Empire Store

Your last chance for snacks, supplies and beverages before event of your choosing on Black Rock lake bed!

After driving for a few hours, it was time to get out of the car and stretch those legs. Great way to avoid clots.
The main thoroughfare was jammed pack with cars, RVs, and of course, State Troopers (gulp)…
Excellent convenience store with all your last-​minute needs. Get your soda, get your smokes, get your snacks, get your beer, etc.
Last stop before civilization disappears for awhile.

On your way to Burning Man and need that last little thing you forgot to buy in Reno or Winnemucca? Then please check out the Empire Store. The store changed hands not long ago and the new owner has put a lot of time, money, and sweat equity into it against some very long odds of it ever reopening. It not only reopened but it’s better than it was.
Getting gas here during the mass inrush to Burning Man can be chaotic. But during the rest of the year when you’ve braved Jungo Road and want to fill up it’s a good place to do so. Inside depending on the time of year I’ve seen everything from great service to an FU attitude when rude burners give the staff flak. Give the staff a smile, be nice, and you’ll get treated right.
US Gypsum has basically closed down the town of Empire so this store needs all the support it can get. Fortunately for them they have a good selection of basics and gas to justify taking time to stop.
One caution: Traffic on 447 likes to move really fast through here when Burning Man is not happening. When you get ready to turn off or get back on 447 be alert. And during Burning Man, just be prepared to slow way down when approaching the store. Expect the unexpected with traffic and you’ll be prepared when, not if someone pulls out in front of you. It’s happened every year I’ve went, 9x and counting.

Great last preplaya sandwich. I stop here every year even if I don’t need anything. GREAT STORE!

The Empire Store is such a key part of the adventure to Burning Man. Very Burner friendly.
We love you Empire Store!

The store’s cool, but the guys in the gas station are a bit shady, and will try to grab girls’ tits (personal experience.) Boundary problems.
(Also, see also another Unilocaler’s story — below — about how the gas station guys cut off his gas cap and then sold it back to him — NOT cool!!)
Great place to load up on water though. Just use the hose & leave a donation.

Yep. I’ve never been able to resist stopping in at this place on the way in to or out of BRC. On the way in, I usually grab a as much ice as I can and enjoy meeting and greeting other burners.
Visiting the Empire Store on the way back is a lot more surreal. The place serves as kind of a decompression chamber between BRC and the default world. All of us are generally suffering from severe playa-​foot and playa-​brain but we need to stop here and wander around in the aisles in awe of all the fancy things like refrigeration and cash registers — not to mention the clean, freshly showered cashiers — for a good twenty minutes.
Everyone is always really welcoming and friendly — no matter how freaky the clientele. Of course, you can’t blame ‘em since Burners are the backbone of the town!
By the way, don’t forget to stop by for some Indian tacos just down the road!

We pull into Empire Gas at 9pm on the Sunday night just before Burning Man is about to begin. Before I even open my door, the attendant has the gas hose in my vehicle and he’s already pumping the gas. He says to me, «You lost your gas cap.» What? «You pulled in without a gas cap, you must have lost it». I think back to the last gas stop. I had pumped the gas myself and I specifically remembered having put it back on. I’m a bit suspicious but I have to use the bathroom and I leave to do so.
While I’m gone, my partner asks him if he has any spare gas caps. He says, «Sure, people leave them here all the time. I’ll sell you one for 10 bucks.» He leaves and returns with 8 or nine gas caps and asks my partner which one he wants. He says he’ll take whatever fits. So they start trying on gas caps and finally one of them fits. My partner pays him $ 10 and gives him a tip.
I come back, find out we have a new gas cap and before I can investigate anything, the attendant is yelling at us that we are blocking other customers and telling us to hurry and move.
As we’re driving down the road, I start thinking this through. I remember that we had a little leash on our gas cap and realize that there is just no way we could have lost it. I become certain that the guy pulled it off. So we pull our caravan of folks over to the side of the road, get a flashlight and take a look at the gas cap. Sure enough, as I had come to believe would be the case, our ORIGINAL gas cap was on the vehicle. The guy had sold us our own gas cap!
On one hand I find this extremely humorous. But on the other hand, I am enraged that he is probably doing this to many people on their way into Burning Man and making big bucks over the week by making us look like fools.

The Empire store truly is the end of the line for a long way when you are going north on 447. Last cold drinks, last place to buy groceries of any kind, last deli (4.50 for a decent sandwich, chips, and a soda), last place to buy t shirts, batteries, sunscreen, water. You can buy gas here too. This is not the last place to buy gas for a long way, but it’s my preferred place to buy it.
It’s the town store in a town owned by US Gypsum.
Maybe the big paper mache Shrek, Donkey, and Cat in the Hat are made of gypsum… Who knows? They are pretty raggedy. I don’t think that the Shrek even stands up anymore. That’s what you get for trying to make a cartoon character come to life. Who would believe that something with a head that big would be able to walk anywhere but cartoon land?
At any rate, this is the last store you’re going to see driving North for a long way. It’s the last store you’re going to see anywhere near the Blackrock Playa. Everyone I’ve ever encountered there has been friendly and helpful.
They even have a little corner dedicated to taxidermy.

Last place to buy ice and water and booze and snax before you take the plunge and get off the highway and into the more surreal part of your existence. Go visit the emus that live behind the gas station! Some day I will tell you the whole story about Manny, Moe and Jack.