The Happiest Hour
Get more bang for your hard-earned buck at these local spots.
If you’re looking for a good meal and drinks at a discount, there’s no need to start trolling cheap eats. Instead, if your schedule is flexible, you can partake in food-and-drink specials at your favorite restaurants simply by stopping in during scheduled happy hours. Whether you’re looking for some quick bar food and beer, game-time discounts, or fine dining, the local happy hour scene has you covered. Here are a few standouts.
Bistro Napa
This upstairs eatery at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa has one of our favorite happy hours in Reno. Dubbed The Social Menu, this entire happy hour menu, with everything from cocktails and wine to appetizers and entrées, is 50 percent off. And for an extra bonus, this menu offers two full hours (4 – 6 p.m.) of discounted dining and imbibing seven days a week (excluding holidays).
Happy hour menu offerings include Sexyfries, one of the restaurant’s most popular menu items, topped with Parmigiano Reggiano, white truffle oil, and fresh herbs, for $5.50; or split a Caramelized Onion and Applewood Bacon wood-fired flatbread for $8.50.
The deal extends to all corners of the limited menu, including signature cocktails, classic cocktails, and wines by the glass. We highly recommend the Hibiscus Manhattan.
Café Whitney
If you’re looking to drink for less, Café Whitney at the Whitney Peak Hotel in Downtown Reno offers its happy hour menu from 4 – 7 p.m. each day. Again, the discount is steep, with half off house wines, draft beers, and cocktails for the entirety of the three hours. Draft beers may rotate but can include pilsner from Reno’s Pigeon Head Brewery and Mimosa Sour from Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing Co. Cocktails also rotate with the seasons, so you’ll be able to toast with something new every time you visit.
At the time of this writing, a happy hour bar menu was still in the works with an early 2022 release date; it will include discounted prices on salads, flatbread pizzas, and truffle fries.
Flowing Tide Pub
What’s better than one happy hour? How about two? Flowing Tide Pub — with six locations throughout Reno and Sparks — is known for its quality happy hour menus offered, at minimum, twice per day.
All six locations hold happy hours from 2 – 6 p.m. and again from 10 p.m. – midnight. Stop in to enjoy 50 percent off draft pints and well drinks, $2 off glasses of wine and all other drinks, and $7 appetizers. The three locations that stay open 24 hours a day (two on South McCarran Boulevard in Reno and one on Prater Way in Sparks) offer an even sweeter deal — that is, if you happen to be awake during the wee hours of 3 – 9 a.m. You’ll find pints for $3 or $4.50; $4 bloody marys, Coors, micheladas, and Flowing Tide’s frozen specialty drink, the Riptide; and the Tide Breakfast for $5.99, just in case you have a hankering for eggs after a night out drinking or before a really early flight.
Overland Restaurant & Pub
Not to be outdone, Carson Valley boasts its own impressive deals at Overland, an American and Basque comfort food hot spot in Gardnerville. The rustic atmosphere in this early 1900s building may seem an unexpected place for one of the valley’s most popular happy hours, but the discounts speak for themselves.
Drinks are cheap from 3 – 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, with $2 draft beer selections, $3 well drinks, and $4 glasses of (house) wine. If you’re hungry, fill your belly with $5 appetizers such as Beer Battered Onion Rings, St. Luis Smoked Ribs, and Basket of Fries. Or enjoy Kung Pao Brussels for $6 or Smoked Chicken Wings for $7.
In addition to happy hour, the pub offers weekly specials most nights of the week, starting with burgers and brews on Monday and ending with Sunday brunch.
Flatstick Pub
Who doesn’t like to enjoy a little bar activity with their drinks? In South Lake Tahoe, Flatstick Pub (with a second location in Sacramento) specializes in indoor miniature golf and adult beverages. From 3 – 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, enjoy both as you take advantage of $1.50 off all alcoholic drinks.
If you stop in on select Saturdays, you’re in for a real treat. Happy hour is replaced with bottomless mimosas and endless rounds of mini golf until 3 p.m. (and children can play until 8 p.m.). The on-site restaurant #Melt serves up snacks, sandwiches, pizzas, and more.
Bistro Napa
3800 S. Virginia St., Reno
775-335-4539 · Atlantiscasino.com/dining/fine-dining/atlantis-bistro-napa
Café Whitney
255 N. Virginia St., Reno
775-398-5454 · Cafewhitney.com
Flowing Tide Pub
Multiple locations
Flowingtidepub.com
Overland Restaurant & Pub
1451 Hwy. 395 N., Gardnerville
775-392-1369 · Overland-restaurant.com
Flatstick Pub
4101 Lake Tahoe Blvd., Ste. 101, South Lake Tahoe
530-443-4376 · Tipsyputt.com
Ingredients
- 1½ ounces sloe gin
- 1 ounce gin
- 2 ounces orange juice
- ½ ounce simple syrup
- Sprite to taste
- 1 orange wedge
- 1 Maraschino cherry
Instructions
- Add sloe gin, gin, orange juice, and simple syrup to shaker. Shake and strain over ice in stemless wine glass. Fill rest of glass with Sprite, then garnish with orange wedge and Maraschino cherry.
Ingredients
- 3 ounces Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select Tennessee Whiskey
- 1½ ounces Carpano Antica Formula Sweet Vermouth
- ½ ounce hibiscus syrup may be purchased at specialty stores, or find easy recipes online to make it yourself
- Dash of Angostura bitters
- Peel of 1 orange peel
- Wild hibiscus flower for garnish
Instructions
- Prepare a chilled coupe glass. In a mixing glass, combine whiskey, sweet vermouth, hibiscus syrup, and bitters. Add ice and stir. Strain into chilled coupe glass. Twist an orange peel to expel its oils over the cocktail. Garnish drink with peel and flower.
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