A Monday Morning Ghost Town in Downtown Reno

A recap of our recent reporting plus bonus content.

Mar 10, 2025

We are waiting for a City of Reno response as to how much money the soon to be relocated Uncle Junkee downtown location received as part of the Restore - Reno Facade and Improvement Program, which has had other places receiving funding either already closing or long delayed in their opening.

It’s being reported Unclee Junkee will close at the end of the month, and will rejoin the other Junkee which already moved from its former Midtown location into the mostly unaffordable Reno Public Market.

Previous media stories about the Uncle Junkee downton location at 101 N. Virginia St. have not dated well.

Owner Jessica Schneider has changed her tune, from wanting to help downtown to now wanting to fill up the Reno Public Market.

A tv report about the downtown improvement program handing out matching grants for up to $100,000 for select locations one year ago indicated “Junkee, a clothing and antique shop received one of those grants. It took a chance and moved into a dying downtown, in the old Woolworth's building at First and Virginia streets. The owner is hoping to inspire others to move in too.”

A local radio report in 2023 indicated “with Uncle Junkee, Schneider hopes to build a similar district to what she did in Midtown, wanting Downtown to become something Reno can be proud of. “I’ll be a sitting duck for a while but then I want to start recruiting. I want to start doing events downtown. We really need to be proud of downtown,” she said.”

One of the signs on the departing Uncle Junkee indicates “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time.”

This morning, as we showed in photos on our social media, Virginia street was closed off with glass from broken windows above on the City Hall building, while city park rangers totally emptied out the nearby Believe plaza, making people who had been sitting there with their belongings leave.