In Omaha, a progressive approach to free time
Nebraska’s largest city has vibrant music scene, old sites worth a visit
“Hey! Lucas, right?” I heard a voice as I walked around the Gifford Park Neighbourhood Market, a compact but lively farmers’ market that was a quick walk from the room I was renting on Cass Street in Omaha.
The voice belonged to Alex O’Hanlon, whom I’d met just a couple of days earlier at a donation-based fermentation workshop she had led at City Sprouts, a local organization with a large community garden that promotes health and seeks to improve food quality in the community. Alex and I chatted, and I shared some tamales I’d bought from a market vendor. Remembering my name and saying hello was maybe a small gesture for Alex, but as an outof-towner, I was impressed.
But I wasn’t really surprised that the locals were friendly in Omaha, the biggest city in Nebraska, located about halfway between Sioux Falls, S.D., and Kansas City, Mo. What surprised me during a recent fourday trip was how big the city seemed. I’m not talking about surface area: Omaha, in addition to its famous zoo, has a progressive sensibility that places its good restaurants, livemusic scene and diverse entertainment options on par with cities many times its size. And it’s worth a visit for any curious traveller who, like me, is keen on saving money.
My Airbnb host, Orenda, was accommodating when a flight cancellation led me to arrive a day later than expected (my private room with bath was $41 U.S. a night). She and her partner, both musicians, gave me some recommendations for activities in the area, and let me use their driveway for the car I’d rented through Turo.
This was the first time I had used Turo, a service that operates something like Airbnb and lets private citizens list and rent out their own cars online. The high rates from the national agencies made me get past my trepidation of renting from a total stranger, and I picked a Hyundai Accent from a woman named Stephanie for $33 a day. Luckily, Stephanie was an old hand and she made the pickup and drop-off of the car seamless. One difference with Turo is that there are frequently limits on the number of miles you can drive your rental (300 in my case) — be careful not to exceed your maximum, or you’ll pay an extra fee.
I also made good use of the public bus system, which I found to be a reliable way of making short trips. I bought a book of 10 rides ($12.50) at a local supermarket, and set out to see the city. My first stop was at Artifact, a store that specializes in handmade aprons and tote bags. The Omaha-based brand, which got its start on Etsy, makes its products locally. I was even encouraged to peek into a large area behind the showroom to watch some items being sewn and assembled. They’re not exactly for shoppers on a budget, however: Some run well over $100, so I picked up a locally made bar of eucalyptus and rosemary soap from Benson Soap Mill ($6).
The nearby Joslyn Art Museum, just south of Creighton University, was a logical next stop: The only thing better than a world-class art collection is a free world-class art collection. The Joslyn’s collection includes exceptional examples of work from the ancient world, Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces, modern and contemporary art, and pieces inspired by the American West. The museum also made very effective use of multimedia in one of the first exhibits I saw.
Using a small touch-screen, visitors can watch an examination of a Madonna-and-Child triptych, painted by an unknown artist, that carefully explores the work, section by sec- tion, explaining its style, composition and symbolism.
It explains how the museum came to deduce that the painting was likely done in the early 16th century by a follower of Flemish artist Jan Gossaert. All in all, a fascinating and educational whodunit for a painting I might otherwise have overlooked.
Head upstairs for the American Indian art collection, with artifacts like ration ticket bags and medicine pouches from the Ute and Sioux tribes, as well as work like the pictograph-based “Horse Sense (for advice and council)” by New Mexican artist Jaune Quick-To-See Smith.
El Museo Latino ($5 admission) features Hispanic and Latino art and history and also serves as a cultural centre. A larger-than-life textile exhibit from Mexican artist Marcela Diaz was particularly enjoyable, and included a comically large hammock woven from coconut fibres. Some exceptionally beautiful prints were also on display, like Gabriel Macotela’s “Ruinas de la Independencia” and Manolo Roldán’s “Fragile.”
I won’t spend too much time singing the praises of the Omaha Zoo, which has been one of Omaha’s major tourist draws for decades, but I can’t leave it out because it is too good to miss, especially if you have children. The minute you enter the gate ($21.95 for adults, $15.95 for children) and see the aweinspiring geodesic Desert Dome, you know you’re in for a treat.
Don’t miss the primates, particularly the Western Lowland gorillas and Diana monkeys, as well as the lemur enclosure: Red-Ruffed lemurs are running free, sidling up close enough to touch (but don’t).
Omaha’s Old Market area, a charming concentration of repurposed buildings over a century old, is worth a quick visit. Once the home wholesale and retail grocers in the city, there are now art galleries, shops and restaurants lining the brick streets. I parked my car in a $1-an-hour lot and stopped for an iced tea at Urban Abbey, which might best be described as a coffee house of worship, as it combines both a church and a coffee house.
There are modern church services in the shop’s warm, open space (“The World According to Mister Rogers” is the name of one sermon series) and part of my purchase ($2.50 for a mango peach iced tea) went to benefit Nebraska Appleseed, an organization that supports immigrant rights. I wondered if activism with a decidedly progressive bent struggled to thrive in a state as red as Nebraska, and I asked Eithne Leahy, an Omaha native who was working behind the counter. “It sort of works,” she said. “There’s lots of great work being done on a grassroots level with nonprofit and churches. But with the government …” She paused. “Not so much.”
There’s as much to do in Omaha at night as there is during the day. A hip-hop variety night at the Reverb Lounge, hosted by DJ Houston Alexander, was a great place to kick back with an Old Style beer ($3.50) and enjoy music by local artists. Brothers Lounge, with carpeting and a fireplace, had a pleasingly dingy atmosphere that went well with the $1 bag of Gardetto’s and $4 Pyramid apricot ale I purchased. I snacked and listened to a couple of bands ($5 cover) that were playing that evening: The dreamy, synth-heavy Rogue Moon, and Media Jeweller, a four-piece outfit that I can best describe as Weezer meets Frank Zappa.
While I only caught the tail end of their show, I thoroughly enjoyed Dent May, a Los Angeles-based band playing at the Slowdown ($12). Their song “Born Too Late” was both pop-y and wistful; I liked it so much, I bought a band T-shirt. But little could compare to Hard Candy Omaha ($20), a drag show hosted by the Max, a gay club on Jackson Street downtown. In a saunalike room jam-packed with people, the evening’s emcee introduced a series of impeccably dressed performers who lip-synched, vogued and cartwheeled down ashort runway to different popular songs (and the dollar bills of appreciative audience members).
Finally, the emcee gave the crowd what it had eagerly been awaiting. “Are you ready for something thin, white and salty?” he asked. The crowd roared with enthusiasm as the evening’s headliner, Miz Cracker, a popular drag performer who was on the reality series RuPaul’s Drag Race, came onstage to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and blew the roof off.
Nourishment is needed after any good night out, and Omaha proved more than up to the challenge. Steak is synonymous with the city, but good steak isn’t cheap. Fortunately, there are a number of good steak houses with reasonably priced lunchtime options. The Drover is one, a dimly-lit, cavernous restaurant with a very tasty 7ounce, whisky-marinated sirloin ($15.95). Johnny’s Cafe, opened in 1922, greets diners with a vaguely intimidating, elaborately wrought set of met- al front doors. Two long, pointed steer horns that act as handles foreshadow the meal to come. Johnny’s is a relic from a bygone era: red leather booths, martinis and plenty of taxidermy adorning the walls. The lunch special, a $9.96 prime rib sandwich (so-priced for the 96th anniversary of the restaurant) with fries and coleslaw, is tough to beat.
Check out Farine and Four if you’re after coffee — the bright, spacious cafe with an open kitchen also served a mean $8 herring toast when I visited. Nearby Spielbound is a good option, too. A board game cafe with more than 2,000 games ($5 for a day pass), it also serves coffee, beer and food. I stopped in for a good $3.75 hibiscus iced tea. On the slightly more upscale side of the dining spectrum, Yoshitomo in the Benson neighbourhood made for a great sushi stop one afternoon during their weekday happy hour (4 to 6 p.m.). The yaki gindara, torched sablefish with yuzu miso ($7.50), was particularly good.
And then there’s the Alpine Inn. It’s tough to explain my immediate love for this magnificent, slightly off-kilter establishment. Is it the outstanding fried chicken, hot and juicy on the inside with skin that shatters like the shell on a crème brûlée? Or is it the outdoor platform where raccoons and cats gnaw on the discarded chicken bones and potato wedges?
It might be Justine, who fretted over my ID for about five minutes, initially refusing to serve me the Coors Light I ordered. “Nope, nope,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve got a baby face, this can’t be you.” The other week, she said, an underage woman working with a police sting operation came in trying to get served. “You promise you’re over 21?” she asked. “I promise,” I said, and she handed me my beer.
“You’re under arrest!” I said. Justine’s face fell for a second, then she burst into laughter when she saw that I was joking. “I swear I was about to jump over the bar and beat the hell out of you!”
While I waited for my chicken, we made small talk, chatting about our families, the history of the inn — everything and nothing. I felt perfectly comfortable and at home; It was a feeling I’d become well acquainted with during my stay in Omaha.