The Peppermill Hotel Casino in Reno, Nevada: A Review

The Peppermill underwent a fairly expensive renovation not too long ago, mostly focused on their tower rooms. From what I understand, the Tuscany Tower consists of faux Italian villa style rooms with such luxuries as a jacuzzi, flat panel TVs in the marble tiled bathrooms, and iPod docking stations. Then there's the Peppermill Tower, which offers you some pretty mountain views minus only the jacuzzi and bathroom TVs. We had a room in the Montego Bay Wing, which I was afraid was going to be the Bum Quarter of the place, but actually turned out to be very nicely appointed, just minus the extreme luxuries of the other options. I had heard from others that somewhere in the hotel they had Barry White Rooms with like mirrors all over the place, tacky 1970s decor and satin everything. Fortunately they don't seem to stick you in those unless you ask for them, but you might want to check with the clerk to make sure they aren't giving you a Disco Porn Room first. Unless you're into that sort of thing which, hey, is all good by me.

Anyway, from the Montego Bay rooms you can expect a 42" wall-mounted flat screen, really nice beds and bedding, free WiFi and one of those evilly tempting mini bars. We were on a steep discount thanks to a player's card obtained years ago, but I understand the regular rates are something like $60 to $80 per night for these rooms, which seems highly reasonable given the quality.

There's a pretty good selection of amenities on site for that rate, too. There's a really nice pool with a huge artificial waterfall, which we didn't check out due to overcrowdedness the whole time we were there. Sure looked nice, though. They have a large gym, which would be nice by itself for a Reno casino, but it turns out it's also totally free to all guests! There's also an arcade for the kids and they shuttle you to and from the airport for free if you need the service. There's also a pretty good range of restaurants at an acceptable price for vacation spending. The Bimini Steakhouse has decent steaks and seafood at about $15 per head, the Romanza restaurant offers equally decent Italian food at about the same price, and there's a place called the Sports House that makes some fresh and massive deli sandwiches for a good price. The place has so many eateries we didn't even get close to exploring them all - there's some sort of Asian fusion place called Chi, a 24 hour coffee shop that also serves Chinese food, another generic sit-down place called Biscottis, a tropical island themed buffet and a seafood restaurant called Oceano that has a whole "under the sea" theme going. Cafe Espresso offered up some decent coffee and Saucy's Smokehouse certainly smelled good even if we didn't get around to eating there.

As far as gaming goes, they have the whole range of expected games available, but what I'd heard is that this was a regular stop for locals for video poker, which is my preference. You have to hunt around a bit and check the pay tables carefully but you can indeed find some good machines here, better than anything I happened to uncover anywhere else by at least a hair. They always seem to have a number of promotions running as well. If you like betting on sports, however, this is the absolute mecca in Reno. The Sports Book here is easily the best one I found in the city, just really comfortable and well appointed, a great place to just have a drink and relax watching a game even if you aren't putting any money down.

If you want a good balance between comfortable and pleasant accommodations and good gaming I think the Peppermill is currently doing it better than anyone else in Reno.

The Peppermill Hotel Casino
2707 S. Virginia Street
Reno, NV 89502
http://www.peppermillreno.com/