Walk past the corner of South Wells Avenue and Vesta Street after dark and the stained glass still glows the way it always did. The dark wood is still there. So is the fireplace that used to split the room in half. If you ate at Rapscallion any time between 1977 and 2020, the shell of the building hasn't changed enough to disorient you. What's coming out of the kitchen has.
The space belongs to Marcolino's Italia now, and it has since a grand opening on January 10, 2026. But the more interesting part of this story isn't that a new restaurant moved into an old one. It's what the building made that restaurant do to fit inside it.
Forty-Three Years Under One Roof, Then None
Rapscallion ran in that building from 1977 until it closed during the COVID shutdowns in 2020, which put a 43-year run on one of Reno's most recognized dining rooms. The space was designed by Pat Kuleto, the same architect and restaurateur whose fingerprints are on some of the country's more theatrical restaurant interiors, and Reno's version leaned into stained glass, dark wood, and the kind of booths where, according to local food writers who covered its history, generations of the city's regulars lingered over cocktails. When Rapscallion shut its doors, it left behind not just an empty restaurant but a room with a reputation the next tenant would have to answer to.
That room sat quiet for years before Marco and Lynette Brown, along with general manager Bill Green, were approached about taking it over.
From a 26-Foot Trailer to Someone Else's Landmark
Marcolino's Italia didn't start anywhere close to a Kuleto-designed dining room. The restaurant began as a 26-foot food trailer, and according to Green, it earned roughly $280,000 in revenue in its first five months on the road. From there the Browns and Green built a 38-seat restaurant at 254 W. First Street, on the Riverwalk in downtown Reno, and ran it for about three years before closing that location on New Year's Eve 2025 and opening in the former Rapscallion building ten days later.
Marco has said the move carried its own weight. "It's the most iconic building in our city's history," he said, describing what it meant to put his family's name on a space that regulars have talked about since 1977.
The Room Asked for More Than a Bigger Dining Area
Taking over more square footage meant the menu had to grow to match it, and Green has been specific about what changed:
- The menu went from two pages to four.
- Steak options expanded from one to a range of five to seven.
- The seafood section added halibut, sea bass, and branzino.
- The kitchen went from one setup to two full kitchens.
- Three private dining rooms were added for events and larger parties.
- A speakeasy-style lounge was built in just behind the bar, separated from the main dining room by the fireplace that Rapscallion regulars would still recognize.
None of that reads like a menu update. It reads like a restaurant that had to become a different kind of business the moment it signed the lease, because a 38-seat downtown spot and a building built for a "who's who" Reno crowd don't run on the same math. Green put it plainly: what used to be a two-page menu is now four, and a single steak became five to seven options because the room could support that kind of range and a smaller restaurant couldn't.
Two Blocks Away, Two Restaurants Went the Other Direction
The same week Marcolino's was opening into more space, two other Midtown restaurants were closing their way out of it. LuLou's Restaurant, the fine-dining spot at 1470 S. Virginia Street owned by Chef Troy Cannan and his wife Coleen, shut down so the couple could put their attention back into two neighboring, smaller concepts: Kauboi Izakaya and Willie's Pasta Shop, both of which had already been sharing staff with LuLou's. In the same stretch, Dopo Pizza and Pasta closed its second location inside Reno Public Market, saying on social media that its focus was returning to "the full Dopo experience," the shared tables and longer meals that defined its original spot rather than a food-hall stall.
Three Midtown restaurants made three different bets in the same month. One walked into more kitchen space, more dining rooms, and a menu built to fill them. Two others decided a second address wasn't worth keeping and pulled back to the room where the concept worked the first time. None of that is a verdict on which approach is right. It's a snapshot of a neighborhood where restaurant footprints were actively being renegotiated, block by block, at the same time.
What the Building Is Doing Now
Eight months into the new location, Marcolino's has settled into a routine: open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday, with reservations recommended for the dining room and speakeasy lounge alike. The restaurant has also been in the running for Reno News & Review's annual "Best of Northern Nevada" reader poll, with nominations in the Best Italian and Best Reno Restaurant categories and voting that closed on September 14, 2026.
The stained glass Kuleto installed decades ago still throws the same colored light across the room every evening. It just falls on chicken piccata and a 20-ounce lobster tail now, instead of whatever Rapscallion regulars ordered at that same bar for more than four decades.
If you're the kind of Reno local who notices when a landmark building changes hands, Kristin Zuckerman Real Estate keeps the same close eye on this city's landmarks as it does its listings. Request a Private Consultation whenever you're curious what else around town is changing hands.
