building to the east of the Reno Bar. It opened as a coffee shop called Green Cup Café and was popular among area workers.
Mross operated Reno Bar for eight years, and then came a series of partnership changes. Gimmicks and ways to attract business followed.
A 1953 story in the Reno Evening Gazette mentioned, “A new way to serve drinks was displayed to a preview crowd of customers at a cocktail hour at the Reno Bar … Neil Ward and Bill Vinkey staged a Golden Spike ceremony at the bar to put in operation a miniature train which wheeled drinks to the customers.”
After Fourth Street’s glory days in the 1950s and 1960s, it slid into disrepute. Robberies, assaults, and burglaries were common. As this stretch of road declined, Reno Bar headed in a new direction: It was discovered by a still-underground gay community. University of Nevada, Reno professor Jeff Auer noted that Reno Bar was a gay club from 1964 until its closing in the 1970s, and in 1972, it was replaced by Rumpus Room, also enjoying a gay clientele.
Twenty Years as Abby’s
Enter Avram “Abby” Schwartz and his son, Donny. By January 2000, Rumpus Room had become Abby’s Highway 40, and much of the funky dive bar atmosphere in Abby’s today originated with them. Abby was a popular character known in many restaurants about town. Longtime Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Rollan Melton wrote, “Like all great bartenders he was resident psychiatrist, friend, listener, and advisor. Best of all, Abby was the best teller of Jewish jokes most of us ever heard.”
Donny owned the establishment with the Caffaratti family and filled the place with collectibles and historic photos of Reno. A caricature of Abby can even be seen in the neon sign hanging outside the bar.
Dumpling Queen
As the Brewery District grows on Fourth Street, there’s a new road ahead for Abby’s. Piper Stremmel and her husband/business partner, Chris Reilly, who also own The Jesse Hotel & Bar and Estella restaurant nearby, purchased the property in March 2022. They kept the neighborhood tavern feeling of Abby’s, leaving much of its dive bar vibe. Decades after Green Cup Café, in the patio outside of Abby’s, Dumpling Queen serves up food from a renovated 1948 Airstream trailer.
Change is a constant, and if you’ve never visited Abby’s, this might be the time, before the next big changes set in. You can easily recognize it, with its stunningly colorful burgundy, green, and yellow tiles below the front windows. I’m not sure what characterizes a dive bar these days, but if you want to dive into a bar with lots of history and character, Abby’s Highway 40 is the place.
Sharon Honig-Bear was the longtime restaurant writer for the Reno Gazette-Journal. She is a tour leader with Historic Reno Preservation Society and a supporter of all things cultural and historic. She can be reached at Sharonbear@sbcglobal.net.
