Casale’s Halfway Club

East Reno · Italian · $$ 1925 E. 4th St, Reno, NV 89512 · (775) 323-3180 · www.casaleshalfwayclub.com

There are restaurants that feel like history and restaurants that live inside it. Casale's Halfway Club is the latter. Walk into this unassuming building on East 4th Street — once old Highway 40, literally halfway between Reno and Sparks — and you're stepping into Nevada's oldest continuously family-owned restaurant. Ten tables. Red checkered tablecloths. Walls lined with family photographs and vintage advertisements. An arched doorway bearing the motto: "If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy."

Chianti. Pasta. Stories. This is the kind of place Billy Joel sings about.

Generations of the Casale family have rolled ravioli using the same wooden presses Elvira Casale brought from Genoa in the 1920s. What started as a Depression-era fruit stand became a ravioli takeout counter, then by 1947, a full restaurant. Every morning someone stands at those presses making ravioli by hand — the same motion, the same filling, the same care. The fourth generation keeps the tradition alive. Same recipes. Same red sauce. Same handmade pasta. This is what unchanging looks like, and locals wouldn't have it any other way.

Don't miss: The Sunday Morning Special, on the menu since 1937: one glass of tomato juice, two aspirin, and their deepest sympathy. Thirty cents. Some things should never change.