Santa Fe restaurant reopens

Monday, March 6, 2000 | 10:02 a.m.

The Santa Fe restaurant next to Harrah's Reno is again offering Basque meals to patrons after reopening last week.

The Santa Fe, which opened in 1929, was closed for the last two years because of a family dispute, said Philippe Zubillaga, son of one of the owners.

"This is not just a restaurant. It's an icon," he said. "It's like a little community ... The opening is part of healing."

The Santa Fe is one of Nevada's few remaining Basque boardinghouses. It features a restaurant and bar on the first floor and 23 rooms on the second floor. Two former sheepherders still live in the hotel.

The heyday of Basque hotels was in the early 1900s through the 1920s when waves of Basque immigrants arrived in the West to work as miners and sheepherders.

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