While the Blind Dog Tavern on N. Sierra St. recently announced it was closing, a local Instagram page raised the concern it had just received money as part of the City of Reno grants program for businesses to improve the appeal of our downtown corridor.
On its Instagram last week, Blind Dog Tavern wrote: “We regret to bring you the unfortunate news of Blind Dog Tavern’s untimely closing. Our last day of operation was this past New Years Eve. This is unfortunate news, but we do not want this to be a sad situation. Blind Dog Tavern was an absolutely amazing experience for us. We feel honored to have had the opportunity to serve every single libation to every single amazing thirsty person who joined us for a drink or two. Thank you all for your patronage. We hope you had the chance to enjoy this establishment as much as we have.
Cheers to you all!”
Not cheering was the Instagram page which wrote to us: “just sucks to watch that money get wasted if they just close so quickly after. Maybe money should be to help people not businesses after all.”
In December 2023, Blind Dog Tavern was part of the first round of awardees of the program called ReStore Reno, “an initiative aimed to reinvigorate and reignite the downtown area by offering matching grants to property owners and business tenants for facade improvements and interior upgrades.”
Blind Dog Tavern was in the tenant improvement category. Josh Callen, who owns the bar, is also behind Poor Devil Saloon in Midtown and Hideout Lounge on Park Street.
In an email today, Victoria Barnett, a Public Communications Specialist with the City of Reno explained “this portion of the program supported interior improvements to the spaces they occupied. The matching funds for Blind Dog were used to repair damaged ceiling grid and ceiling tiles and replace outdated fixtures with LED lighting.
Blind Dog completed the improvements in early 2024 and received the 50% matching funds from the City as a reimbursement for the work completed. These being long term tenant improvements, these improvements will benefit existing and future tenants of the space.
Under the Restore program 40 properties and businesses received awards, 13 of which were new businesses. The $1,050,000 awarded in ReStore grant funding is expected to generate $5.7 Million in improvements in the Downtown areas.”