Allan Noddle’s Adventures in the Food Industry Show Him the World

Food as a commodity is something most of us only think about as customers, when we go to our local supermarket or farmers market or restaurant or deli and pay dearly for the nourishment we cannot live without.  If you’re like me, you don’t give a lot of thought to the food chain infrastructure that provides the meat, dairy, produce, canned, and packaged goods to the places we access it unless of course there’s a price spike or a shortage or else some FDA recall because of a food contamination scare.  Allan Noddle of Omaha is a food maven right in the mix of the food chain.  Today, he’s a highly paid adviser, but for decades he ran companies in the U.S. and abroad that sold food to consumers by the millions and billions of dollars worth annually.  He has a local, regional, national, and global perspective on the processes and systems that get the food we all need from producers and distributors to consumers’ dining room tables.  He comes from a family of entrepreneurs that had their humble start in Omaha, Neb. and that experience is never far from him as a reminder of how far he and his brothers came.

 

 

 

 

Allan Noddle’s Adventures in the Food Industry Show Him the World

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in the Jewish Press

 

Three Omaha brothers. Three company presidents. What are the odds a trio of sons from a Jewish family of humble beginnings would realize the American Dream, and then some? But brothers Harlan, Allan and Jeff Noddle did just that, as one by one they rose to the pinnacle of their respective profession while giving back to their community. It’s an American success story times three, only the real foundation for this accomplishment is rooted in the example set by the brothers’ late parents, Robert and Edith Noddle, who stressed education and charity.

Eldest brother Harlan Noddle, who died last December, worked as an executive in the retail food industry until he founded his own real estate development company. Noddle Development is one of the Midwest’s largest developers of shopping centers and office buildings. His son Jay Noddle now runs things.

Baby brother Jeff Noddle is president and CEO of Minneapolis-based Supervalu, the nation’s third largest grocery retailer and the leading food distributor in the U.S.

Middle brother Allan Noddle, whose story is told here, has enjoyed the most far flung of careers. In the 1960s the University of Nebraska-Lincoln cum laude graduate went from being a U.S. Army officer to an IBM computer salesman to a Hinky Dinky supermarkets trainee. It was at Hinky Dinky, the now defunct Omaha-based chain, he discovered his niche. Within a decade he climbed the corporate ladder to become executive vice president and COO. Courted by other grocery retailers, Noddle left Hinky Dinky in 1980 for an upper management position with Giant Food of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Mega Danish food company Royal Ahold acquired Giant in 1981. Often referred to as the world’s most successful food provider, Ahold tapped Noddle to be president and CEO of its USA Support Services division in 1988. After building its U.S. market, an opportunity arose he never anticipated when, in 1998, Ahold named him executive VP and elected him to the corporate executive board. He became the first American board member in the company’s 114-year history. The promotion meant moving to Holland, whose culture Noddle embraced.

Based in Amsterdam, Noddle traveled the world to oversee Ahold’s operations in Latin-America and Asia. He retired and returned to Omaha in 2002 but he’s as busy as ever today between the teaching he does for Ahold and others around the globe, the many speaking engagements he makes at food industry forums and his duties as adviser and board member for various corporations.

He offices in the Noddle Companies suite at the One Pacific Place II building where his nephew Jay runs Noddle Development, but he’s as likely to be in some exotic locale as he is home. In May, he stayed put long enough to chart his journey from schlepper to titan.

Perhaps no one appreciated more what the Noddle boys achieved than their late mother. In 1991 the brothers, each having already reached the top, offered Edith anything she wanted for her 80th birthday. To their surprise, she told them she wished to visit the White House, the symbol for all the opportunities America afforded her and her Russian immigrant parents and her own family.

So, as Noddle tells it, he and his brothers set about to bring the family matriarch to the very seat of power. “It took a lot of doing, but we got a private meeting with then Vice President Dan Quayle,” he said. The boys were extra protective of mama as they escorted her through the White House. After all, Noddle said, “She’s this little old Jewish lady —  5’3, 90 pounds, dripping wet. She came from a poor, uneducated background. She was a checker at the old Central market downtown. We thought our mother would be intimidated.” They needn’t have worried, as she soon showed the moxie her boys got from her.

“When we were finally called into the west wing and then eventually into the Vice President’s office we were coming in just as he got up from his desk to come around and greet us,” Noddle said. “We were kind of shielding my mother to make sure she wasn’t intimidated and she pushes us aside, goes right up, puts her hand out and says, ‘Mr. Vice President, I want you should know I have three presidents  – none of them are vice presidents.’ And he just laughed and we hit it off.

“He brought in the White House photographer and he took pictures of the whole family. This is one of them,” he said, indicating a framed photo on his office wall. “He gave my mother a special broach with a seal of the Vice President of the United States. He gave us tie tacks with the seal.”

 

 

 

 

That’s not the end of the story, according to Jeff Noddle, who spoke to the Press by phone from his Minneapolis office. “As we were leaving the White House and walking down from the north portico,” he said, “she turned to my oldest brother Harlan and said, ‘So what’s the matter, the President was too busy?’ Because the senior Bush was there that day and she just wanted to know why she didn’t get to see him. Yeah, she was quite a lady.”

Allan Noddle recalls the many lessons his parents provided. As a boy, his mother made the family home a haven for chabads, roaming members of the orthodox sect, who knew they would be welcomed there. “My mom would say, ‘We have to feed these people. We have to help them, and that’s what I’m here for.’ And so she always gave them a hot meal. It had to be kosher, of course.”

He “looked on in amazement” at these devout men dressed all in black and puzzled over how different ones always knew to come to their house for the good eats. It was only years later he came to understand that a red X stenciled on the curb in front of the house served as a marker for chabads coming through Omaha.

The brothers were expected to do for others as well. Their mother saw to that. She made sure the family home at 58th and Webster was never without a keren ami or charity box for donations to support the state of Israel. “We were expected at the end of the week if we had anything left over from our five or ten cents allowance to put something in the pooshkeh (piggy bank),” Allan said. “My mother would take it to the shul and, guess what, an empty one appeared the next day. So this was ingrained into us…the importance of charity and giving to others.”

Even as they carved separate paths for themselves, the Brothers Noddle shared some common education and work experiences in their rise to the top. All three graduated from Central High School. Their Lithuanian immigrant father, Robert Noddle, was an entrepreneur before the word had much currency. The family patriarch worked in the scrap metal business before opening his own small grocery store. Later, he had his own liquor store — Pete’s. Eventually he and a brother bought and managed rental properties. Robert’s two oldest sons helped out in the liquor store as young boys. Allan recalls using “a feather duster” to wipe all the bottles clean and pushing a broom to sweep the floor.

When Allan was older he went with his dad to collect rent from occupants of the apartments his father owned. The way his father dealt with people made an impression on him. “He treated everybody with respect,” he said. “He helped them if they needed money. If you couldn’t pay the rent he’d say, ‘Oh, I’ll get it next time.’ I learned some things that helped me later in my life and career.”

Allan feels it’s no coincidence the Noddle boys followed in their father’s footsteps. “I guess it’s the DNA we got from our dad,” he said. “Harlan went into the real estate business. My little brother and I went into the supermarket business.”

Life lessons outside the family circle also prepared Allan for the world and the anti-Semitism that’s a part of it. In grade school he would hear an occasional slur like “those dirty Jews,” but he really didn’t grasp the insidious nature of it all until later. For a high school project he set out to prove the Gentleman’s Agreement principle that denied Jews and other religious or ethnic minorities equal access.

“I wrote letters to ten very reclusive resorts in the United States requesting reservations for the same weekend, for the same dates, for two people I made up — one with a Jewish name and one with a Gentile name,” he said. “I got turned down by eight of the ten with the Jewish name and I got accepted by ten of ten with the Gentile name, despite the fact I sent these requests after I’d already gotten responses saying, ‘Sorry, no rooms.’ So, yeah, I got a glimpse of that experience.”

A more personal experience with discrimination came after he got of college. Despite graduating at the top of his class and with all kinds of extracurricular activities to his credit, when he applied for an entry level opening at Northern Natural Gas Company, they showed no interest in him. He couldn’t understand why. Then he spoke to a local Jewish community elder, Norman Hahn, chair of the Omaha Human Relations Commission, who looked at the application Noddle completed. That’s when Hahn saw the name of the Jewish fraternity Noddle belonged to, just the kind of red flag employers used to identify and exclude Jews.

 

 

 

 

Undaunted, Noddle applied with other employers and impressed IBM enough to land a job with what was then the gold standard among American businesses.

“My father was so proud that his son got hired by a company like IBM,” he said. “They were It. They were doing cutting-edge stuff that nobody else was doing. And they only hired, supposedly, the best and brightest.”

But the start of his IBM career would delayed until he completed a two-year military hitch. IBM was willing to hold the job for him. At UNL he’d completed reserve army officers training that made him “an obligated volunteer.” He earned a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army ordinance corps. Then he graduated with honors from “a tough boot camp for officers” that got him assigned to the 24th Infantry Division with NATO forces deployed in West Germany.

As this was a short time after the Cuban missile crisis, Cold War tensions ran high. The outfit he served with represented “the first line of defense” against a Soviet ground assault. The responsibility was enormous but he responded to it well. The Army gave him the leadership skills he would later use in business.

“It was a wonderful experience commanding troops,” he said. “I taught a lot in the army. I worked with people from all over the world.”

His superiors tried to get him to make the army his career. “I was told I was a five percenter. Of all the Army officers in the U.S. Army across the world I was in the top five percent,” he said. “But I had to come back and do something.” Besides, he said, “I had a job waiting for me.”

His preparation for leading others — in the army and in business — came at UNL, where he took “probably the single most important course in my life– business speech.” he said. “It taught you to go in front of people, collect and organize your thoughts, communicate a position, be understood and sum up what you said in a few minutes. It was a fabulous course. It changed my life.”

IBM kept its promise upon his return home, but after a short time on the job he realized knowing the ins and outs of computers “just wasn’t my cup of tea. It wasn’t people. It was board and wiring.” That’s when he “answered a blind ad in the newspaper” that turned out to be the start of his 40-year career in the retail food field. The ad was placed by Hinky Dinky, whom he broke in with as a trainee.

“They were looking to expand the company and they wanted to hire more college graduates. A great part of the industry, which had been built on the strong backs of guys who stocked shelves, was changing. Mom and pop grocers were being displaced by modern supermarkets with delis and bakeries and all that kind of thing and stores were becoming a helluva lot more complex to run,” he said.

He was learning the ropes out on the floor when suddenly promoted to be a buyer, which proved a gateway for his swift ascent to the top. “I came up through the merchandising-marketing side of the business as opposed to the store operations side of the business,” he said. Hinky Dinky, a staple of the area grocery scene under founder J.M. Newman and sons Nick, Murray and Bob, fit Noddle to a tee. “Yeah, I loved it,” he said, “and after 11 years I was the youngest vice president ever made in the company and four years later I was elected the executive vice president and chief operating officer.”

At its peak Hinky Dinky was “doing $300 million a year” in sales, he said. A new Hinky Dinky division Noddle helped launch operated grocery departments within major retail stores. JC Penny was the primary client and its management was so taken with the concept that Penny’s bought out the whole division. The resulting company, Supermarkets Interstate, which grew bigger than Hinky Dinky, went bust.

The stability of family-owned Hinky Dinky changed during that time when, in 1972, it was acquired by the Dallas-based Cullum Cos.

“That was not a good development because they were taking money that we made and sending it as fast as they could to Texas,” Noddle said, “where they had a real competitive battle on their hands. So, the money we needed to continue to grow our company and build new stores was going to help the Dallas company.”

Those actions, he said, spelled “the beginning of the end” for Hinky Dinky. “The suburbs were being formed and if you weren’t going to be a part of that growth you were going to die. I saw it right away.”

Disillusioned, he and president Chuck Monessy resigned the same weekend in 1980. It wasn’t long before Noddle said Cullum “killed” what had been “a fabulous business model” and an Omaha tradition.

Giant Food had wooed Noddle for years and now that he was out of a job he went to work for them. When Royal Ahold took over Giant he feared it was a repeat of what Cullum did to Hinky Dinky. “It turned out I was absolutely, one hundred percent, unequivocally wrong,” he said. “They admitted up front they didn’t understand the American market and they gave us what we needed to grow faster than we ever could have grown on our own.”

Grow Giant did, going from a 26-store, $260 million operation to a nearly 75-store, $1.7 billion operation. An assured public speaker, Noddle became Giant’s television spokesman in a series of commercials that made the corporate big-wig a familiar name and face back East.

From 1986 to 1988 Ahold assigned him to turn around the struggling operation of another of its U.S. holdings, Bi-Lo, a Greenville, S.C. discount store chain. He did.

His career took an international turn when he entered the executive ranks at Ahold. Then came the “stunning” news of his election to its senior board.

“That was something no American thought would ever happen,” he said. “When they asked me, I was bowled over.” There was one catch: the move to Amsterdam. “‘Well, that I’ve got to think about,’” he told them. “I slept on it for one night and I told myself, This is an opportunity you absolutely have to take. I talked to my brothers and they said, ‘Go for it. Go do it.’” He did and never looked back.

One factor that’s made his career moves less complicated is his single status. “I never have been married. I got married to the business,” he said. “The company was my family. I had a very wonderful family-family, but then I had another family where I worked 60-70 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, and that was the company. We shared our successes and we cried over our failures, but we were together.”

He called his time with Ahold “a wonderful experience. My satisfaction was being a mentor and watching the people that make the company go develop over time. It wasn’t much about fancy homes, big boats or any of that stuff. I didn’t care.” Working in Amsterdam he learned first-hand what makee the Dutch such master merchants. “They’re traders. That’s what they do. They have kind of a concensus management style that’s different than the Western style. They’re great people. I have friendships today that will last forever.”

Whether dealing with his Dutch colleagues or with his peers in any of the other 28 countries he’s traveled to, Noddle gained an appreciation for diversity.

Too often, he said, “Americans go to foreign countries but they want everything to be done in the American way as opposed to learning about the richness of other cultures and experiences. Our way is sometimes not necessarily the best way. There are different ways of doing things.” Doing business in a foreign marketplace, he said, “you need to be sensitive” to local cultures, “but you’ve got to be successful. So how do you create the best ways? Sometimes you take risks. And if they don’t work, what’s wrong with that? That’s not a mistake — it’s an experience. A mistake is when you know something doesn’t work and you continue to push, push, push thinking it will work anyway.”

He taught in Ahold’s advanced management school for up and coming talent. An instructor from Cornell University, the designer of the curriculum, caught one of his talks and was so taken he invited Noddle to be a guest lecturer at the prestigious institution, a role he still fills at Cornell today. “I give a talk once a year at a special course for graduate level students in the food management school,” he said. “It’s usually about globalization or marketing or the future of the industry.”

Today, the “retired” Noddle applies his vast expertise as an adviser to Ahold and other companies. Just don’t call him a consultant. “I’m not a consultant — I’m a teacher,” he said. “A consultant gets paid a lot of money to develop new projects and to show companies how to get from point A to point B. I do the bulk of my work without pay, helping to teach and train how to build a successful business model — the philosophies, strategies and tactics. I love it. I teach in the Netherlands, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Portugal.” Much of his time is spent with food industry managers in the field, evaluating store practices, making comparisons to competitors, trying to find the best practices and innovations and the best ways to implement them.

“It’s not theoretical. It’s on the book. I’m just thrilled with the opportunity to help people learn,” he said.

Having not one but two “high achievers” as older siblings “was a definite plus” for Jeff Noddle, who said his brothers “always put the bar very high for me. They were great role models.” He said Allan continues to be an inspiration. “Among many positive attributes, he has the highest integrity. His word is his bond.”

Related articles

• Hunger Games: Top supermarket chains (vivainternationalpartners.org)
• Kroger, Stop & Shop join ‘pink slime’ exodus (seattlepi.com)
• Ramen Shop (sghappygirl.wordpress.com)
• Omaha’s Pitch Man: Entrepreneur Extraordinaire Willy Theisen is Back with His Next Big Business Venture (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)

Omaha’s Pitch Man: Entrepreneur Extraordinaire Willy Theisen is Back with His Next Big Business Venture

Willy Theisen’s self-made success story is an American classic.  I have known of him since the breakout success of his Godfather’s Pizza chain in the 1970s but it wasn’t until I was assigned the following profile that I finally met him.  I interviewed him for the piece in early March and the story will appear in an upcoming issue of Omaha Magazine.  It all started for him in his adopted hometown of Omaha, which happens to be my hometown as well.  Omaha has been the launching pad and testing ground for some of his original ideas, most notably Godfather’s but he’s also gone far afield to follow his passion for the restaurant business.  He is an entrepreneur through and through. When he fixes on an opportunity, whether a concept he’s created himself or an existing one he sees he can take to the next level, he appies his high energy,  long vision, laser focus, risk tolerance, and indefatigable hunger to realize his ideas into reality.

 

 

 

 

Omaha’s Pitch Man: Entrepreneur Extraordinaire Willy Theisen is Back with His Next Big Business Venture

©by Leo Adam Biga

Appearing in the May/June 2012 issue of Omaha Magazine

 

Willy Theisen has done it all in the restaurant business. He founded a national name brand in Godfather’s Pizza that became the fastest growing pizza chain in America. He’s been a successful innovator, franchisor and franchisee. He’s opened thousands of restaurants across the country. He’s a millionaire many times over.

He’s far from done, too, as he’s about to replicate his latest concept, the popular Pitch Coal-Fire Pizzeria in Dundee. Always hungry for “the next thing,” you can bet Pitch won’t be his last hurrah either.

Part of his wheeler-dealer’s genius is selling others on his ideas.

“You’re only as good as the product you’re selling, and that could be yourself, too. You’ve got to be confident in yourself and then you have to share that confidence and knowledge base with others,” he says. “I take it as a compliment when someone says, ‘You’re a great salesman, you’re a good pitchman.’”

His entrepreneurial bent showed early growing up in Clinton, Iowa. He liked earning his own money delivering papers, stenciling addresses on curbs and flipping burgers. While attending Northern Iowa University in Cedar Falls he became a top door-to-door salesman of cookware. Before starting Godfathers he leased commercial real estate.

Appearing fit, energetic and jaunty in an all-black ensemble and looking several years younger than his age (66), he’s still the driven dynamo who hit the ground running in his late 20s to make himself an overnight Player in the fast-food industry.

Just as he still retains his knack for recognizing opportunities, he still possesses the initiative for seizing the day and staying out front of the competition.

“My idea of an entrepreneur is having the ability to see things possibly other people don’t see. Having an eye for opportunity I think is key to my success. I don’t know that you train for it or study for it. Either you have it or you don’t have it. You can see a location, you can see the potential for a business in there, you can see potential in people and bring the best out in them or make them better than they are.

“That’s what makes someone successful – the ability to perceive and receive what people want.”

Identifying a good idea is one thing. Making it profitable is another.

“Recognizing and then doing something with it,” he says, “is a trait you gotta have.”

Being a successful entrepreneur, he says, means taking calculated risks. “It’s making a commitment and pulling the trigger on an idea or a concept or any opportunity that is there. I can identify it as one word, and that’s timing.” It’s knowing when to get in and when to get out.

“With businesses exit strategies are always important,” says Theisen, who sold Godfather’s in 1983 for hundreds of millions of dollars and saw it enjoy continued success. “Anybody can find the front door but once you go in, what’s your exit strategy? What is the life span of a concept, of an investment? Things come in and go out. How long is this going to be good?

“And when you go onto another business, you have to leave some meat on the bone for the next operator. There has to be some future for it.”

If not Godfather’s, would he have still made a killing in some other business?

“It just happened that way,” he says. “I don’t know if it would have happened if I was in the car business or if I sold life insurance. I was confident but I wasn’t to the point of being blind to the fact things don’t always work.”

This self-described “food maven” would likely have found a niche in some food business segment. He gets too much satisfaction watching people enjoy themselves dining and drinking not to. Then there’s the gratification of conceiving winning venues.

“The toughest job of what I do is to try to figure out what everybody’s going to like. Ultimately I’ve got to figure out what tastes good to people, where they like to go, where they like to park, how long they want to stay, what they want to happen while they’re there. It takes time to do it. You just don’t wake up one morning and go, ‘I’ve got it all figured out.’ There’s a process and there’s a lot that goes into that.”

Before opening Pitch he did his due diligence. 

“I wanted to go into a neighborhood, I wanted trees, I wanted people walking dogs, I wanted slow moving traffic, I wanted soul, nurturing families, a university, light retail. That’s the ingredient for the location. The ingredient for the food is separate. First I had to figure out where I was going to do what I was going to do.

“I spent a lot of time looking around. Of course, I wanted to do it in Omaha. There’s such a thing as a home court advantage when you’re first starting, and my knowledge base was the best here because I’ve been here the longest. So I ended up in the Dundee area. I sat across the street on this bench by myself for several afternoons, with a pad of paper and a cell phone. After several days and discussion with some others I decided that was where I was going to do it.”

Pitch is Theisen’s most refined dining model yet. He says it’s intended to be the kind of “special place” – from decor to food to vibe –  “you discover when you’re out of town and say, ‘I wish we had one of those here.’ That’s what I’ve built. I wanted to give it a pedigree. I think it’s so much different than a lot of things I’ve done but it’s also an accumulation of a lot of things I’ve done. It’s on the progressive side. The foods are more broad-based. It’s current, it’s going after a lot of different demographics..”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If his instincts are right, then Pitch will soon be a household name all over.

“We don’t want it to be one and done. It’s got a future life in other locations out of the city,” says Theisen, who adds he has lined up people “very much interested in taking this brand and developing it. My plan is by year’s end to open company-owned restaurants in six other cities throughout the Midwest and then simultaneously open it up to franchising joint ventures.”

Theisen’s been down this road before.  He conceived Godfather’s while working for Omaha developer Tom Fellman, who had a planned unit development in a southwest suburb. Theisen leased all the available commercial space save a 5,000 square foot bay he saw opportunity in. Apartments with single adults and young families surrounded the heavily trafficked spot.

In 1973, with help from an uncle and a Small Business Association bank loan, he opened the combined Wild Willy’s beer garden and Godfather’s Pizza, brazenly capitalizing on the popular The Godfather. Wild Willy’s faded away but Godfathers took off.

Within a year Theisen began franchising, first in Columbus, Neb., then expanding across the state, the Midwest and nationwide.

“It seems like the success kind of fed itself,” he says. “We hit the ground running with these things. There were many people at our doors wanting franchises. We built by the model, and we managed by the model, and we kept it very simple because we were opening many locations simultaneously.”

At its peak Godfather’s had nearly 1,000 locations in 40-plus states. He revolutionized the industry by using conveyor ovens and introducing free, refillable Coke containers.

After selling Godfather’s he took time off to focus on himself. He worked his magic again buying and selling GB Foods (Green Burrito). Hebecame Famous Dave’s first pure franchisee, winning operator awards and guiding it in new directions. Then he developed Pitch.

 

 

 

 

Willy with “Famous” Dave Anderson

 

 

 

 

 

Through it all, he’s gained local icon status as one of Omaha’s favorite self-made success stories, yet he’s a Chicagoan by birth and was raised in Iowa. He only ended up here when his Ford Falcon broke down on his way to California in 1969.

Omaha long ago became home. His deep affection for where his success began is expressed in many ways. He’s served on the Omaha Airport Authority and Creighton University boards. Mayor Jim Suttle just appointed him to the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority (MECA) board. Theisen’s helped make the fortunes of Nebraskans who’ve become owner-operators of his ventures. He also encourages emerging entrepreneurs who seek his advice.

“I’m so blessed. I’m really at peace with what I’m doing, giving back, the things I’m involved in, the people that come to me for assistance or questions or what-ifs.

I just think where I am and what I’m doing gives me great pleasure. Of course, I like my cars and certain other items. Those are my hobbies. I like working out. I try to go to the gym regularly to keep my body in pace with my mind because sometimes my mind runs a little quicker than my body can run at my age.

“I don’t deny I’m getting a little bit older but there’s never a bad time for a good idea and that’s what I’m striving to do with Pitch.”

The man who built a 20,000 square foot Regency mansion has moved beyond conspicuous consumption. He doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody.

“I think I’ve evolved, not only as a businessperson but as a person. You change as you grow older, at least I do. Things may have been important to me early in life and now its not about having things, it’s about giving back, it’s about my community and what I can impact in a positive way.

“I’ve just been very fortunate. My dad said the harder you work the luckier you’ll get, and maybe those are hand in hand. I’m not so sure though that if I’d gone to Calif. that would have been a smart move. Maybe I was fortunate my car broke down and I was forced to stay here. Omaha is the key to what I’ve been, what I’ve done.”

 

 

 

 

The single Theisen also enjoys quality time with his family.

Though he’s hands-on and nothing escapes his scrutiny, he’s more the big picture- strategy guy today with his business pursuits.

“I make sure the day to day stuff is done, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t do it myself. I’ve got to stay a little ahead of that. I cant personally worry about a burned-out light bulb. That gets me off track. Don’t you think I don’t look at those light bulbs, and don’t you think I don’t go in our bathrooms, like I’ve done for years. They’ve got to be right, the kitchens have to be clean, everything’s got to be in order.”

It’s not like he has some Midas touch either. It’s more that he pays attention to details and doggedly stays after it.

“I’ve struggled like everybody else. I tried some things that didn’t work. But I always had a couple things going. I didn’t bank on one thing. I hate losing more than I like winning. I just don’t like to lose, and I don’t give up. I’m not known to throw in the towel too often or too quick.”

He admits he can reach too far too fast. Then again, that’s his nature as a risk-taker. He likes the action. He also has the power of his convictions. “People around me make suggestions and then I have to make decisions. It’s a big responsibility and it all comes down to being able and willing with good information to make that decision, whatever it may be, and so I try to attract the best people possible.”

Never one to rest on his laurels, he’s determined to make Pitch his next legacy.  Beside, he couldn’t slow down if he wanted. He’s tried retiring and it didn’t take.

“I think that’s possibly the true definition of an entrepreneur – they really can’t stop. They continue to try to think ahead. Yeah, you’ve got to have that fire in your belly, and you either have it or you don’t, and I have it. I’ve always got something cooking.”

 

Related articles

• How to Be a Successful Entrepreneur with the Right Mindset (gabrielcatalano.com)
• Why Entrepreneur Communities Matter (markpeterdavis.com)

Related articles

• Amazing Entrepreneurs I’ve Met At Big Omaha: Dan Martell (entrepreneursunpluggd.com)
• Nick and Brook Hudson, Their YP Match Made in Heaven Yields a Bevy of Creative-Cultural-Style Results – from Omaha Fashion Week to La Fleur Academy to Masstige Beauty and Beyond (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• The Oracle of Omaha (managementpocketbooks.wordpress.com)

‘The Bagel: An Immigrant’s Story’ – Joan Micklin Silver and Matthew Goodman Team Up for a New Documentary Film

A highly anticipated project long-in-the-making is Joan Micklin Silver’s documentary, The Bagel: An Immigrant’s Story.   She’s best known as a feature filmmaker (Hester Street, Between the Lines, Chilly Scenes of Winter, Crossing Delancey).  With this project she has a great take on a favorite and familiar food that’s too easily taken for granted.  Like any food that has ethnic origins, the bagel didn’t just show up out of nowhere in the States, it was brought here, in this case from Europe, and then it experienced its own assimilation process that saw it go from obscure ethnic enclave staple to ubiquitous item found in most any grocery store or bakery or coffeeshop or convenience store.  It’s even in some vending machines.  The bagel’s become Americanized to the point few people associate it anymore with its Jewish provenance.  But the bagel has a very particular history and heritage and its journey to America and its experience in the America melting pot parallels that of the human immigrants who brought it here, complete with its own labor disputes.   Former Food Maven columnist and best-selling author (Jewish Food: The World at Table) Matthew Goodman is the documentary’s writer.  I don’t know when the film will be completed and officially ready for screening, though you can find excerpts and rough cuts of it on the Web.  My story below about the film actually appeared some years ago when Silver and Goodman were just launching the project and trying to find investors and sources for it.  You’ll find several more stories by me about Joan Micklin Silver on this blog.

‘

The Bagel: An Immigrant‘s Story’ – Joan Micklin Silver and Matthew Goodman Team Up for a New Documentary Film

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in The Jewish Press

Bagels occupy much of acclaimed feature filmmaker Joan Micklin Silver’s time these days. That’s because the Omaha native and Central High School graduate, best known for Hester Street (1975) and Crossing Delancey (1988), two films about the Jewish experience in America, is preparing to shoot a new documentary that tells the history of the bagel in the U.S. in terms of the classic immigrant success story.  The film is slated to be called, The Bagel: An Immigrant’s Story.

Joan Micklin Silver

 

 

 

 

Silver was turned onto this story by noted food writer Matthew Goodman, author of the book Jewish Food: The World at Table and the former Food Maven columnist for The Forward. Co-producers on the project, Silver will direct Goodman’s script.

The bagel film project arose from a meeting Silver arranged with Goodman for his insights into the food of the Catskills, the famous East Coast Jewish resort that is the subject of a second documentary Silver is prepping. In the course of their Catskills conversation he mentioned his findings on the bagel and suggested it might make an interesting film.

According to Goodman, long an admirer of Silver’s films, she said, “’Would you like to work together on it?’ Of course, I was delighted. I think she has a wonderful literary sensibility when it comes to her work.”

As research by these first-time collaborators reveals, the rise of the bagel has strong reverberations with the greater immigrant story in America and the assimilation and discrimination that is part of it. “It came from Poland, it struggled and strained and went through everything most other immigrants do before it prospered,” Silver said. “That caught my imagination so totally when we figured that out that we decided, Okay, let’s do this.”

Immigrant tales have long fascinated Silver, whose parents, the late Maurice and Doris Micklin, came here in the wake of the Russian revolution. Hester Street explores turn of the century life for newly arrived Jews on the Lower East Side and their struggles to blend in. Crossing Delancey eyes contemporary Jewish life in Manhattan and the conflict of traditional versus modern values.

The now ubiquitous bagel was brought here by Eastern European Jews, among whose members were artisan bakers steeped in the closely guarded tradition of Old World–read: handmade–bagel baking techniques.

“This was artisanal baking. These guys were the holders of the keys of the kingdom, as it were, when it came to bagels. This was the knowledge of the correct way to bake a bagel that had been passed down from generation to generation, going all the way back. The way to do it was a pretty tightly held secret,” Goodman said.

“They took great pride in their ability. It was not easy to do. The ovens were not easy to work. The dough unwieldy. It took a long time. You had to apprentice awhile before you became a member. So these guys really were craftsmen,” he said.

Unfortunately one of the things lost over time is that sense of artisanship, he added.  “They were masters at making bagels. There was an art to it,” Silver  said. “They were artists and they really cared about the quality of the product.”

Old-style bagels, much smaller than the modern variety, were distinctive for their hard crusts, chewy interiors and savory flavor. The International Bagel Bakers Union Local 338 formed to protect the recipes, methods and interests of the master bagel bakers. Only sons or nephews of current members could join. Every bagel in New York City came out of a union shop.

 

 

With the advent of bagel-making machines that churned out bagels faster than any hands could, the oldways became obsolete and the bagel assimilated into the cultural melting pot, turning blander and fatter in the process.

“Part of the story we’re telling in this film is that the demise of the union really led to the demise of the bagel as well,” Goodman said. “The machine just couldn’t make as good a bagel as the men could, for a number of reasons. One reason being the traditional bagel dough was too stiff to go through the bagel machine. It kept breaking down the machines. So bakery owners started adding water to the dough so it would go through the machines better, but that ended up making the bagel softer. And bagels since that time have gone through all sorts of changes with the addition of dough conditioners, which most bakeries use now, to relax the gluten in the dough immediately so bagels don’t have to sit overnight. It’s a big money saver for the bakery owners, but it reduces the flavor of the bagel significantly.

“A lot of places don’t even boil their bagels anymore before baking them, which is the hallmark of the bagel — boiled before baked. They just sort of steam them because they don’t want that hard crust. They think people don’t want to chew that hard.”

Goodman said the bagel’s transformation from hand-crafted, ethnic food stuff to homogenized, mass-produced staple reflects “the American public’s taste. The American public likes big, soft, bland, white baked goods. But that’s part of the story, too — that as the bagel became less Jewish and more mainstream American it had to take on more of mainstream America’s tastes.” A similar thing happened with pizza and many other ethnic foods whose authentic characteristics were diluted or distorted on the path to Americanization.

The story of the bagel in America is also the story of the IBBU Local 338. Bagel bakers fought hard to improve the arduous conditions they worked in, using their union as leverage in negotiations with employers.

“The conditions were terrible. The heat of the bakery while they were baking got to be like 110 degrees. Bakers often slept on benches in the bakery. They went through a lot. After a great deal of effort, they built a strong union. It was a terrific thing,” said Silver, who is doing much of her studies at the famed Yivo Institute of Jewish Research in New York, where former Omaha resident Leo Greenbaum is associate archivist-acquisitions archivist.
Goodman “discovered” the IBBU while doing research for an essay on the history of the bagel published in the Harvard Review. He’d never heard of the union.

“I just thought it was a fantastic thing, you know, a union composed entirely of bagel bakers,” he said. “And the more I looked into it the more fascinated I became by the story of a union that for several decades controlled all of the bagel bakeries in New York City and then within a span of less than a decade had been wiped out. I thought this was a really poignant story. It’s a little-known story. And also a story that allowed the telling of a larger story about the way ethnic foods assimilate in the larger society and also the demise of the labor movement.”

 Murray Lender helped speed along the bagel’s assimilation

 

 

The IBBU, whose exclusive ranks never exceeded 300-some members at any one time, reached beyond New York, although that’s where it was centered.

“My sense of it is if you were a bagel baker anywhere in the country you were a member…It happened that the vast majority of bagel bakers were in New York, but I believe there were members in places like Chicago and Boston,” Goodman said.

Long before bagel machines replaced them and broke their union, Local 338 brethren faced challenges from bakery owners, who, Goodman said, used “strikebreakers and scabs” to try and crush their solidarity. Resistance to the union included the emergence of “non-union shops,” said Goodman, “many heavily subsidized by organized crime. So, there was certainly a lot to deal with.”

By the mid ’70s the union was no more.

“The older guys retired. Some ended up working in non-union shops, working in much poorer conditions than they had been working in previously. Some joined the general bakers union and went to work in other union shops, not necessarily baking bagels. A lot of the guys left New York and took off around the country to open their own bagel shops. That’s how bagels really got introduced to different parts of the country that had never known bagels before. That’s the first time places like Albuquerque or Sacramento had seen fresh baked bagels,” he said.

Goodman and Silver say a fair number of IBBU bakers are still around, but no one’s quite sure exactly how many. The filmmakers’ plans call for on-camera interviews with many of these men, some quite aged now. There’s a sense of urgency to record and preserve the bakers’ stories before the legacy of their craftsmanship and union is irretrievably lost. For his Harvard Review essay on the bagel Goodman interviewed some of the men, tapping memories of long ago.

Memories of favorite foods, especially aromas, are known to be among the strongest our brains store. As the bagel is a food bound up in ritual, whether along family ethnic lines or urban lifestyle lines or breakfast staple lines, it is a food that serves as a nostalgic “touchstone,” Silver said.

“People think about it and it’s sort of like Proust’s (Marcel) madeleines. It has kind of ringing memories for people.” Her own remembrances of things past take her back to when she was a little girl and her father brought her to a downtown Omaha bakery for “the best rye bread you can imagine and wonderful bagels.” Goodman too recalls the traditional bagels of his childhood.

The filmmakers are counting on the public’s bagel nostalgia, including memorabilia, to help illustrate their story. In a letter recently emailed to Jewish newspapers nationwide, the filmmakers made an appeal: “As part of our research for the film, we are interested in obtaining all manner of visual material concerning the history of bagels in America: old photographs of bagel shops or bagel bakers, home movies that include bagels, newspaper or magazine advertisements for bagels, etc.”

Readers with materials are asked to respond to bagelmovie@hotmail.com. The filmmakers’ letter ends with, “We would be very grateful for any assistance you might provide. We look forward to hearing from you.”

The pair hope to start production in late fall. They must first secure funding.

In a new immigrant twist on the bagel’s evolution in America, the filmmakers say the rare bagel made today in the traditional manner is usually crafted by…Thais. Oy vey!

Related articles

• Joan Micklin Silver’s Classic ‘Hester Street’ Included in National Film Registry (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Last Location of New York City’s Legendary H&H Bagels Shut Down (laughingsquid.com)
• Are Florida’s “Brooklyn-Style Bagels” a Sham? [Food] (gizmodo.com)
• Man Who Brought Bagels to America Has Died (business-opportunities.biz)

Artist Vera Mercer’s Coming Out Party

 

The Mercer name is exalted in Omaha for the family’s embedded presence as downtown commercial-residential property owners and managers, historic preservationists, aesthetic arbiters, and the primary visionaries, developers, and protectors of what’s known as the Old Market.  The Old Market is a small enclave of late 19th and early 20th century brick warehouse buildings that comprised the city’s wholesale produce center.  Under the Mercer’s leadership these stuctures took on new life in the 1970s to house an eclectic collection of restaurants, artist studios, art galleries, trendy shops, and loft condos.  For a few decades now the National Register of Historic Places district has been one of the state’s top tourist attractions.  The subject of this story, artist Vera Mercer, is a native German who married into the family just as the Mercers were transforming the area into a cultural hub.  She played a vital role, along with husband Mark Mercer and father-in-law Samuel Mercer in establishing some of the anchor sites there, including the French Cafe.  Her photography is prominently displayed in the restaurant.  The Mercers own a few eateries in the district and Vera plays a hand in them all behind the scenes.  Additionally, her large-scale, Baroque-style food still lifes can be seen in one of these spaces – The Boiler Room.  The Mercer’s La Buvette is a bistro style eaterie with an impressive wine selection and it’s often where Vera and Mark can be spotted.  She also runs her own gallery, The Moving Gallery, that features work by European artists.  Though she’s long been a key player in the Old Market, Vera has been a low-key, little-know presence outside that gilded arena.  That is until recently, when a book of her paintings and exhibitions of her work have received much notice here and in Europe.  I had never met Vera until doing this short 2011 piece about her for Encounter Magazine.  What I found is a charming woman who is an artist through and through.  Her photography and painting, equally compelling.

 

©Vera Mercer

 

 

 

Artist Vera Mercer’s Coming Out Party

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in Encounter Magazine

 

Vera Mertz Mercer occupies a paradoxical place in Omaha. She’s a world-renowned photojournalist and art photographer, yet her work is little known here. She’s a vital part of the Mercer family’s Old Market dynasty, yet few recognize her influence.

Forty years after coming here, this German native is finally getting the attention that’s eluded her thanks to several projects featuring her work, which ranges from evocative street-market-figurative portraits to richly textured still lifes of food-animal-plant motifs.

A new book, Vera Mercer, Photographs and Still Lifes (Kehrer, 2010), includes a selection of her photo reportage and still lifes. Following well-received exhibits in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany, plus a show in Lincoln, Neb., she has a single work on display in the 12th Annual Art Auction and Exhibition at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, October 8-November 6. Her biggest exposure though will be her first Omaha solo exhibit, Vera Mercer: Still Lifes, opening in January at the Bemis.

“Given the Mercers central role in the development and sustainability of the Old Market, and their longstanding role in Omaha’s art community, it was surprising to me she had never had a one-woman exhibition” here, said Bemis curator Hesse McGraw.

He said the show will reveal “an under-recognized jewel and legacy of the contemporary art community. I’m interested in the deep intensity of Vera’s photographs. They have a timeless quality that is both classical and highly contemporary. The works are unsettlingly rich in tone, composition and content. It’s surprising these decadent, grotesque, deep-hued works also have a sense of levity. They possess a rigor that is very rare.”

 

 

 

Vera Mercer at an opening

 

 

More 2011 exhibitions of Mercer’s work are slated for Mexico City, Japan and Italy. Her emergence on the art scene follows a stellar career in Europe photographing famous artists and their work (Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol), authors (Norman Mailer), playwrights (Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco), performers (Jacques Brel), street scenes and markets. Her first husband, artist Daniel Spoerrii, was active in theater. Her father, Franz Mertz, was a noted set designer. Both men introduced her to the avant garde and she flourished in the heady company of artists and intellectuals.

Mercer trained as a modern dancer, teaching for a time, before Spoerri gave her her first camera. Photography’s expressive possibilities fascinated her. Self-taught, she develops and prints her own work. She prefers shooting with high speed film. She likes grainy, dimly lit images. Her lush still lifes are made with a 4-by-5 camera.

In Europe she met sculptor Eva Aeppli, the wife of Samuel Mercer, an attorney who divides his time between his native Omaha and France. Aeppli’s astrological sculptures adorn the Garden of the Zodiac in the Old Market Passageway. The Mercer family has owned property there for generations. The couple befriended Vera, who later married Samuel’s son, Mark. As an artist and gourmand she fit right in with these cosmopolitans and their affinity for artistic and epicurean delights. Her discerning eye and palette helped shape the Old Market into a cultural oasis.

 

©Vera Mercer

 

 

 

Mark manages the family’s many properties. He and Samuel, a 2010 Omaha Business Hall of Fame inductee, have been the primary agents for preserving this former wholesale produce center and repurposing its warehouses as shops, galleries, restaurants, apartments, condos.

The ambience-rich Market, a National Register of Historic Places district, has become Omaha’s most distinctive urban environs and leading tourist destination.

Overshadowed in this transformation from eyesore to hotbed is Vera Mercer. She’s applied her aesthetic sensibilities to some iconic spots, such as, V. Mertz, which bears her name. She and Mark own La Buvette, an authentic spin on the French cafes they know from their Parisian haunts. More recently they opened the Boiler Room, a fine dining establishment with Vera’s large format, color still lifes integrated into the decor.

Her black and white photo murals of Parisian cafes are among the distinctive interior design elements at the French Cafe, which Samuel Mercer developed with Cedric Hartman. Her photo project for the cafe first brought her to America.

 

 

 

 

While a familiar figure to Market denizens for her culinary endeavors, her photography is decidedly less known, though in plain view. She’s exhibited her work in galleries around the world but seldom locally. This despite the fact she oversees the Moving Gallery. Mercer said, “I could easily show there but I think that’s not for me to do that.”

There are practical reasons why so much of her work is showing now after years of scant exhibition activity. First of all, she doesn’t believe in over-exposing herself. “I think one should not be overseen,” she said.

Then she’s been busy. “I had lots to do,” she said, referring to her many Mercer Old Market duties, including launching restaurants. She keeps the books for the two the Mercers still own. Several “intense” photo installation projects she did in Asia with designer John Morford kept her occupied.

So, all along she’s been practicing her craft, just not exhibiting. But she’s built a tremendous body of work.

“I work every day a lot on photography,” she said.

Exhibiting isn’t everything. The culinary arts are creative, too. “Making a restaurant is something so beautiful. It’s something for the people. It’s just like a painting,” she said, before adding,“It’s just like theater, too.”

She’s a bit taken aback by all the attention directed her way these days, but she’s “not surprised.” Always open to change, she’s now experimenting with some new portraiture techniques, ready to reinvent herself again.

 

 

Related articles

• Nick and Brook Hudson, Their YP Match Made in Heaven Yields a Bevy of Creative-Cultural-Style Results – from Omaha Fashion Week to La Fleur Academy to Masstige Beauty and Beyond (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Omaha Fashion Past (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• To Doha and Back with Love, Local Journalists Reflect on Their Fear and Loathing Adventure in the Gulf (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Memories of the Jewish Midwest: Mom and Pop Grocery Stores, Omaha, Lincoln, Greater Nebraska and Southwest Iowa (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)

A South Omaha Best-Kept Secret: American GI Forum Mexican Restaurant

I don’t write much about food or restaurants, though I very much enjoy going out to eat, but when I do get the rare assignment to profile an eatery I like to focus on worthy places that most readers probably don’t know about, and that’s the case with this piece for The Reader (www.thereader.com).  The Omaha Chapter of the American GI Forum operates a full-service Mexican restaurant at its South Omaha clubhouse that cooks up some pretty righteous Tex Mex favorites.  But unless you live or work in that part of town it’s likely off your radar.  As my piece makes clear, it’s not exactly hurting for business, yet it deserves to be better known.  Consider it a must-get-to on your inner city urban adventure checklist.

 

 

A South Omaha Best-Kept Secret: American GI Forum Mexican Restaurant

©by Leo Adam Biga

The unpretentious, homey American GI Forum restaurant at 2002 N Street is a Tex-Mex bargain whose popular specials make this a busy joint.

But unless you’re a South Omahan or get tipped off to the place by someone, this best-kept-secret is likely to remain unknown outside its loyal following. After all, it has no website or Facebook page. You won’t find ads for it anywhere. It’s low profile is a shame, not because it starves for business – quite the opposite is true. But proceeds from this non-profit help support the activities of the veterans club under whose auspices and roof it operates.

The Omaha chapter of the American GI Forum, a national Hispanic veterans organization founded in 1948, provides scholarships to area students and assists down-on-their-luck folks who need help paying utility bills.

The veterans clubhouse is located upstairs in the sprawling, two-story building and the restaurant is downstairs. Reminders of the military connection are visible on the eatery’s walls, where plaques, photographs and photocopied stories extoll the exploits of area Hispanic veterans. The financial sacrifices and sweat equity that went into obtaining the facility are also detailed.

You’ll also find living history among the patrons, including charter member and Korean War vet Ricardo “Rick” Arellano, 85, who’s justifiably proud of the Forum.

This GI Forum chapter formed in 1957 and the membership acquired the then-condemned building in 1962, doing most of the extensive repairs and renovations themselves. One couple even mortgaged their home to help finance the project. Members also funded the work through, what else?, tamale sales. The structure underwent a major renovation and expansion in 2006.

The restaurant’s always been part of the set-up. It’s not unusual for a service club to have a commercial kitchen that puts out occasional meals for public consumption. Think VFWs or Sons of Italy. What distinguishes the Forum is that it operates a full-service restaurant and bar open to the public six days a week. The mostly Spanish-speaking cook staff churns out breakfast, lunch and dinner. The sizable menu is comparable to that of a traditional Mexican dining spot. So is the quality of food.

Manager Luis Valencia, whose father Leandro, is a club charter members, says many of the recipes used today were created by the late Nettie Escamilla Vela, the namesake of Bellevu’se beloved hole-in-the-wall, Nettie’s Fine Mexican Food.

If you’re not hung up on gourmet preparations or a stickler for strictly authentic dishes, and if you can do without fancy schmancy digs, then this is a must get-to. The space has a church basement social hall look with its tile floor, but the memorabilia, dartboard alley and flat screen TVs lend some warmth and charm .

The tacos, enchiladas, tamales, tortas and red chili stand up to some of the best around these parts. There are several chili dinners to choose from. The menudo has its fans. Hot wings are a concession to this ubiquitous finger food staple. Breakfast specials, including chorizo and eggs, and combo platters with eggs, potatoes, bacon, beans and rice, are legendary.

Lines form Thursdays for the dollar taco and buck seventy-five margarita specials. Similar specials pack ‘em in on Fridays. Between its big lot and the surrounding streets, there’s ample parking to handle the crowds.

The regular prices are easy on the wallet, too, with most dinners priced $6 to $8 and ala carte items from $1.75 to $3.

This laid-back neighborhood landmark is a casual, family-friendly place where the grub and spirits and ready smiles make you feel at home.

George Selders has been a regular for a decade and says he keeps coming back for “the good food and the friendly atmosphere,” adding, “I’ve met a lot of friends here. It’s very pleasant.”

Linda and Bob Adkins often bring their grandkids or meet other couples there. “I’ve never had bad food here, ever,” Linda says. “I like it all. The people are nice. A lot of people don’t know about it. They don’t advertise and they don’t need to.”

 

 

Valencia confirms that almost all of the restaurant’s new business is by word of mouth. The fixtures and newbies account for a diverse clientele.

“What I like about coming over here is that it is really a very mixed group of people,” says Bob Adkins. “Every size, shape and color imaginable comes in here and it’s just fun watching people and to be a part of it.”

A recent visit found a cross-section of patrons variously chowing down or throwing back a few at tables or at the curved bar. A dart game was in progress in a corner. Music spilled out over speakers. The wait staff was attentive. The barkeep, pretty.

Regulars include a heavy dose of South O denizens and natives.

“If you’re originally from South Omaha you’ll run into somebody you know,” vows Valencia.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday; 10:30-9 Thursday; Saturday 10-9; Sunday 8:30-7:30. Closed Mondays. For more info, call 402-733-9740.

Related articles

• Born Again Ex-Gang Banger and Pugilist, Now Minister, Servando Perales Makes Victory Boxing Club His Mission Church for Saving Youth from the Streets (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)

Quirky, Cozy Shirley’s Diner Does Comfort Food Right and You Might Just Run into Rising Filmmaker Nik Fackler (‘Lovely, Still’), Whose Family Owns-Operates the Joint, There

Thanks to the Food Network’s crazy popular Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives the nation’s funky good eats joints are getting their due.  The show made a pit stop in Omaha a few years ago and of the five spots they featured here, honestly only one, maybe two can boast the quality product that’s up to host Guy Fieri‘s standards.  The subject of this story, Shirley’s Diner, was not among the Omaha (technically, Millard) eateries profiled, but it should have been.  Its classic diner fare is done right, with lots of love.  The place is quaint.  Its decor, eclectic.  And then there’s the proprietors, the Facklers, a family of creatives with a charming eccentric streak.  The husband-wife team of Doug and Denise Fackler are an unrepetenant Flower Power-era couple who ooze charm and friendliness. Their son Ben runs the kitchen and he shows a real talent and twist on diner favorites.  Then there’s the joint’s brush with Hollywood fame courtesy Ben’s brother, Nik Fackler, a rising filmmaker whose Lovely, Still was inspired in part by the oldster regulars there.  The film’s stars, Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn, ate there.  Nik, who until quite recently still helped out at the diner, often drops by when he’s in town.  Nik and his film are the subjects of several stories on this blog.

 

 

Denise Fackler

 

 

Quirky, Cozy Shirley’s Diner Does Comfort Food Right and You Might Just Run into Rising Filmmaker Nik Fackler (‘Lovely, Still’), Whose Family Owns-Operates the Joint, There

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally appeared in The Reader (www.thereader.com)

Quirky, cozy Shirley’s Diner trades on the charm of its throwback, wood-paneled decor, old style home cooking and personal touch for satisfying breakfast-lunch experiences. The nouvelle-hippie couple, Denise and Doug Fackler, that’s owned the popular Millard spot for 17 years put in long hours to ensure high quality. They hand cut and tenderize filets for Shirley’s signature pork tenderloin and chicken fried steak. Along with head chef and oldest son, Ben Fackler, it’s a tight, family-run place that does comfort food right. The food’s everything-made-from-scratch, fresh-not-frozen goodness can’t be faked or fudged.

Expect generous portions of such lunchtime favorites as pork tenderloin and chicken fried steak, hot beef/turkey, fried chicken, grilled pork chops and spaghetti and meatballs. There are several burgers, grilled chicken and staple sandwiches, from Philly steak to a Reuben and its sister Rachel (turkey in place of corned beef) to a cheese frenchy. Appetizers, soups and salads fill out the lunch menu. Breakfast features standard egg, meat, biscuit and hash brown combos along with omelets, Eggs Benedict, a variation called Canadian Sunrise, a croissant or English muffin sandwich and buttermilk pancakes. Try some cream sausage gravy with your biscuits and browns. Daily breakfast and lunch specials abound.

Desserts include deep fried Twinkies and Oreos and root beer floats.

Authentic American food at moderate prices explains why lines sometimes form outside. It’s worth the drive to find this gem tucked away in the Millard Plaza strip mall. Urban explorers would do well to seek it out during what the owners say has been a slump they attribute to high gas prices, a spate of competing restaurants opened nearby and an aging customer base.

Doug Fackler is a rocker from way back

 

 

Once word extends beyond Millard and gas prices ease Shirley’s may again be the “gold mine” Denise said it used to be. The draws will still be the classic American diner fare, the staff’s warm hospitality and the fun ‘50s-era, memorabilia-rich interior, but also the cafe’s association with a rising star. You see, Doug and Denise’s youngest son is wunderkind filmmaker Nik Fackler, the 23-year-old Millard West grad who just wrapped shooting his first feature, Lovely, Still, in Omaha.

That Fackler directed Oscar-winners Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn in a picture with sleeper hit written all over it may just send curiosity-seekers to his family’s diner. Throw in the fact the character Fackler based Landau’s character of Robert Malone on is a regular there, and you have all the makings for a genuine tourist stop. Then there’s the whole fame factor derived from the stars having visited Shirley’s, where Landau actually met the man he plays.

There’s more. Nik practically grew up in the diner and as recently as last summer worked there to earn some scratch. Should Lovely nab Oscar nominations, perhaps for its legendary stars or Fackler’s original screenplay or direction, then Shirley’s will be an iconic shrine. It already is with its theme booths devoted to James Dean, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Denise’s own Aunt Betty, a 1951 Miss Omaha beauty pageant winner and World War II-era pinup girl.

Nik Fackler, ©photo by Bill Sitzmann of Minor White Studios

 

 

Show biz runs in the family. Aunt Betty was a professional model. Doug’s played bass guitar and sung backup in Omaha bands for 40 years. He once cut a record with Eric Burton of The Animals fame. He’s played in bands that have fronted for Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf. Doug may be best known for his gigs with Bumpy Action and the River City All Stars. He’s also a shutterbug. Denise sings and plays piano. She was in Bumpy Action with Doug. She made USO tours to South Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Hawaii. In the ‘70s and ‘80s the couple enjoyed a successful career as studio session artists, lending vocals and instrumentals to countless radio/television jingles. Her voice, she said, is on all the award-winning C.W. McCall Old Home Bread spots and on John Denver’s last album.

Nik’s a musician in his own right. He plays guitar, sings and writes music. He leads his own band, The Family Radio. With his mom’s encouragement he said he began writing stories as a child. She’s a writer herself. For years she’s cultivated the real life stories of customers at Shirley’s for a forthcoming book. Don’t be surprised if the vivacious Denise chats you up on your visit and you end up spilling your guts. Or she may plop on your lap and break into song. That disarming sweetness and spontaneity is shared by Nik, who still stops in, his shaggy appearance and slacker demeanor right in line with the laidback vibe. “We’re very loose,” said Denise.

There’s already a Fackler family booth whose walls are adorned with framed photos of Doug and Denise on stage — him with his Gibson guitar and bell-bottomed pants and her in a mini-skirt. There are shots of Nik, guitar in hand, making like dad behind the mike. It’d be only right if someday a booth is dedicated to Lovely, Still, complete with pics of Martin, Ellen and Co.. Maybe a signed copy of the script. If things go right, Nik might even rate a booth of his own. Right next to James Dean.

The booths’ vintage, wall-mounted jukeboxes work, but are disconnected. Who needs them with the Facklers around? You’ll fall for their soulful cuisine, eclectic tastes and creative clutter.

Shirley’s Diner, 5325 South 139th Plaza, is open daily. For more info. call 402-896-6515.

Related articles

• The Film Dude, Nik Fackler, Goes His Own Way Again, this Time to Nepal and Gabon (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Vincent Alston’s Indie Film Debut, ‘For Love of Amy,’ is Black and White and Love All Over (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)

Chef Mike Does a Rebirth at the Community Cafe

Mike Whitner is one of several small business owners fighting the good fight by trying to inject some new commerce into the economically depressed northeast Omaha community. His Chef’s Mike Community Cafe is the type of going concern the district desperately needs but is woefully lacking. As with anybody, he has a story. Specifically, there’s a story behind how and why he became a chef and located his business in the heart of an area with great, though as yet unrealized promise, a situation that’s defined the area since its decline in the 1960s and ’70s. My story for The Reader (www.thereader.com) appeared shortly after Chef Mike opened his place. The good news is he’s still in business and the area is targeted for massive redevelopment. The bad news is that much of that development is still some years away. But every little anchor and magnet business like his can make a difference, especially if there becomes a critical mass of them.

 

 

 

 

Chef Mike Does a Rebirth at the Community Cafe

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in The Reader (www.threader.com)

“I’m doing a rebirth,” said Mike Whitner, a.k.a. Chef Mike, as he pointed to the colorful sidewalk/window signs outside his Community Cafe in the Family Housing Advisory Services building at 24th and Lake in north Omaha. “I’m taking what I learned from my roots and putting it in like a nouvelle style kind of soul food. I keep it traditional, but I add the new wave in it, like using a lot of smoked turkey in my greens (instead of ham hocks), where it’s going to be healthy for you.”

A solid block of a man who brightens his white chef’s smock with Pollock splattered pants and jaunty berets, Whitner grew up in a rough section of far northeast Omaha’s “Flatlands.” He ran with a gang. He learned to defend himself. As the youngest of seven siblings he spent a lot of time watching his mother cook. He paid close attention. He’ll tell you the secret to soul food is made-from-scratch cooking whose deeply imbued flavors build in stages, over time.

“It’s a process,” he said. One that can’t be rushed. No shortcuts please.

Another “mentor” is Charles Hall, owner/head cook of the now defunct Fair Deal Cafe on North 24th Street. Whitner’s smothered pork steak is a homage to Hall’s classic smothered pork chop.

“I slow cook it like he used to,” Whitner said. “I cook it in its juices with peppers and onions. When you do it right, it just melts in your mouth, baby.”

As a kid Whitner earned extra money making sandwiches/dinners and hawking them to working men on the north side. Before becoming a chef though, he had some living to do. He played college and semi-pro football, bounced at clubs, provided personal security to clients and collected for others. Once, a guy pulled a gun and shot him. A bullet grazed his head. He still managed to break the shooter’s wrist down, wrest the gun away and beat him with it.

Incidents like these convinced him “it was time to grow up and get away from all that and stop taking care of other people’s business. My mother slept better.”

He got a taste of the restaurant game working at Boston Sea Party and L and N Seafood Grill. A move to Denver in the early 1990s launched him on his career. He learned the trade at the famed Wynkoop Brewing Company, which sponsored his training in the Chefs de Cuisine Association. Working chef’s license in hand, he helped Wynkoop become an anchor of the Mile High City’s trendy LoDo district.

Back home by the mid ‘90s, he entered the Omaha catering scene. He was on the team that opened Rick’s Boatyard Cafe. A parting of the ways found him catering again, this time out of trucks doing a tidy trade on the streets. When the spot he’s in now came open, he went after it.

“One of the promises I made when I became a chef,” he said, “was to bring everything I learned back to the Flatlands. I wanted to be here.”

His fusion of soul with gourmet adds new twists to old favs: sauteed baby bay shrimp with collard greens; roast beef with a demi-glace or mirepoix-based sauce; and jalapeno cheddar corn bread. Every day he does theme dishes — from blackened beef or fish to pasta to tacos to soul food staples to whole catfish filets. He has his signature Black Angus dogs, reubens, gyros and Philly steak and cheese. Some items, like his sweet potatoes, are from his own garden. He buys from local growers.

 

 

 

 

Open weekdays for breakfast, when you can get grits and biscuits, and lunch, most meals there run well under $6. The one day he’s open late, Fridays, he offers a prime rib or salmon dinner for $13, with live jazz by Hopie Bronson. The cafe’s “transformed” then into an intimate club with low lights, linen table cloths, votive candles. There’s free parking in an adjacent lighted lot.

For Whitner, who still has his own catering biz, his place is a symbol of what he sees as North 24th’s rebirth.

“This area was rich in jazz and blues. In those days businesses were booming. Everybody was coming down here enjoying 24th Street. That’s what I want again,” he said.

It’s why his menu is a melange of old and new.

“I want to represent where I come from,” he said of his soul food roots. But, he added, “you gotta mix it up. It’s an area that’s been heavy with soul food places. You can’t eat soul food every day. It’s not good for you. You gotta give this area food it’s never had before…that’s different. Folks love being able to have that kind of cuisine down here.”

Business isn’t as brisk as he’d like, but he’s set on staying to help spark a renaissance.

“Eventually this area is going to be the educational, arts, music district” of north Omaha, he said. “That’s where’s it’s going. You can feel it. When you get the jazz and blues down here you can feel it coming. It’s coming for sure.”

The Community Cafe, 2401 Lake St., is open Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Breakfast from 7:30 to 11 a.m. and lunch then on. Friday dinners with live jazz from 7 to 11 p.m. For details and take out orders, call 964-2037.

Related articles

• Big Mama’s Keeps It Real, A Soul Food Sanctuary in Omaha: As Seen on ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives’ (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Back in the Day, Native Omaha Days is Reunion, Homecoming, Heritage Celebration and Party All in One (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• The Ties that Bind, One Family’s Celebration of Native Omaha Days (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• A. Marino Grocery Closes: An Omaha Italian Landmark Calls It Quits (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Community and Coffee at Omaha’s Perk Avenue Cafe (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• All Trussed Up with Somewhere to Go, Metropolitan Community College’s Institute for Culinary Arts Takes Another Leap Forward with its New Building on the Fort Omaha Campus (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Native Omaha Days: A Black is Beautiful Celebration, Now, and All the Days Gone By (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Rev. Everett Reynolds Gave Voice to the Voiceless (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)

A. Marino Grocery Closes: An Omaha Italian Landmark Calls It Quits

One of the last of the old line ethnic grocery stores in my hometown of Omaha closed down a few years ago.  The small Italian market is one my family and I shopped at quite a bit. It was the last of its kind, that is among Italian grocers. Truth be told, there are many ethnic grocers in business here today, only the owners are from the new immigrant enclaves of Latin America and Africa and Asia rather than Europe. The owner of the now defunct A. Marino Grocery, Frank Marino, inherited the business from his father. It was a throwback place little changed from back in the old days. My piece about Frank finally deciding to retire and close the place appeared in The Reader (www.thereader.com).

On this blog you can find more stories by me related to other aspects of Omaha’s Italian-American culture, including ones on the Sons of Italy hall’s pasta feeds and the annual Santa Lucia Festival.

 

 

A. Marino Grocery Closes: An Omaha Italian Landmark Calls It Quits

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in The Reader

The final days of A. Marino Grocery at 1716 South 13th Street were akin to a wake. The first week of October saw old friends, neighbors and customers file in to say goodbye to proprietor Frank Marino, 80, whose late Sicilian immigrant father, Andrea, a sheepherder back in Carlentini, opened the Italian store in 1919.

News of the closing leaked out days before the local daily ran a story about the store’s end. As word spread Marino was deluged with business. Lines of cars awaited him when he arrived one morning. Orders poured in. He and his helpers could hardly keep up. Those who hadn’t heard were disappointed by the news. Some wondered aloud where’d they get their sausage from now on.

A Navy veteran of World War II, Marino long talked of retiring but nobody believed him. Still, decades of 50-60 hour weeks take their toll. When he got an attractive offer for the building he took it. The new owner plans to renovate the space into an interior decorating office on the main level and a residence above it.

Folks stopping by for a last visit knew the store’s passing meant the loss of a prized remnant of Omaha’s ethnic past. Housed in a two-story brick structure whose upstairs apartment the family lived in and Marino was born in, the store represented the last of the Italian grocers serving Omaha’s Little Italy. While the neighborhood’s lost most vestiges of its Italian-Czech heritage, time stood still at the small store. Its narrow aisles, vintage fixtures, wood floors, solid counters, ornate display cabinets and antique scales bespoke an earlier era.

It was a living history museum of Old World charms and ways. No sanitary gloves. Meats and cheeses comingled, but regulars figured it just added to the flavor.

An aproned Marino would often be behind the deli case in back, hovering over the butcher’s block to cut, season, grind and encase choice cuts of beef for the popular sausage he made. He sold hundreds of pounds a week. He carried a full line of imported foods. Parmigiano reggiano, romano, provolone, mozzarella and fresh ricotta cheese. Prosciutto, mortadella, salami, capicolla and pepperoni. Various olives — plain or marinated. Meatballs. Homemade ravioli and other stuffed pastas. Canned tomatoes, packaged pastas, assorted peppers, et cetera. At Christmas he sold specialty candies and baccala, a salted cod used in Italian holiday dishes.

 

He’d slice, grate, measure, weigh and bag items himself. Nothing was precut. What few helpers he had were mostly old buddies. Banter between the men and with the customers was part of the experience. Characters abounded.

Marino rang up your purchases on an old-style cash register and engaged you in crackle barrel conversation from behind the massive front counter his father had made to order in 1932. Behind the counter, whose built-in drawers stored 20-pound cases of pasta, he’d light up his trademark pipe and shoot the breeze.

“I love being here and I love being around people,” he said.

It was the same way with his father. The two worked side by side for half-a-century. They had their spats, but the disagreements always blew over. There was, after all, a business to run and people to serve. His papa taught him well.

“It’s service-oriented. You’ve got to hand-wait on everybody,” Marino said.

In some cases he waited on three generations in the same family. He enjoyed the association and interaction. “I’ll miss that. There was a lot of closeness, you know.”

 

That last week people expressed heartache over the closing.

Mary Cavalieri of Omaha shopped there all her life. “It’s really sad,” she said, adding she felt she was losing “a tradition” and “a friend” in the process.

Oakland, Iowa resident Anna D’Angelo was among many who came some distance to shop there. Asked what she’ll miss most, she said, “The sausage and all the Italian specialties, and Frank. He knows everybody by name. He knows what you like. Frank never needs to see my ID. It’s that personal touch you don’t get anymore.”

Omahan Leo Ferzley, an old chum of Marino’s, said, “You hate to see it go, but what do you do? Everybody will miss it. A lot of memories.”

Marino is worried what he’ll do with all his free time. He and his wife plan their first trip to Italy. “That’s all we’ve ever talked about,” he said. One man told him that if the opportunity comes, “whatever you do, don’t pass it up.”

Customers, some whose names he didn’t even know, wished him and his wife well. One wrote a $100 check for the Marinos to treat themselves to a night on the town. As Mary Cavalieri said, “He deserves some retirement time.”

No regrets.

As Marino told someone, “It’s the end of the line. 88 years we’ve been here. Since before I was born. It’s been good to us. But I’m 80-years-old. I think it’s time.” Besides, he said, “I’m wore out.”

Related articles

• Favorite Sons, Weekly Omaha Pasta Feeds at Sons of Italy Hall in, Where Else?, Little Italy (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Walking Behind to Freedom, A Musical Theater Examination of Race (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Back in the Day, Native Omaha Days is Reunion, Homecoming, Heritage Celebration and Party All in One (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)

Big Mama’s Keeps It Real, A Soul Food Sanctuary in Omaha: As Seen on ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives’

Thanks to the Tyler Perry franchise of popular movies and plays and the character Madea he plays and to the Martin Lawrence series of films, the term Big Mama has come into the mainstream lexicon. This is no doubt part of the appeal behind a soul food eatery and catering operation in Omaha, Big Mama’s, that has enjoyed breakout success since I profiled its namesake owner, Patricia Barron, soon after her place opened. The breakfast and lunch crowds there are steady, the catering orders high, and in the past few years she’s seen her business featured in a slew of newspapers and magazines, then by the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and more recently by another national cable food show. But I think what people really respond to is the story of her preserving her family’s heritage and recipes through her cooking. The deep current of passion that she and her daughters, who help run the place, have for family and community and tradition is expressed in all the framed pictures hanging there, so many that it’s practically a retrospective of African-American Omaha history. Those pictures, combined with the homey arts and crafts touches adorning the former cafeteria she converted into Big Mama’s, create a warm atmosphere that complements the down home meals she serves. All that, plus the fact that she pined to open her own restaurant for decades while raising her family and working in the corporate world, makes hers one of those magnificent obsession stories fulfilled that I love telling.

 

 

 

 

Big Mama’s Keeps It Real, A Soul Food Sanctuary in Omaha: As Seen on ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives’

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in The Reader

In some African American families tradition demands the matriarch be called Big Mama. That’s true with Patricia Barron’s family. The 60-something Omahan never cared for the “countrified” term, which her late maternal grandmother Lillie Johnson earned. But when Barron’s grandkids began calling her that sobriquet it became, she said, “the name that was stuck on me.”

Barron proudly carries on the name in her soul food place, Big Mama’s Kitchen & Catering. Located on the Turning Point youth services campus at 45th and Bedford, former site of the Nebraska School for the Deaf, Big Mama’s opened Dec. 10 serving breakfast and lunch. Barron, along with daughters Delena and Gladys and friend, “adopted daughter and chief cook” Valerie, are prepping for a Jan. 15 grand opening, when dinner service should be up and running, too.

For some 30 years Barron operated a catering business from her home. Last August she began a popular soul food dinner at her church, North Side Christian Center. An eatery was a long-held dream. More than once she put her dream on hold to climb the corporate ladder and raise her kids. Stymied in her search for a small business loan and a facility, she stayed the course. That’s typical of Barron and her husband, Earnest Wallace. When the couple and their five daughters moved into their Benson home they endured eggings and racial slurs. They didn’t budge. Now, with the help of volunteers whose work, she said, “has warmed my heart,” she’s converted a kitchen/cafeteria into Big Mama’s. Leopard-pattern oil cloths and flower-filled vases adorn the tables. Earth tone decor warms what could otherwise be a cold space. A display case features her signature desserts.

Barron’s right where she’s supposed to be. “I think I was born to do this. I love to cook. I can be ever so tired but once I get in the kitchen it’s like a rush of energy and I’m ready to go,” she said. “Now it’s time for me to do my second career — what I really wanted to do.”

Aptly, she’s found a home for Big Mama’s on a campus filled with ministries that inspire hope. “We like it here,” she said, “and we’re just pleased to be a part of all that’s going on.” In its own way she sees Big Mama’s as a ministry that rekindles a time when North O was one big clique and families came together over dinner.

“I want to bring people back to the table,” she said.

Anymore, authentic soul food’s hard to find here. She reconnects some folks to their roots and introduces others to the cuisine for the first time. As she likes to explain, soul food’s been handed down through the generations. It’s tradition.

“In our neighborhood we used to hear the term ‘eating high off the hog,’ and that derived,” she said, “from when the master got the best cuts and the slaves were left with scraps. We took those scraps and made delicacies out of them. Made entire meals out of them. That’s really what it is.”

 

 

 

Soul food’s slow-cooked goodness is also a byproduct of slave times. “You worked in the fields 10-12 hours and you had to come home to something to eat, and so your food had to be slow-cooked all day long,” she said. Fresh, savory ingredients cooked for hours at low temps make for succulent eats.

More than the Big Mama name, Barron carries on “Miss Lillie’s” way with soul food. Sundays Lillie put out a spread fit for a wedding banquet. After church the whole family gathered to indulge at her 34th and Bedford home in an area called Plum Nelly. With your chicken, ribs, catfish or gumbo — on holidays there was a choice of entrees — you got greens, chitlins, rice, beans, mac and cheese, cornbread, biscuits and desserts like sweet potato cheesecake and fried pies filled with prune or apricot. All made from scratch, memory and love on a wood-burning stove.

As a girl Barron spent summers with Big Mama, under whose apron a young Patricia learned to cook, propped up on a wooden soda pop case. Later, Barron took it upon herself to preserve grandma’s best dishes. Derived in part from oral history and observation, these dishes form the core of Barron’s menu at Big Mama’s.

 

 

 

 

With your breakfast staples — omelets, casseroles, french toast, pancakes, bacon and eggs — you can get grits or biscuits. Lunch is skimpy on soul food for now with its catfish sandwich, fried shrimp, trio of burgers — including an Afro burger — pizza bread and taco salad. Sides range from greens to cornbread to sweet potato pudding. For dessert there’s pound cake, sweet potato cheesecake, tea cakes and fried pies. Try the sweet raspberry ice tea. Prices are a bit high but not bad.

Big Mama’s enormous, varied catering menu offers hundreds of dishes, half of which are traditional soul food, the other half home-cooked favorites, with some gourmet thrown in. There’s ribs, roasts, chops, oven fried chicken and greens made every which way. A shopping cart is soon coming to her web site – bigmamaskitchen.com.

But will enough folks wend their way to her digs on the institutional, fenced-in grounds? Situated in an old, red-brick structure, Big Mama’s is in Building A at 3223 No. 45th Street. Banners and signs direct you there. Nothing fancy or chic — just real. Clean, too. Barron and crew make you feel welcome with their warm smiles and greetings. Don’t be surprised if Big Mama herself sidles right up beside you.

Open for breakfast and lunch, Monday-Saturday, 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Call 455-6262.

Related articles

• Health-Friendly Soul Food (theoraclemag.wordpress.com)
• Favorite Sons, Weekly Omaha Pasta Feeds at Sons of Italy Hall in, Where Else?, Little Italy (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Community and Coffee at Omaha’s Perk Avenue Cafe (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Chef Mike Does a Rebirth at the Community Cafe (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• A Change is Gonna Come, the GBT Academy in Omaha Undergoes Revival in the Wake of Fire (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• The Ties that Bind, One Family’s Celebration of Native Omaha Days (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Native Omaha Days: A Black is Beautiful Celebration, Now, and All the Days Gone By (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Native Omahans Take Stock of the African-American Experience in Their Hometown (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Back in the Day, Native Omaha Days is Reunion, Homecoming, Heritage Celebration and Party All in One (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Luigi’s Legacy, The Late Omaha Jazz Artist Luigi Waites Fondly Remembered (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Lit Fest Brings Author Carleen Brice Back Home Flush with the Success of Her First Novel, ‘Orange Mint and Honey’ (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Arno Lucas, Serious Sidekick (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)

All Trussed Up with Somewhere to Go, Metropolitan Community College’s Institute for Culinary Arts Takes Another Leap Forward with its New Building on the Fort Omaha Campus

This article appeared a couple years ago on the occasion of the opening of the new Institute for Culinary Arts building at Metropolitan Community College‘s Fort Omaha campus.  The institute has long enjoyed a national reputation and now it has a facility commensurate with its good name.  It’s an impressive structure for what is probably the college’s signature program, and the new quarters, complete with every cooking tool imaginable, and associated landscaping form a grand new front door or entrance for this community college that’s come into its own in the last two decades.

 

 

 

 

All Trussed Up with Somewhere to Go, Metropolitan Community College‘s Institute for Culinary Arts Takes Another Leap Forward with its New Building on the Fort Omaha Campus 

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in The Reader (www.thereader.com)

The opening of Metropolitan Community College’s new $16 million Institute for Culinary Arts building last November gave the culinary program a spacious, state-of-the-art home and the school a new gateway to the Fort Omaha campus.

On March 22 the glass and brick structure designed by HDR Architecture of Omaha has its official dedication.

The public event starts at 4:30 with tours and a reception. The ceremonial opening is at 5:30.

The Institute is the attractive anchor for the college’s new main entrance at 32nd and Sorenson Parkway. Passersby can even glimpse food production and preparation training through the west bank of windows.

Executive director Jim Trebbien has led ICA during a period of substantial growth the past 22 years. He’s seen ICA earn national accreditations and increase enrollment from a few dozen students to more than 600. He’s seen it become Metro’s marquee academic program and  “come of age” along with the college.

 

 

Jim Trebbien

 

He said all four Metro presidents he’s reported to have “backed us and let us do what we do well because we know what we’re doing.”

The new digs, with seven kitchens compared to one in the old makeshift quarters and boasting all new equipment, surpasses even Trebbien’s wildest hopes.

“I never in my mind envisioned something like this,” he said. “Surreal is the word for it. To me, it’s another step. It fulfills the dreams of a lot of people in this city of having a place where the restaurant community comes together. Omaha needs this, too. Education is an important part of developing our work force here.”

Indeed, he said the facilities stack up with the best anywhere. A program long known for excellence, he said, finally has a home commensurate with its standing.

“We’re good at what we do,” he said. “We made it happen before. We’ve still got pretty much the same faculty, which are really the backbone of making a good school . The same high standards went on in the old kitchen, and without a promise of a new kitchen. But the old site was getting to the end. You can only push something so far, and where that breaking point is you never know for sure, but we could have been really close to it, And now here we are all of a sudden with a new face and more space.”

ICA can now accommodate 1,000 students. No more must students squeeze into tight confines or instructors stagger  classes and projects at odd hours seven days a week to handle demand. No more problems finding enough or the right equipment, much less room to store it in.

The main production kitchen would be the envy of any upscale eatery.

“It’s a dream kitchen,” said service chef coordinator and ICA grad Brian Young. “Everything anybody would ever need is here at our fingertips. It just makes the educational opportunities that much better. It gives students a chance to be on an actual line. I’ve watched the program grow and develop into a great, great curriculum. I’m actually jealous of the students going through now and the amazing facility they have to work in.”

Chef-instructor Oystein Solberg added, “It’s any chef’s wet dream.”

 

 

 

 

There’s more, though. The building and its richly outfitted features befit the name Institute and the seriousness it connotes. “That’s exactly what it is, too, it’s really serious,” said Trebbien. He said the new facilities make a statement that  “we’ve got a real culinary institute right here.” He said everyone who sees it, from prospective students to veteran Omaha restauranteurs, “are mesmerized.”

“Any student that now leaves Omaha to go to culinary school has to want to either spend a lot of money or get away out of town,” he said. “The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park does a fantastic job and you’re going to get everything you pay for, but here you’re going to get 95 percent of what you get out there and we’re going to do it for probably one-seventh of the money.”

He said more than low out-of-state tuition accounts for ICA having students from 27 states and nine countries.

“When people come here they see what we do, how we do it and our dedication, they see that we place our people well, they see the Omaha community and restaurant industry embrace us well.”

ICA doesn’t need to take a backseat to anyone. “I can given students all the opportunities now,” Trebbien said. It’s all made an impression on students and faculty. “It certainly gives you a feeling of grandeur,” said student Dawn Cisney. “It’s beautiful here. It’s unbelievable seeing how far we’ve come from the old building to now.” Chef-instructor Brian O’Malley calls it “a transformation. You can really finally start to see what’s possible. One of the biggest changes is a general increase of the level of respect that everyone is walking around with.” It’s pride, said Cisney.

The building also holds possibilities for more community engagement via a  conference center that can host banquets and a culinary theater/demonstration kitchen with production capability to broadcast training classes and cooking shows.

This spring ICA’s first produce garden will be planted outside the building, one of many Trebbien envisions. He wants ICA and the associated horticultural program to actively partner with the North Omaha community gardens movement. By late summer or early fall, he said, a culinary store will open in the renovated old mule barn adjacent to the Institute. The public will be able to purchase take-home entrees and other products prepared by students. Food-related items will be sold.

The Sage Student Bistro at the Institute offers a fine-dining experience to the public with meals prepared by students using local, artisan ingredients.

All of it is part of a sustainable food chain ICA wishes to model. The Institute already employs an integrated system that cycles food from its pantries and coolers for use throughout the building.

Said Trebbien, “We want to be the place that teaches people to plant, grow, harvest, sell, market and cook good, healthy food. That’s what we want to add back to the community, and this building is the start of that.”

Related articles

• Designer Cooking Schools (foodforfuture.wordpress.com)
• Americana: Culinary Institute of America (americanthings.wordpress.com)
• Beyond The Apron with Chopped Champion Chef Shehu Fitzgerald (urbanfoodprint.wordpress.com)
• Jo Ann McDowell’s Theater Passion Leads Her on the Adventure of Her Life: Friend, Confidante, Champion of Leading Playwrights, Directors, Actors and Organizer of Major Theater Festivals and Conferences (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Great Plains Theatre Conference Ushers in New Era of Omaha Theater (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Great Plains Theatre Conference Grows in New Directions (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)

Related articles

• Jo Ann McDowell’s Theater Passion Leads Her on the Adventure of Her Life: Friend, Confidante, Champion of Leading Playwrights, Directors, Actors and Organizer of Major Theater Festivals and Conferences (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Great Plains Theatre Conference Ushers in New Era of Omaha Theater (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)
• Great Plains Theatre Conference Grows in New Directions (leoadambiga.wordpress.com)