For the better part of a year, walking through Somersett Town Square after dark meant passing three dark storefronts in a row. Peavine Taphouse. Gambi's. The Bones Bar. All under one roof, all gone by November 2024, all for the same reason: the building's owner raised rent on every tenant at once. Residents who'd spent Friday nights at Peavine's live music or celebrated anniversaries in Gambi's pirate-themed dining room watched the lights go out within weeks of each other.
Sakana Sushi, two doors down, never closed. Different building, different landlord, no rent letter. That detail matters more than it sounds like it should, because it explains why three restaurants died together while a fourth kept serving all-you-can-eat rolls the whole time. The square's fragility wasn't about foot traffic or food quality. It was about how many small, independently owned tenants were exposed to one landlord's decision at the same moment.
That's the part of the story most people missed while they were mourning Gambi's calamari. The part that matters now, with five straight weeks of Somersett's fall calendar still ahead between today and the Fall Festival, is who came back and how.
One Family, Two Restaurants
Pine Ridge Tavern opened in the old Peavine Taphouse space on July 8, 2025. The owners are Steve and Stephanie Uricchio, a couple who live in Somersett themselves, about two miles from the restaurant's door. Steve has opened more than 25 restaurants over three decades, mostly for casino operators across the west, and this is his first time betting on his own neighborhood. He calls the menu "upscale pub cuisine," and it leans into pizza, burgers, and elevated bar food rather than trying to replicate what Peavine used to do.
Next door, in the combined footprint of the old Gambi's and Bones Bar space, the same couple opened Stellar's Lounge & Grill. It's a more formal room, built around continental and fusion dishes, an expanded wine list, and handcrafted cocktails, positioned as the date-night option to Pine Ridge's casual one. Both restaurants operate under a single ownership entity, BDS Town Square Reno LLC, which Steve co-owns with two Las Vegas-based partners.
That's the shift worth naming. Town Square used to have three separately owned tenants sharing one landlord and one exposure to that landlord's rent decisions. Now it has one operator running two connected restaurants, with Sakana Sushi still holding its own building next door as the one constant through all of it. Fewer owners, tighter coordination, and the person deciding what's on the menu also decides where you're supposed to go for a quick beer versus a real dinner out.
Casual or Formal, Same Kitchen Team
If you're planning an evening at Town Square this fall, the practical upshot is that you no longer have to choose between three unrelated concepts with three unrelated staffs. Pine Ridge Tavern handles the "meet friends for a drink and a pizza" occasion. Stellar's handles the "we want an actual dinner reservation" occasion. Same ownership group, same commitment to the square, two different rooms depending on what kind of night you're having.
That's a smaller footprint than the old lineup, and it's worth being honest about that. Three independently minded restaurants gave the square more variety in flavor and personality than two sister concepts from the same kitchen will. What you get instead is stability that doesn't depend on three separate landlords' decisions lining up in your favor. Whether that trade is a net gain probably depends on how much you miss the pirate décor.
Five Weeks That Test Whether the Square Holds
The real test of whether Town Square functions as a gathering place again isn't the restaurants alone. It's whether people actually use them alongside everything still ahead on the Somersett Owners Association fall calendar.
- September 16, Music on the Green, 5 to 8 p.m. The season finale, with Gruve Nation Nevada playing Motown, blues, and funk, plus guest food trucks on the green.
- September 22, star viewing night, starting at 7 p.m. Members of the Astronomical Society of Nevada set up telescopes at the Club at Town Center for a resident viewing party, best suited to fourth grade and up given the equipment.
- September 30, a 1920s-themed murder mystery party, 6 to 9 p.m. Produced by the Murder Mystery Company for a "wedding of the year" scenario, tickets $55, costume encouraged.
- October 7, community garage sale, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., paired with the Fall Golf Tournament at 11 a.m. on the Canyon Nine Par-3 course, the public-facing course that hosts these casual community events rather than the private Tom Kite-designed championship layout.
- October 21, Fall Festival, noon to 6 p.m. Trunk or treat, carnival games, a costume contest for kids and pets, and a live band.
Line that calendar up against the new Town Square, and the sequencing makes sense in a way it wouldn't have a year ago. Dinner at Pine Ridge before walking over for the Music on the Green finale on September 16. A drink at Stellar's after the star viewing party wraps up on September 22, since telescopes don't exactly keep you full. The restaurants aren't incidental to the calendar anymore. They're the before-and-after venue for an event schedule that used to send people driving off Somersett Parkway for dinner.
What Didn't Come Back
None of this means Town Square is fully restored to what it was. It means something narrower and more useful to know if you live here: the square went from three independent bets to two connected ones, run by people who eat in their own restaurants because they live a couple of miles away. That's a more concentrated risk than the old arrangement, and it's also a more coordinated one. If Pine Ridge and Stellar's are still full on a Tuesday night a year from now, that's a better signal about the square's health than three separate restaurants each hoping the others don't fail first.
For residents who used the trails more than the restaurants anyway, none of this changes much. The Somersett Trail System still runs 27 miles of paved and natural paths through the foothills between Peavine Mountain and the Sierra front, free and open regardless of what's happening at Town Square. But if your version of a Somersett evening has always included a stop at the square, this fall is the first real chance to see whether two restaurants under one roof can do what three independent ones used to.
Somersett keeps rebuilding its own gathering spots faster than most neighborhoods its size, which says something about who lives here and how they use the place. If you want that kind of on-the-ground read on Somersett, or any other pocket of Northwest Reno, Patricia DuHamel knows the neighborhood the way a resident does, not just the way a listing sheet does. Let's Connect.