Franktown Cafe

Last Tuesday we made the journey over to Verdi to check out the new Cabela’s store. If you are not familiar, Cabela’s is a midwest mailorder sporting goods company (www.cabelas.com) that as been opening sporting goods “super” stores. I’m a real fan of their merchandise and have placed several orders, mostly for clothing. It seems that in stores, if you have a 38″ waist, you are supposed to be short. It is rare to find a 38 waist pant with a 34″ inseam. Cabela’s will tailor the inseam for free. For that and other reasons, I am a fan.

Back to our trip. The Cabela’s stores, as I have seen them in the catalogs, are over the top with aquariums, shooting ranges, stuffed animals and all manner of cool outdoor gear. So I was excited to go. Especially since it is hard to find something new in a store these days. For the most part, now that all the local stores are dead, a “new” store in town is just a copy of one already here. So we went.

You get off I-80 at Boomtown and maneuver through a new road system complete with a roundabout. Even for Tuesday morning the store was busy. It really is cool if you are at all interested in the outdoors. There’s a holiday gift for everyone there.

Now to the nitpicking. The catalog and website are heavily weighted towards hunting and that is true with the store. Not being a hunter, I don’t really consider the Reno area a big hunting area, but maybe that’s just me. So there is a big area in the middle you can ignore if you are like me. You will recognize it as everything imaginable is camo.

I wandered over to the boating area and drooled over all the electronics and gadgets. A display of nautical maps had about 6 hooks of maps of Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. Did someone at corporate think Reno is in Idaho? No maps of Tahoe, Pyramid or even Lake Mead or the Delta.

The gun section is a gunners dream. All kinds of stuff. Even short barrel 50 caliber carbines. I don’t know what for, ask a hunter, I guess. I did fondle the “home protection” short barreled shotgun, though. Off to the side, next to the snack bar and computer hunting games (just buy tokens) are the BB machine guns. Wow. We kids used to dream of BB machine guns back in the 60’s and here they are. Both electric and gas powered.

The wife was getting impatient so I grabbed a crock of hot cheese with caribou sausage and a small package of gourmet beef jerky (the buffalo jerky was $30 for a pound) and headed for the exit. We got in line and waited, and waited, and waited. I understand that the clerks are new and still trying to learn all the coupons, special offers, buyers club ins-and-outs but it was just silly after a while. Finally I put the stuff down and walked out. Just wasn’t worth it. During the holiday-grand opening period, they should have every register manned. Maybe its just me and a thing about lines.

So check it out for yourself sometime. The aquarium with the giant trout, bass and catfish is definitely cool, the clothes are nice, and there’s even an old fashioned, coin-op shooting gallery for the kids. Look at cabelas.com to see what kind of stuff they have.