Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Grow Omaha, the only radio show that talks
about economic development, construction, business expansion, and all of those
things that make Omaha a great place to live or visit.
Grow Omaha on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, good morning, and welcome to the show. Jeff Veals
here at your service, broadcasting live from the KFAB Studios
high above Undwood Avenue and beautiful downtown Dundee. This is
the only show in the metro area that talks about
business and real estate, construction, economic development, really anything related
to Omaha becoming bigger, more prosperous, and more vibrant. Big
(00:38):
thank you to our sponsors. They are Cheer Athletics, the
nation's number one all star cheer Jim and Dingman's Collision Center. No,
without any further Ado, it's time to bring on my
co host, a legendary real estate deal maker and a
guy who's so well known in Omaha. All you have
(00:59):
to do is say his first name and people know
who you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Trenton.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate that, Jeff.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
We've got Share, we've got Bono, and we've got Trent.
In case you don't know his last name is maggot.
But most people just seriously, if you were in this
town and you say all I had a meeting with Trenton,
I wonder what percentage of people would know exactly who
you were talking about.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I know I'm the only Trenton Maggot in the world,
not the only trent in the world. But if you say,
if you type in Trenton Omaha, which I have not
done at least lately, not the last day, or so
ego surfing. I think our show was up later last
night and now that it's twenty one can go to
the bars.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh that's right, you're you're you're referring to the fact
that last week we had the or actually it was
like earlier. No, it was last week we had our
twenty first anniversary of being a radio show.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Yeah, and so I don't know if it's our show's
drinking yet or not, but it's it's a lot more
fun to drink when you're not legal. So maybe it's
not a big deal anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I don't know, but our show certainly is now legally
old enough to drink. And speaking of food and drink,
we have a grow Omaha Eats restaurant review this week.
Chris Corey is our official reviewer. He also reviews movies
for US. You can find all his restaurant reviews and
movie reviews by going to gromha dot com and clicking
on reviews on the navigation bar. But this week, Chris
(02:24):
went to Fizzies Fountain and Liquors. It's in Little Bohemia,
right on thirteenth Street. And this is a fun place.
They have kind of like a nineteen fifties nostalgia even
a lot of ice cream cocktails. But it is a
twenty one and overplace, so don't bring the kids unless
the kids are all grown up. And anyway, it's owned
(02:47):
by a husband and wife team and they came to
Omaha from Portland, Oregon. They're also the people that have
night Owl in the Blackstone District. And I got to
confess I've never been to Physies, but after reading the review,
I got to get there.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Talking to Chris about it, it sounds very cool. I like
something unique. Downtown papillion will be fun and the products
seem very unique.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
What about downtown Papilion in Little Bohemia. Yeah, I've been there, Yeah,
Little Bohemia on thirteen Streets.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
I've been there too.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I just love the fact when Trenton betrays I just
love it when Trenton betrays the fact that he doesn't
actually read our stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
And you're expecting that I listened to you while we're
talking on live radio. I know it's a high expectation,
but I had Papillion on my mind. It's the name
of a song. But our girlmha eats. Restaurant reviews are
brought to you by All Makes, and you know All Makes.
They are the Generations multiple generations strong Omaha provider of
office furniture and technology. They also have locations in Des Moines, Iowa,
(03:51):
over in Lincoln, and several other towns in Nebraska. And
speaking of Chris Corey, we're going to have him on
next segment. We're going to talk about a lot of
restaurant things with Chris, and so if you like to eat,
as all of us at grow Omeha like to do,
you don't want to miss that second segment with Chris.
But first it's time to go into our grow Omaha
News of the Week, which is brought to you by
(04:12):
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They'll take good care of Eagle Mortgage Company dot com.
Well Trenton a couple big news items, and the first
(04:58):
one that I want to get to is that the
Union Omaha soccer Stadium will not be built on the
Gallup campus. We had got some intel about that earlier
this week, published a little something about it in Thursday's
Gromaha newsletter. Mike McKnight from WWT interviewed Gary Green, who
(05:21):
is the head guy with Union Omaha, and he confirmed
that it will not be part of the Gallup campus.
People will recall that the original plan announced early last year,
was that this sixty million dollars seven thousand seat stadium
would be on the grassy lawn between the Gallup headquarters
and Abbott Drive. It would be part of a three
(05:44):
hundred million dollar eighteen acre mixed use development that, in
addition to the stadium would have retail space, apartments, and
a hotel. So there you have it.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
In the statement, Gary Green, the owner of the team,
said they are actively looking for other sites in downtown Omaha.
Should we guess Yeah, I think we should. I think
we should come up with maybe a handful of potential
sites that Union Omaha may consider.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Now that Gallop is off the table.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
You start, well, this has been going on for a
couple of years, ladies and gentlemen, and I think what
makes the most sense, and everybody's proud of their ground
down there. Although I think it would be a good
use for the site next to Gallup, I think getting
more centrally located, such as the Big Up site where
you see the nostalgic trains that they bring in for
the College World Series. So just across the street from
(06:37):
Charles schwab Field to the north YEP on Coming Coming,
I think if they can come to terms with Union
Pacific and the ground's been sitting there for a long time,
that makes the most sense to me.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
While I loved the plan that they put out last
year for the big development of the Big stadium on
the Gallop Lawn, it would have looked great and it
would have been a lot of fun. The one negative
I saw to that plan is that it was a
little too disconnected from the rest of downtown or the
rest of North Downtown. So if they are able to
(07:15):
go to the Union Pacific land that you're talking about,
and if I remember correctly, I think that's about somewhere
between twenty and thirty acres right, and it's it's just
not only is it north of Coming, it's also east
of Milwork Commons, which is just blowing up with development
and Millwork comments a big parking garage not to mention, Yeah,
that should start this year, and that parking garage would
(07:38):
be directly west of this land we're talking about. You
also have the Disney Mule wrapping up construction Milwork Commons.
Construction has started on the Nova apartment building, It has
started on the Frame apartment building. This year we're supposed
to start seeing construction on the Millwork Commons Boutique hotel,
So that would be a good site. But let's say
(07:59):
it and go there. What are some other options?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
You know?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You could have possibly Lot B which or a Lot
B or D, but I think that's highly unlikely.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
It could be the I don't think that the old
up sites big enough, is it?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Oh where the headquarters was? No, No, not nearly.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Yeah, but then you have fourteen or fifteen acres that
capital the the old civic site.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So the Civic site is supposed to be developed by
White Lotus. It's my understanding if I remember correctly that
their agreement with the city requires them to go vertical
by March of this year. That doesn't appear to be happening,
and we're hearing a lot of chatter about something else
possibly going to the site. Yeah, big development. Whatever would
(08:50):
that be Union Omaha Soccer Stadium? Could Union Omaha Soccer
Stadium be part of it? We don't know, or else?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Another possibility we could we could think about would be
west of Interstate for eighty, east of the current Mutual
of Omaha campus and between say Douglas and Farnham Streets
in that area, there's there are four empty square blocks
right there and some people call that the Turner Park
(09:21):
East straight. Well, there there's a lay down yard that
has been set up on that land that will be
used to tear down and rebuild the Harney and Farnham
Street bridges. That's a Hawkins construction layd down. Is that
what you're thinking? Yeah, so you know, because this year,
I think, like this first quarter we should start to
(09:43):
see demo on the Harney Street bridge. They'll rebuild that
in the next year do the Farnham Street bridge, but
that could be a possible spot now. So I think
sometimes people when they hear these things fall through, like
a yeah, they should have known that this was ridiculous.
I just want to remind people that when you're talking
about projects that are tens of millions or hundreds of
(10:03):
millions of dollars, there's a lot that goes into it.
And acquiring this land from Gallup would not have been cheap.
It's my understanding that Union Omahon Gallup were never quite
able to meet on a price, and I'm sure Gallup
has expectations for the land they want to sell. They
want to get fair market value, So we'll see what
(10:24):
happens with that. But that's been my understanding. The rumblings
I've heard was that the land was just too expensive.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
For the pill I've got a pull on whether they
should sell it.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Well.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
On that note, we're going to go to our other
big story, which is the Omaha super Novas. They're having
a great season, the pro volleyball team that plays in
the Chi Health Center.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
But there was an announcement that came out.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Thursday that the ownership of the Supernovas, along with some
other partners from other parts of the country, have formed
mL V Holdings, and MLV stands for Major League volley
So we've got all these pro volleyball leagues for women's volleyball,
and now it appears that this group, which said in
(11:08):
a press release that it has more than one hundred
million dollars in committed funding, is looking at launching Major
League Volleyball in January of twenty twenty six. The Omaha
Supernovas would be the or a founding team. It would
feature ten teams that would be located across the country
in states like Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Idaho, Tennessee, Florida, Ohio, Washington,
(11:33):
all over the place. So the super Novas would lee,
they would leave their current league, which is called the
Pro Volleyball Federation. They'll finish this year in that league
and then go into this new one. So big questions
are raised with US Trenton, and those questions are what
will this league look like? Will other teams from the
(11:55):
Pro Volleyball Federation leave and join the Supernovas? How many
women's pro volleyball league's can America support?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
And it's a relatively young, not young sport, but as
far as commercializing it as a pro league, as a
pro league, and you know, you get only a lot
of tension and you know, hopefully they do it right,
but they don't have too many leagues that confuses people and.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Less than the sport.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
You know, we're concerned about having two professional volleyball teams
women's volleyball teams in Omaha.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, and so far it seems like we're able to
pull this off because just this month, the super Novas
broke their own all time women's professional volleyball attendance record
with darn near fourteen thousand people at the Chi Health Center.
So to pull that off as crazy, of course, we
are the volleyball state. So if there is any successful
(12:52):
major league volleyball presence at all, Omaha's got to be
a part of it.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
The last volleyball game I've been to isak Ask Creighton,
which was fun to watch. Have you been to a
Supernova's a game.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I have not been to a Supernova's game, but I've
been to a lot of I've been to a few
Husker volleyball games, amazing, thoroughly enjoyed those.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
It's the og of volleyball.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Well yeah, and you know the reason where the volleyball
state goes back to Terry Pettitt and what he started
with a women's volleyball team in Lincoln and and and
built it up over the years. So this is going
to be fun to see. Volleyball ranks among the top
five most popular global sports for participation with eight hundred
million players worldwide, so you're going to have a following there,
(13:38):
and and it's very cool. You know, volleyball is not
the NHL or the NBA or the NFL, but it
is cool that Omaha is on the ground level of
a major league sports league.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
And it's really it's a great sport for young girls
it's it's not doesn't require a ton of equipment or yes,
they can travel, but it's it's not as expensive as
a lot of sports like things like that.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, hockey's brutal as far as the expense for parents.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
Well.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Then, finally, the Omaha street Car Authority approved three contracts
for construction and engineering over the last week. The largest
was a twenty six point seven million dollar contract with
Sampson Construction, based in Lincoln, to build the new vehicle
maintenance facility. This will be east of eighth Street, on
(14:25):
the south end of Lot A of the Cochi Health Center,
just in the shadow of an Interstate four eighty exit ramp.
And this will be a very cool building. It'll have
offices for the Streetcar Authority, but mostly it will be
a place for storage and maintaining fixing. You know, periodically
these cars will need to be repaired and maintained, and
(14:48):
that'll be their construction should start very soon. They're already
doing site prep and completion is scheduled for December of
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Bring it on.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Can't wait for that thing to open because it will
fund mentally change urban Omaha for the better and really
create a tremendous amount of business and real estate opportunities
and a lot of fun for residents. All right, we're
going to take our first break of the hour, and
when we come back, we're going to bring on Chris Corey.
He is the official grow Omaha restaurant and film critic,
and we're going to talk a little bit about food
(15:19):
and restaurants really our favorite subject. So stay with us.
It'll make you hungry. You're listening to grow Omaha, brought
to you by Dingman's Collision Center and Cheer Athletics on
News Radio eleven ten Kfabe and welcome back to the show.
Jeff Beial sitting next to Trenton Maggot. We're brought to
you by Dingman's Collision Center and Cheer Athletics. This is
(15:40):
the time in which we are going to talk a
little bit about food, and we have with us Chris Corey,
who is our official restaurant reviewer and film critic. Good morning, Chris,
welcome back.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
Good morning, Jeff, Good morning, Trenton.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Good to have good to have you here, Chris, and
I thought about you yesterday. My wife's birthday was yesterday, Stephanie,
and so the family we went out to Avally and
that's the Pasta, an Italian place across the street from KFB.
You just reviewed that a few weeks ago and it
(16:12):
was awesome. We had great dinner that that's one of
our favorite places.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
I mean, we're going to talk about a top five
list in a little bit, but that's one that we
did right at the end of the year, and that
just snuck in and it was pretty much the top
of my list.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So that made so Avaly was on your top fives? Yeah,
So what else was on your top five? Because that
was a real good article you wrote right at the
beginning of this year looking back at twenty twenty four,
So you loved Avie and what else jumped out last year?
Speaker 6 (16:37):
Let's see here we've got saucepel Farrow. That one was
kind of a nice surprise. Amazing chicken sandwiches. I think
Brad was on here. Lets more casual, much more casual.
That's a downtown popular The only issue they run into. Yeah,
that's what you were thinking of earlier, Right, It's so
popular that there's lines out the door. And I think
the only complaint to hear people say is sometimes it
(16:58):
takes a little minute to get their food. It from
what I understand, they've got their process down and got
that in order. And I saw that they've got these
new chicken nugget things that are out that are there're
any like thing like the tenders that are on their sandwich.
I mean, come on, I gotta get I'm gonna take
Alex down there and go those a try.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So okay, so sauce by al Fara and Ovli and
then uh, and I've still got a chry I still
got a try sauce.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I got admit, Okay, what else was on there?
Speaker 6 (17:21):
We got two flagship restaurants, Memoir that just opened this
last year. And then we have Cleo, which is Gen's.
I think that would be Jen's favorite. Your wife, Yeah, yeah,
her her favorite would be Cleo. And then Oodlali, which
was that was a wonderful surprise. I mean, uh, the
the mission behind what they're doing, how they're trying to
(17:43):
help people with second chance. But you won't know that
when you go in there, you don't. You don't get
that sense. I mean, they're they're in every way professional.
The food that's delivered to you is in every way
top notch, and it's just a great dining experience.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
And this is the same location as the old Marks.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Yeah, and close to here as well. Yeah exactly, just
what's like a block east of here? I think?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, so yeah done.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
It's interesting because if you look at those two flagship
restaurant concepts that you reviewed, they're downtown, and then the
two of the other five are right here in Dundee
where KFA B is now. I've been to both Memoir
and Cleo. Loved both of those. Been to Memoir like
three times and absolutely love that place. I have not
(18:28):
yet tried Ouda Lalli. I got to get in there.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Try to.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Memoir is really good.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I tried to, but the reservations are all taken up
one week and when I tried to get in, even
though I was trying to get in like five or
six days early.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
Because of the review.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Probably thanks Chris, You're welcome.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
One thing about Memoir, it's it's kind of amagamation of
their different restaurants of yeah flagships.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Yeah different.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
What's your favorite menu items?
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Let's see, I think what I have?
Speaker 6 (18:56):
I had the I think I had the flank stake
and that was really good, and that they've got a
really good risotto as well.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
But pink seedy, But.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
I mean they made they made best cocktail on my
top five. So I did the top five restaurants and
I did kind of a bonus of my favorite dishes,
the Marco Island. That's the one that had Jennifer going
come to Mama took as usually we try to, we
try to share, and I got like one one and
(19:27):
a half SIPs because she loved it so much.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Like save something for the rest of us exactly.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
One thing that Omaha is so good about, not just
the culinary institute, but the training that goes into the
restaurant service people. It's yeah, we love the food. You
talk about the food, but if the service is horrible,
then it's a non starter.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
You know.
Speaker 6 (19:52):
That's I was thinking about this last night. One of
the things that I really look for is the whole experience,
you know, because you can bring a great plate of food,
but the service is terrible. It kind of Sully's the
experience and it's not.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Are the personalities If they're not upbeat, Yeah, if they
wear a bad day on.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
There, it makes a big difference. But you know, fortunately,
our experience last year has been pretty top notch. I
mean very rarely do we have any anything remotely negative
which has been great? And I think that just speaks
to Omaha. It's like you said, the training that we
get out here and the culinary scene. I mean, there's
a lot of pride to be taken here.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
In the ladies and gentlemen. We don't if there's a
horrible experience, we just won't cover that restaurant. And so
you don't think that everything and you talk about things
that need help and improvem's on.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
But yeah, we're not going to blast a restaurant. If
Chris goes somewhere and it's bad, We're just not going
to review.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
We're not gonna happen. And why do you want to
hear about a bad restaurant?
Speaker 5 (20:48):
No, I mean, YELP will do that for you.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
Yeah, yep, YELP. I'll tell you if it's terrible. But
you know, I haven't had that yet, you know, knock
on wood. Let's hopefully that trend continues. I'm sure it
will for the most part.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
But yeah, they're not perfect.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I mean, and you'll point out things that you didn't
love as much as others at these restaurants, as Trenton said,
But guys, I want to touch on something that I
just kind of hinted about a couple of minutes ago that,
in my opinion, shows Omaha is growing up in its
restaurant scene and its sophistication level. Last Saturday, we had
some family members in from out of town, both of
(21:22):
whom are you know, just huge foodies. They love they
love the Omaha restaurant scene. And every time they come
spend the weekend with us, which is usually once or
twice a year, we go to a variety of different places.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Guard it's on the list. We haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
So last weekend I tried to and I made the
reservations about six to seven days in advance. I thought, oh,
that's enough time, right, that's enough time. I tried to
get Saturday night dinner. And I'm not criticizing those restaurants.
I'm happy they are hard to get into because it's
a good sign. But six to seven days at advance,
I tried to book reservations for four at Cleo Memoir
(21:58):
Salted Edge boiler Room, and there was one other place
I looked at.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
All were full.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah wow, And I thought, you know, I was a
little bit bummed I couldn't get.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
In can you eat at four.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
No, with the weeks I could. Yeah, that's a good point.
Some of I could have gotten in at four or
eight thirty with that.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Again, there's really good happy hours. I've heard too that
might be tough as.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Well, that's true, but that's good. Yeah, I'm glad to
see that. It just shows that people here are appreciating
our good restaurants. And it just means that if we
want to have a reservation for four on a Saturday night,
you got to do it.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
A little early.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
And the risks that these restaurant tours and entrepreneurs take,
the cost of going to these restaurants unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
Yeah, especially nowadays with the cost of food going up,
it's hard to keep good staff on. But a lot
of people are, you know, really succeeding succeeding in that,
and I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, if you want to read Chris's reviews, just go
to girl Maha dot com and click on Reviews on
the navigation bar. You can see all of his restaurant
reviews and all of his film movie reviews as well.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Chris, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
We appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Chris Corey owner of Arbor Creative and our official critic
of film and restaurants. Going to take our middle of
the show break for the news, and when we come back,
we'll have additional news items plus your novel company's commercial
real estate development spotlight.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
So stay with us.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
You're listening to Grow Omaha brought to you by Dingman's
Collision Center and Cheer Athletics on News Radio eleven ten
kfab and welcome back to the show. Jeff Beals and
Trenton Maggot with you or brought to you by Dingman's
Collision Center, which has five Metro area well four but
soon to be five metro area locations. They all do
a great job and take care of your automobile, not
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only bodywork, but they also have mechanical services as well.
And cheer Athletics All Star Cheer is going to be
an Olympic sport in twenty twenty eight, and so it's
getting really popular and we have pretty much the best
all star cheer gym in America right here in Omaha,
located near Highways fifty and three seventy in Papilion. All right,
(24:01):
it's time for your not al companies commercial real estate
development Spotlight of the Week, which is brought to you
by Not All Companies. They are a premier developer in
America based right here in Omaha. They do projects nationwide.
In Omaha, they're famous for a Sarbon Village and the
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(24:23):
famous for doing shopping centers and headquarters buildings. I mean,
Trent you think about it. Valmont, a couple flew years ago,
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all companies developed that building, so we appreciate Node Companies
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(24:46):
today we go to Exarbon Village and inside a Sarbon
Village is the beloved InterRail Food Hall, and we have
some new We have some new things happening at InterRail
Food Hall, and one of those Poppy's Mexican Grill, which
just recently opened, specializing in authentic tacos.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And then we have the.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Grove, which is a local cold pressed juice and wellness
cafe coming soon. They also have an existing location in
downtown in West Omaha and also at the InterRail Food
Hall Trenton. Maggott visited a brand new restaurant just yesterday.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
So excited, had one of the best burgers I've ever
had in my life. All American Burger Ladies and Gentlemen
just opened. It's a creation of Alex Harrington of Pickleman's fame,
and he is incubating a concept that he wants to
take downtown and other places. But Spaccoli would love it,
(25:45):
and everybody would love it. Everybody from Fast Time, where's
around high it's they bring in the bread I think
from New York. And I liked it so much I
want you to try it as well. So I started
up with Alex and his team at All American Burger
at the the next the first one hundred people that
go there and order and mention grow Omaha, you gotta
(26:08):
mention Gromha gets five dollars off their meal. If you
got five people, that's twenty five dollars off. So ladies
and gentlemen have at it. Let us know what you think.
We'll post this on our Grow Gromha Facebook page and
go check out All American Burger at Exabant in a.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Rail and Trenton has a habit of joking around about
if you say this, you get off money off. This
is real, Yeah, this is real. This is this is
cash from my pocket to yours. So yeah, yeah, Trenton,
this is on Trenton. So go to All America Burger
in the InterRail Food Hall and Mention gro Maha and
get five bucks off.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
It opens at eleven am this morning. Let's see how
long it goes.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, that'll be kind of that'll be kind of cool.
Just watch.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
There will be a big line of people saying, I
want a piece of Trenton's wallet and a delicious bird. Yes,
all right, that is your novel company's commercial real estate
development Spotlight of the week. You can learn more Nodel
Companies by simply going to Nodelcompanies dot Com. Got a
few news items for you that we haven't got to yet.
First of all, the Levi Carter Park Activity and Sports
(27:12):
Complex project is about to move forward.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
In a couple weeks.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
The Omaha City Council will vote on an ordnance to
hire Hasman Construction as the construction manager. The project will
consist of a one hundred thousand square foot facility with
ten basketball and volleyball courts, a wrestling room, weightlifting room,
computer labs, community space. Additionally, it'll have four outdoor soccer
(27:38):
fields and a big parking lot. It's a thirty five
million dollar project. Site grading could start as early as
this spring. It will be located in Levi Carter Park,
directly north of the lake and west of Epley Airfield,
and it looks like the outdoor fields could open this fall,
(27:58):
with the indoor facility opening a year from this fall.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
I just think it's amazing that two international companies are
sponsoring it.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Is Levi Carter.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Oh, you're very very funny. Levi Carter Park Activity Center, Trenton,
all right. The Omaha City Council approved a resolution to
pay a half a million dollars toward Plaza de la Raza.
It's a project in South Omaha, just along the west
side of twenty fourth Street at In Street, in as
(28:29):
in Nebraska, that's the heart of old South Omaha. Such
a such a great area. It'll basically is a parking
lot right now with a very very tiny pedestrian plaza,
but it's going to turn into a very vibrant public space.
It's going to take up most of the parking lot
that's on the west side of twenty fourth Street.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
There.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
All together, additional funding is coming from the State of
Nebraska and Douglas County of six and a half million dollars.
You're going to have a stage, green space, children's playground,
pedestrian plaza. Can't wait to see what that looks like.
But it took a little bit of a step forward
here just recently. And then finally in this segment, I
(29:13):
do want to talk a little bit about the cluster
you know what that is, the Good Life District in Greta, Nebraska. This,
my friend Trenton, is hard to wrap our head around.
So Rod Yates, a friend of ours who is the
owner developer of Nebraska Crossing, pushed through a measure in
(29:33):
the Nebraska legislature a couple of years ago in order
to build a transformative development that would draw a substantial
amount of money from out of state and there would
be all sorts of tax incentives to allow a developer
to do this. The state of Nebraska decided that there
could be up to five of these. The first one
approved was the one in Gretna. Then right after that,
(29:55):
or actually right around that same time, Grand Island had one,
and then Bellevue has one that's going to be around
that really cool water park that starts construction later this year.
There's a fourth one approved for Avenue one near one
hundred and ninety second in West Dodge Road. The fifth
one is kind of being fought over between Papilion and Carney.
At any rate, the developer owner of Nebraska Crossing, which
(30:19):
was the original applicant of the Gretna project, had some
very serious disagreements with the City of Gretna about prices
and terms and how the process would work. And nevertheless,
on Tuesday, January fourteenth, was the final day of a
mail in ballot the citizens of Greta had to vote
(30:40):
on this Good Life district. It passed barely one thousand
and forty four votes to one thy and twenty nine votes.
At about the same time, Rod Yates, the original applicant,
polled his Good Life District saying that he believes the
project no longer viable and supposedly Yates plans to convince
(31:05):
the Unicamerule right now in this year's session to pass
a new law allowing him to develop a mega project
independent from the City of Gretna, and then Finally, to
make matters even more interesting, now, there's talk coming out
of the Governor's mansion that Governor Pillion may want to
rescind and scrap the entire good life concept altogether in
(31:29):
the state, which could mean that all the work done
in Grand Island and Bellevue could be for nought. Trenton
to help me get my head around where the hell
we are with this good life project thing.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
So I think the intentions were good. How do you
define transformative projects with tourism and and but the other
thing too, is that the two thousand acre designation that
that's that's the maximum size these scenes can be. Avenue
one is like two hundred and something acre, just the
(32:00):
developers piece of ground. And then Roddyates wants to go
up to forty five hundred forty five hundred acres, which
would require more legislation to expand that. So I can
understand the city's consternation when you're trying to take what
is it, eighteen thousand people in grant or something. It's
not nice.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Oh and the city ground about ten thousand, I okay,
but maybe eighteen thousand and the surrounding area.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
So and then to bring in thirty thousand or whatever people,
and they say five billion dollars with a development. Obviously
it's a number of years before that could come into play.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Now.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
I applaud Rod and Johanna's it's a sidekick Johanna Boston,
their vision of doing this. The question is the absorb
amount of absorption, the amount of buy in from the
community and everything else. So it'll be interesting to see
how this plays out, and if the governor scraps the
(32:57):
whole thing, that would be crazy.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, if you like drama, ladies and gentlemen, and you
like entertainment, just watch this good life stuff unfold during
this year's Unicamer session. We're out of time for that segment.
We're going to come back after the final break of
the hour with a very quick lightning round by Perkins
Chritzer Construction. But in the meantime, you're listening to Grow Omaha,
brought to you by Dingman's Collision Center and Cheer Athletics
(33:23):
on news Radio eleven ten KFAB and it's the Perkins
Chritzer Construction Lightning Round in which we talk about a
lot of things in a very little bit of time.
Thank you to Perkins Chritzer Construction for making this possible.
They are in the business of building outstanding buildings. Perkins
Chritzer Construction is a full service contractor with all sorts
(33:45):
of experienced superintendent's, project managers, laborers.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
You name it.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
They've got a team that gets it done great buildings,
on time, under budget. Doesn't matter whether you need to
build out a office or retail space, or if you
want to build your own warehouse or church or office building.
They do all of it. Perkins Kritzer Construction. You can
find them online at pdashcconstruction dot com. That's p dashcconstruction
(34:14):
dot com. Hey, first up, Weybridge Ketamine Clinics, which was
founded in Omaha and they help people with depression PTSD,
anxiety pain management. Opening a second location in Nashville, Tennessee.
The original Omaha location is near one hundred and sixty
eighth in West Center Road. Always good to see an
(34:35):
Omaha company expanding out of town.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
I represented them.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Oh did you really?
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Yeah, it's a necessary business. They run a good show.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Goo Goo Ramen, a ramen and Korean fried chicken concept
will open soon at ninety eight twenty South seventy First
Plaza that's in Papilion near seventy second and Cornhusker. It's
in a retail strip near Jersey Mike's. It is adjacent
to Golden Apple Fay, which opened in June of twenty
twenty four and has the same ownership the mutual of
(35:07):
Omaha Skyscraper downtown. They're now working on the twenty eighth floor. Wow,
the concrete sheer tower is going up pretty fast. It'll
eventually be forty four stories. They are already on floor
number forty four. All right, Let's go into a couple
of other restaurant things that we have for you today.
(35:27):
Freddy's Frozen Custard and Stake Burgers assigned a development deal
to do three more restaurants with the franchisee here in
Douglas and Sarpe Counties.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
We don't know where.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
They haven't announced where yet, but the burger chain, based
out of Wichita, Kansas, currently has five hundred and fifty
restaurants in thirty six states, and we'll keep an eye
on where they're going. In Omaha, we have Signor Tequila,
a new Mexican restaurant going into the former Cilantro space
near one hundred and forty fourth in f sign up
(36:00):
up and Silantros is supposedly moving to Oakview Mall area
to the former Smithy's garage space, but I don't believe.
I've heard that they have opened. The Hideaway Grill and
Barr recently opened at eight oh seven South twenty first
Street in the former Whistles Pub and Grub space and
Council Bluffs. I'm told they have five dollars lunch specials
(36:22):
if you want to get a really good deal. The
Only Facial will host its grand opening and ribbon cutting
January twenty eighth at ten twenty South seventy fourth Plose.
It's a facial spa specializing in single signature facial tailored
to individual skin types and concerns. Wow, that sounds fancy.
The Nebraska location is the first around here. They also
(36:47):
have ones in Missouri, Texas and Indiana. Got some closings.
Hate to say it, but you got to know it.
Out Back Steakhouse seventy six and Castreet gone. Amigo's location
in Gretna gone, but don't worry. There are always more
restaurants opening than closing. Trenton Finally, could be a little
controversy here, but Starbucks now says if you come to
(37:10):
use the restroom or hang out and read a book
or work on your laptop. You have to actually order
something because they're a for profit business trying to actually
make it out of here.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
So apparently I used to be able to go there
for the last seven years and buy nothing and use
the restroom or sit there and read your book. Now
not so much. Buy some coffee. All right, The music
is playing, which means we are done. Hope everyone has
a great week. I'm Jeff Beels.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
And I'm Trent and Maggot.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
You've been listening to Grow Omaha, brought to you by
Dingman's Collision Center along with Cheer Athletics and Perkins Kretzer Construction.
Well chat with you next week at nine o'clock right
here on news Radio eleven ten KFAB
This is Grow Omaha, the only radio show that talks
about economic development, construction, business expansion, and all of those
things that make Omaha a great place to live or visit.
Grow Omaha on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, good morning, and welcome to the show. Jeff Veals
here at your service, broadcasting live from the KFAB Studios
high above Undwood Avenue and beautiful downtown Dundee. This is
the only show in the metro area that talks about
business and real estate, construction, economic development, really anything related
to Omaha becoming bigger, more prosperous, and more vibrant. Big
(00:38):
thank you to our sponsors. They are Cheer Athletics, the
nation's number one all star cheer Jim and Dingman's Collision Center. No,
without any further Ado, it's time to bring on my
co host, a legendary real estate deal maker and a
guy who's so well known in Omaha. All you have
(00:59):
to do is say his first name and people know
who you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Trenton.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate that, Jeff.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
We've got Share, we've got Bono, and we've got Trent.
In case you don't know his last name is maggot.
But most people just seriously, if you were in this
town and you say all I had a meeting with Trenton,
I wonder what percentage of people would know exactly who
you were talking about.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I know I'm the only Trenton Maggot in the world,
not the only trent in the world. But if you say,
if you type in Trenton Omaha, which I have not
done at least lately, not the last day, or so
ego surfing. I think our show was up later last
night and now that it's twenty one can go to
the bars.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh that's right, you're you're you're referring to the fact
that last week we had the or actually it was
like earlier. No, it was last week we had our
twenty first anniversary of being a radio show.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Yeah, and so I don't know if it's our show's
drinking yet or not, but it's it's a lot more
fun to drink when you're not legal. So maybe it's
not a big deal anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I don't know, but our show certainly is now legally
old enough to drink. And speaking of food and drink,
we have a grow Omaha Eats restaurant review this week.
Chris Corey is our official reviewer. He also reviews movies
for US. You can find all his restaurant reviews and
movie reviews by going to gromha dot com and clicking
on reviews on the navigation bar. But this week, Chris
(02:24):
went to Fizzies Fountain and Liquors. It's in Little Bohemia,
right on thirteenth Street. And this is a fun place.
They have kind of like a nineteen fifties nostalgia even
a lot of ice cream cocktails. But it is a
twenty one and overplace, so don't bring the kids unless
the kids are all grown up. And anyway, it's owned
(02:47):
by a husband and wife team and they came to
Omaha from Portland, Oregon. They're also the people that have
night Owl in the Blackstone District. And I got to
confess I've never been to Physies, but after reading the review,
I got to get there.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Talking to Chris about it, it sounds very cool. I like
something unique. Downtown papillion will be fun and the products
seem very unique.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
What about downtown Papilion in Little Bohemia. Yeah, I've been there, Yeah,
Little Bohemia on thirteen Streets.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
I've been there too.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I just love the fact when Trenton betrays I just
love it when Trenton betrays the fact that he doesn't
actually read our stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
And you're expecting that I listened to you while we're
talking on live radio. I know it's a high expectation,
but I had Papillion on my mind. It's the name
of a song. But our girlmha eats. Restaurant reviews are
brought to you by All Makes, and you know All Makes.
They are the Generations multiple generations strong Omaha provider of
office furniture and technology. They also have locations in Des Moines, Iowa,
(03:51):
over in Lincoln, and several other towns in Nebraska. And
speaking of Chris Corey, we're going to have him on
next segment. We're going to talk about a lot of
restaurant things with Chris, and so if you like to eat,
as all of us at grow Omeha like to do,
you don't want to miss that second segment with Chris.
But first it's time to go into our grow Omaha
News of the Week, which is brought to you by
(04:12):
Egle Mortgage Ego Mortgage Company dot com. You can find
them in person at one hundred and fourteenth in Davenport,
which is just a little bit south of Dodge and
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and they help you do just that. They will chop
(04:35):
the market for you if you're looking to get a loan,
because they're not a bank, they're not beholden to one bank.
They can look at a lot of banks. That's why
they're called a mortgage broker, and they find the best
lending solution for you. So sit down with Holly Schneidewen
or one of her team of mortgage originators at Egle Mortgage.
They'll take good care of Eagle Mortgage Company dot com.
Well Trenton a couple big news items, and the first
(04:58):
one that I want to get to is that the
Union Omaha soccer Stadium will not be built on the
Gallup campus. We had got some intel about that earlier
this week, published a little something about it in Thursday's
Gromaha newsletter. Mike McKnight from WWT interviewed Gary Green, who
(05:21):
is the head guy with Union Omaha, and he confirmed
that it will not be part of the Gallup campus.
People will recall that the original plan announced early last year,
was that this sixty million dollars seven thousand seat stadium
would be on the grassy lawn between the Gallup headquarters
and Abbott Drive. It would be part of a three
(05:44):
hundred million dollar eighteen acre mixed use development that, in
addition to the stadium would have retail space, apartments, and
a hotel. So there you have it.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
In the statement, Gary Green, the owner of the team,
said they are actively looking for other sites in downtown Omaha.
Should we guess Yeah, I think we should. I think
we should come up with maybe a handful of potential
sites that Union Omaha may consider.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Now that Gallop is off the table.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
You start, well, this has been going on for a
couple of years, ladies and gentlemen, and I think what
makes the most sense, and everybody's proud of their ground
down there. Although I think it would be a good
use for the site next to Gallup, I think getting
more centrally located, such as the Big Up site where
you see the nostalgic trains that they bring in for
the College World Series. So just across the street from
(06:37):
Charles schwab Field to the north YEP on Coming Coming,
I think if they can come to terms with Union
Pacific and the ground's been sitting there for a long time,
that makes the most sense to me.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
While I loved the plan that they put out last
year for the big development of the Big stadium on
the Gallop Lawn, it would have looked great and it
would have been a lot of fun. The one negative
I saw to that plan is that it was a
little too disconnected from the rest of downtown or the
rest of North Downtown. So if they are able to
(07:15):
go to the Union Pacific land that you're talking about,
and if I remember correctly, I think that's about somewhere
between twenty and thirty acres right, and it's it's just
not only is it north of Coming, it's also east
of Milwork Commons, which is just blowing up with development
and Millwork comments a big parking garage not to mention, Yeah,
that should start this year, and that parking garage would
(07:38):
be directly west of this land we're talking about. You
also have the Disney Mule wrapping up construction Milwork Commons.
Construction has started on the Nova apartment building, It has
started on the Frame apartment building. This year we're supposed
to start seeing construction on the Millwork Commons Boutique hotel,
So that would be a good site. But let's say
(07:59):
it and go there. What are some other options?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
You know?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You could have possibly Lot B which or a Lot
B or D, but I think that's highly unlikely.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
It could be the I don't think that the old
up sites big enough, is it?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Oh where the headquarters was? No, No, not nearly.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Yeah, but then you have fourteen or fifteen acres that
capital the the old civic site.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So the Civic site is supposed to be developed by
White Lotus. It's my understanding if I remember correctly that
their agreement with the city requires them to go vertical
by March of this year. That doesn't appear to be happening,
and we're hearing a lot of chatter about something else
possibly going to the site. Yeah, big development. Whatever would
(08:50):
that be Union Omaha Soccer Stadium? Could Union Omaha Soccer
Stadium be part of it? We don't know, or else?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Another possibility we could we could think about would be
west of Interstate for eighty, east of the current Mutual
of Omaha campus and between say Douglas and Farnham Streets
in that area, there's there are four empty square blocks
right there and some people call that the Turner Park
(09:21):
East straight. Well, there there's a lay down yard that
has been set up on that land that will be
used to tear down and rebuild the Harney and Farnham
Street bridges. That's a Hawkins construction layd down. Is that
what you're thinking? Yeah, so you know, because this year,
I think, like this first quarter we should start to
(09:43):
see demo on the Harney Street bridge. They'll rebuild that
in the next year do the Farnham Street bridge, but
that could be a possible spot now. So I think
sometimes people when they hear these things fall through, like
a yeah, they should have known that this was ridiculous.
I just want to remind people that when you're talking
about projects that are tens of millions or hundreds of
(10:03):
millions of dollars, there's a lot that goes into it.
And acquiring this land from Gallup would not have been cheap.
It's my understanding that Union Omahon Gallup were never quite
able to meet on a price, and I'm sure Gallup
has expectations for the land they want to sell. They
want to get fair market value, So we'll see what
(10:24):
happens with that. But that's been my understanding. The rumblings
I've heard was that the land was just too expensive.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
For the pill I've got a pull on whether they
should sell it.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Well.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
On that note, we're going to go to our other
big story, which is the Omaha super Novas. They're having
a great season, the pro volleyball team that plays in
the Chi Health Center.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
But there was an announcement that came out.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Thursday that the ownership of the Supernovas, along with some
other partners from other parts of the country, have formed
mL V Holdings, and MLV stands for Major League volley
So we've got all these pro volleyball leagues for women's volleyball,
and now it appears that this group, which said in
(11:08):
a press release that it has more than one hundred
million dollars in committed funding, is looking at launching Major
League Volleyball in January of twenty twenty six. The Omaha
Supernovas would be the or a founding team. It would
feature ten teams that would be located across the country
in states like Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Idaho, Tennessee, Florida, Ohio, Washington,
(11:33):
all over the place. So the super Novas would lee,
they would leave their current league, which is called the
Pro Volleyball Federation. They'll finish this year in that league
and then go into this new one. So big questions
are raised with US Trenton, and those questions are what
will this league look like? Will other teams from the
(11:55):
Pro Volleyball Federation leave and join the Supernovas? How many
women's pro volleyball league's can America support?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
And it's a relatively young, not young sport, but as
far as commercializing it as a pro league, as a
pro league, and you know, you get only a lot
of tension and you know, hopefully they do it right,
but they don't have too many leagues that confuses people and.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Less than the sport.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
You know, we're concerned about having two professional volleyball teams
women's volleyball teams in Omaha.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, and so far it seems like we're able to
pull this off because just this month, the super Novas
broke their own all time women's professional volleyball attendance record
with darn near fourteen thousand people at the Chi Health Center.
So to pull that off as crazy, of course, we
are the volleyball state. So if there is any successful
(12:52):
major league volleyball presence at all, Omaha's got to be
a part of it.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
The last volleyball game I've been to isak Ask Creighton,
which was fun to watch. Have you been to a
Supernova's a game.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I have not been to a Supernova's game, but I've
been to a lot of I've been to a few
Husker volleyball games, amazing, thoroughly enjoyed those.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
It's the og of volleyball.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Well yeah, and you know the reason where the volleyball
state goes back to Terry Pettitt and what he started
with a women's volleyball team in Lincoln and and and
built it up over the years. So this is going
to be fun to see. Volleyball ranks among the top
five most popular global sports for participation with eight hundred
million players worldwide, so you're going to have a following there,
(13:38):
and and it's very cool. You know, volleyball is not
the NHL or the NBA or the NFL, but it
is cool that Omaha is on the ground level of
a major league sports league.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
And it's really it's a great sport for young girls
it's it's not doesn't require a ton of equipment or yes,
they can travel, but it's it's not as expensive as
a lot of sports like things like that.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, hockey's brutal as far as the expense for parents.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
Well.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Then, finally, the Omaha street Car Authority approved three contracts
for construction and engineering over the last week. The largest
was a twenty six point seven million dollar contract with
Sampson Construction, based in Lincoln, to build the new vehicle
maintenance facility. This will be east of eighth Street, on
(14:25):
the south end of Lot A of the Cochi Health Center,
just in the shadow of an Interstate four eighty exit ramp.
And this will be a very cool building. It'll have
offices for the Streetcar Authority, but mostly it will be
a place for storage and maintaining fixing. You know, periodically
these cars will need to be repaired and maintained, and
(14:48):
that'll be their construction should start very soon. They're already
doing site prep and completion is scheduled for December of
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5 (14:55):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Bring it on.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Can't wait for that thing to open because it will
fund mentally change urban Omaha for the better and really
create a tremendous amount of business and real estate opportunities
and a lot of fun for residents. All right, we're
going to take our first break of the hour, and
when we come back, we're going to bring on Chris Corey.
He is the official grow Omaha restaurant and film critic,
and we're going to talk a little bit about food
(15:19):
and restaurants really our favorite subject. So stay with us.
It'll make you hungry. You're listening to grow Omaha, brought
to you by Dingman's Collision Center and Cheer Athletics on
News Radio eleven ten Kfabe and welcome back to the show.
Jeff Beial sitting next to Trenton Maggot. We're brought to
you by Dingman's Collision Center and Cheer Athletics. This is
(15:40):
the time in which we are going to talk a
little bit about food, and we have with us Chris Corey,
who is our official restaurant reviewer and film critic. Good morning, Chris,
welcome back.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
Good morning, Jeff, Good morning, Trenton.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Good to have good to have you here, Chris, and
I thought about you yesterday. My wife's birthday was yesterday, Stephanie,
and so the family we went out to Avally and
that's the Pasta, an Italian place across the street from KFB.
You just reviewed that a few weeks ago and it
(16:12):
was awesome. We had great dinner that that's one of
our favorite places.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (16:15):
I mean, we're going to talk about a top five
list in a little bit, but that's one that we
did right at the end of the year, and that
just snuck in and it was pretty much the top
of my list.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So that made so Avaly was on your top fives? Yeah,
So what else was on your top five? Because that
was a real good article you wrote right at the
beginning of this year looking back at twenty twenty four,
So you loved Avie and what else jumped out last year?
Speaker 6 (16:37):
Let's see here we've got saucepel Farrow. That one was
kind of a nice surprise. Amazing chicken sandwiches. I think
Brad was on here. Lets more casual, much more casual.
That's a downtown popular The only issue they run into. Yeah,
that's what you were thinking of earlier, Right, It's so
popular that there's lines out the door. And I think
the only complaint to hear people say is sometimes it
(16:58):
takes a little minute to get their food. It from
what I understand, they've got their process down and got
that in order. And I saw that they've got these
new chicken nugget things that are out that are there're
any like thing like the tenders that are on their sandwich.
I mean, come on, I gotta get I'm gonna take
Alex down there and go those a try.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So okay, so sauce by al Fara and Ovli and
then uh, and I've still got a chry I still
got a try sauce.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I got admit, Okay, what else was on there?
Speaker 6 (17:21):
We got two flagship restaurants, Memoir that just opened this
last year. And then we have Cleo, which is Gen's.
I think that would be Jen's favorite. Your wife, Yeah, yeah,
her her favorite would be Cleo. And then Oodlali, which
was that was a wonderful surprise. I mean, uh, the
the mission behind what they're doing, how they're trying to
(17:43):
help people with second chance. But you won't know that
when you go in there, you don't. You don't get
that sense. I mean, they're they're in every way professional.
The food that's delivered to you is in every way
top notch, and it's just a great dining experience.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
And this is the same location as the old Marks.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Yeah, and close to here as well. Yeah exactly, just
what's like a block east of here? I think?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah, so yeah done.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
It's interesting because if you look at those two flagship
restaurant concepts that you reviewed, they're downtown, and then the
two of the other five are right here in Dundee
where KFA B is now. I've been to both Memoir
and Cleo. Loved both of those. Been to Memoir like
three times and absolutely love that place. I have not
(18:28):
yet tried Ouda Lalli. I got to get in there.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Try to.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Memoir is really good.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I tried to, but the reservations are all taken up
one week and when I tried to get in, even
though I was trying to get in like five or
six days early.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
Because of the review.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Probably thanks Chris, You're welcome.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
One thing about Memoir, it's it's kind of amagamation of
their different restaurants of yeah flagships.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Yeah different.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
What's your favorite menu items?
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Let's see, I think what I have?
Speaker 6 (18:56):
I had the I think I had the flank stake
and that was really good, and that they've got a
really good risotto as well.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
But pink seedy, But.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
I mean they made they made best cocktail on my
top five. So I did the top five restaurants and
I did kind of a bonus of my favorite dishes,
the Marco Island. That's the one that had Jennifer going
come to Mama took as usually we try to, we
try to share, and I got like one one and
(19:27):
a half SIPs because she loved it so much.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Like save something for the rest of us exactly.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
One thing that Omaha is so good about, not just
the culinary institute, but the training that goes into the
restaurant service people. It's yeah, we love the food. You
talk about the food, but if the service is horrible,
then it's a non starter.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
You know.
Speaker 6 (19:52):
That's I was thinking about this last night. One of
the things that I really look for is the whole experience,
you know, because you can bring a great plate of food,
but the service is terrible. It kind of Sully's the
experience and it's not.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Are the personalities If they're not upbeat, Yeah, if they
wear a bad day on.
Speaker 6 (20:09):
There, it makes a big difference. But you know, fortunately,
our experience last year has been pretty top notch. I
mean very rarely do we have any anything remotely negative
which has been great? And I think that just speaks
to Omaha. It's like you said, the training that we
get out here and the culinary scene. I mean, there's
a lot of pride to be taken here.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
In the ladies and gentlemen. We don't if there's a
horrible experience, we just won't cover that restaurant. And so
you don't think that everything and you talk about things
that need help and improvem's on.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
But yeah, we're not going to blast a restaurant. If
Chris goes somewhere and it's bad, We're just not going
to review.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
We're not gonna happen. And why do you want to
hear about a bad restaurant?
Speaker 5 (20:48):
No, I mean, YELP will do that for you.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
Yeah, yep, YELP. I'll tell you if it's terrible. But
you know, I haven't had that yet, you know, knock
on wood. Let's hopefully that trend continues. I'm sure it
will for the most part.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
But yeah, they're not perfect.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I mean, and you'll point out things that you didn't
love as much as others at these restaurants, as Trenton said,
But guys, I want to touch on something that I
just kind of hinted about a couple of minutes ago that,
in my opinion, shows Omaha is growing up in its
restaurant scene and its sophistication level. Last Saturday, we had
some family members in from out of town, both of
(21:22):
whom are you know, just huge foodies. They love they
love the Omaha restaurant scene. And every time they come
spend the weekend with us, which is usually once or
twice a year, we go to a variety of different places.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Guard it's on the list. We haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
So last weekend I tried to and I made the
reservations about six to seven days in advance. I thought, oh,
that's enough time, right, that's enough time. I tried to
get Saturday night dinner. And I'm not criticizing those restaurants.
I'm happy they are hard to get into because it's
a good sign. But six to seven days at advance,
I tried to book reservations for four at Cleo Memoir
(21:58):
Salted Edge boiler Room, and there was one other place
I looked at.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
All were full.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah wow, And I thought, you know, I was a
little bit bummed I couldn't get.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
In can you eat at four.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
No, with the weeks I could. Yeah, that's a good point.
Some of I could have gotten in at four or
eight thirty with that.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Again, there's really good happy hours. I've heard too that
might be tough as.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Well, that's true, but that's good. Yeah, I'm glad to
see that. It just shows that people here are appreciating
our good restaurants. And it just means that if we
want to have a reservation for four on a Saturday night,
you got to do it.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
A little early.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
And the risks that these restaurant tours and entrepreneurs take,
the cost of going to these restaurants unbelievable.
Speaker 6 (22:36):
Yeah, especially nowadays with the cost of food going up,
it's hard to keep good staff on. But a lot
of people are, you know, really succeeding succeeding in that,
and I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Well, if you want to read Chris's reviews, just go
to girl Maha dot com and click on Reviews on
the navigation bar. You can see all of his restaurant
reviews and all of his film movie reviews as well.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Chris, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
We appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Chris Corey owner of Arbor Creative and our official critic
of film and restaurants. Going to take our middle of
the show break for the news, and when we come back,
we'll have additional news items plus your novel company's commercial
real estate development spotlight.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
So stay with us.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
You're listening to Grow Omaha brought to you by Dingman's
Collision Center and Cheer Athletics on News Radio eleven ten
kfab and welcome back to the show. Jeff Beals and
Trenton Maggot with you or brought to you by Dingman's
Collision Center, which has five Metro area well four but
soon to be five metro area locations. They all do
a great job and take care of your automobile, not
(23:38):
only bodywork, but they also have mechanical services as well.
And cheer Athletics All Star Cheer is going to be
an Olympic sport in twenty twenty eight, and so it's
getting really popular and we have pretty much the best
all star cheer gym in America right here in Omaha,
located near Highways fifty and three seventy in Papilion. All right,
(24:01):
it's time for your not al companies commercial real estate
development Spotlight of the Week, which is brought to you
by Not All Companies. They are a premier developer in
America based right here in Omaha. They do projects nationwide.
In Omaha, they're famous for a Sarbon Village and the
Builders District, Downtown and so many other developments. They're also
(24:23):
famous for doing shopping centers and headquarters buildings. I mean,
Trent you think about it. Valmont, a couple flew years ago,
opened up their global headquarters in Heartwood Preserve. Well, not
all companies developed that building, so we appreciate Node Companies
being a sponsor. And what we do in the segment
is we pick one Not All Companies project and we
talk about something that's happening in or near it. And
(24:46):
today we go to Exarbon Village and inside a Sarbon
Village is the beloved InterRail Food Hall, and we have
some new We have some new things happening at InterRail
Food Hall, and one of those Poppy's Mexican Grill, which
just recently opened, specializing in authentic tacos.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And then we have the.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Grove, which is a local cold pressed juice and wellness
cafe coming soon. They also have an existing location in
downtown in West Omaha and also at the InterRail Food
Hall Trenton. Maggott visited a brand new restaurant just yesterday.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
So excited, had one of the best burgers I've ever
had in my life. All American Burger Ladies and Gentlemen
just opened. It's a creation of Alex Harrington of Pickleman's fame,
and he is incubating a concept that he wants to
take downtown and other places. But Spaccoli would love it,
(25:45):
and everybody would love it. Everybody from Fast Time, where's
around high it's they bring in the bread I think
from New York. And I liked it so much I
want you to try it as well. So I started
up with Alex and his team at All American Burger
at the the next the first one hundred people that
go there and order and mention grow Omaha, you gotta
(26:08):
mention Gromha gets five dollars off their meal. If you
got five people, that's twenty five dollars off. So ladies
and gentlemen have at it. Let us know what you think.
We'll post this on our Grow Gromha Facebook page and
go check out All American Burger at Exabant in a.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Rail and Trenton has a habit of joking around about
if you say this, you get off money off. This
is real, Yeah, this is real. This is this is
cash from my pocket to yours. So yeah, yeah, Trenton,
this is on Trenton. So go to All America Burger
in the InterRail Food Hall and Mention gro Maha and
get five bucks off.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
It opens at eleven am this morning. Let's see how
long it goes.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, that'll be kind of that'll be kind of cool.
Just watch.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
There will be a big line of people saying, I
want a piece of Trenton's wallet and a delicious bird. Yes,
all right, that is your novel company's commercial real estate
development Spotlight of the week. You can learn more Nodel
Companies by simply going to Nodelcompanies dot Com. Got a
few news items for you that we haven't got to yet.
First of all, the Levi Carter Park Activity and Sports
(27:12):
Complex project is about to move forward.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
In a couple weeks.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
The Omaha City Council will vote on an ordnance to
hire Hasman Construction as the construction manager. The project will
consist of a one hundred thousand square foot facility with
ten basketball and volleyball courts, a wrestling room, weightlifting room,
computer labs, community space. Additionally, it'll have four outdoor soccer
(27:38):
fields and a big parking lot. It's a thirty five
million dollar project. Site grading could start as early as
this spring. It will be located in Levi Carter Park,
directly north of the lake and west of Epley Airfield,
and it looks like the outdoor fields could open this fall,
(27:58):
with the indoor facility opening a year from this fall.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
I just think it's amazing that two international companies are
sponsoring it.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Is Levi Carter.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Oh, you're very very funny. Levi Carter Park Activity Center, Trenton,
all right. The Omaha City Council approved a resolution to
pay a half a million dollars toward Plaza de la Raza.
It's a project in South Omaha, just along the west
side of twenty fourth Street at In Street, in as
(28:29):
in Nebraska, that's the heart of old South Omaha. Such
a such a great area. It'll basically is a parking
lot right now with a very very tiny pedestrian plaza,
but it's going to turn into a very vibrant public space.
It's going to take up most of the parking lot
that's on the west side of twenty fourth Street.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
There.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
All together, additional funding is coming from the State of
Nebraska and Douglas County of six and a half million dollars.
You're going to have a stage, green space, children's playground,
pedestrian plaza. Can't wait to see what that looks like.
But it took a little bit of a step forward
here just recently. And then finally in this segment, I
(29:13):
do want to talk a little bit about the cluster
you know what that is, the Good Life District in Greta, Nebraska. This,
my friend Trenton, is hard to wrap our head around.
So Rod Yates, a friend of ours who is the
owner developer of Nebraska Crossing, pushed through a measure in
(29:33):
the Nebraska legislature a couple of years ago in order
to build a transformative development that would draw a substantial
amount of money from out of state and there would
be all sorts of tax incentives to allow a developer
to do this. The state of Nebraska decided that there
could be up to five of these. The first one
approved was the one in Gretna. Then right after that,
(29:55):
or actually right around that same time, Grand Island had one,
and then Bellevue has one that's going to be around
that really cool water park that starts construction later this year.
There's a fourth one approved for Avenue one near one
hundred and ninety second in West Dodge Road. The fifth
one is kind of being fought over between Papilion and Carney.
At any rate, the developer owner of Nebraska Crossing, which
(30:19):
was the original applicant of the Gretna project, had some
very serious disagreements with the City of Gretna about prices
and terms and how the process would work. And nevertheless,
on Tuesday, January fourteenth, was the final day of a
mail in ballot the citizens of Greta had to vote
(30:40):
on this Good Life district. It passed barely one thousand
and forty four votes to one thy and twenty nine votes.
At about the same time, Rod Yates, the original applicant,
polled his Good Life District saying that he believes the
project no longer viable and supposedly Yates plans to convince
(31:05):
the Unicamerule right now in this year's session to pass
a new law allowing him to develop a mega project
independent from the City of Gretna, and then Finally, to
make matters even more interesting, now, there's talk coming out
of the Governor's mansion that Governor Pillion may want to
rescind and scrap the entire good life concept altogether in
(31:29):
the state, which could mean that all the work done
in Grand Island and Bellevue could be for nought. Trenton
to help me get my head around where the hell
we are with this good life project thing.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
So I think the intentions were good. How do you
define transformative projects with tourism and and but the other
thing too, is that the two thousand acre designation that
that's that's the maximum size these scenes can be. Avenue
one is like two hundred and something acre, just the
(32:00):
developers piece of ground. And then Roddyates wants to go
up to forty five hundred forty five hundred acres, which
would require more legislation to expand that. So I can
understand the city's consternation when you're trying to take what
is it, eighteen thousand people in grant or something. It's
not nice.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Oh and the city ground about ten thousand, I okay,
but maybe eighteen thousand and the surrounding area.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
So and then to bring in thirty thousand or whatever people,
and they say five billion dollars with a development. Obviously
it's a number of years before that could come into play.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Now.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
I applaud Rod and Johanna's it's a sidekick Johanna Boston,
their vision of doing this. The question is the absorb
amount of absorption, the amount of buy in from the
community and everything else. So it'll be interesting to see
how this plays out, and if the governor scraps the
(32:57):
whole thing, that would be crazy.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, if you like drama, ladies and gentlemen, and you
like entertainment, just watch this good life stuff unfold during
this year's Unicamer session. We're out of time for that segment.
We're going to come back after the final break of
the hour with a very quick lightning round by Perkins
Chritzer Construction. But in the meantime, you're listening to Grow Omaha,
brought to you by Dingman's Collision Center and Cheer Athletics
(33:23):
on news Radio eleven ten KFAB and it's the Perkins
Chritzer Construction Lightning Round in which we talk about a
lot of things in a very little bit of time.
Thank you to Perkins Chritzer Construction for making this possible.
They are in the business of building outstanding buildings. Perkins
Chritzer Construction is a full service contractor with all sorts
(33:45):
of experienced superintendent's, project managers, laborers.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
You name it.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
They've got a team that gets it done great buildings,
on time, under budget. Doesn't matter whether you need to
build out a office or retail space, or if you
want to build your own warehouse or church or office building.
They do all of it. Perkins Kritzer Construction. You can
find them online at pdashcconstruction dot com. That's p dashcconstruction
(34:14):
dot com. Hey, first up, Weybridge Ketamine Clinics, which was
founded in Omaha and they help people with depression PTSD,
anxiety pain management. Opening a second location in Nashville, Tennessee.
The original Omaha location is near one hundred and sixty
eighth in West Center Road. Always good to see an
(34:35):
Omaha company expanding out of town.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
I represented them.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Oh did you really?
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Yeah, it's a necessary business. They run a good show.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Goo Goo Ramen, a ramen and Korean fried chicken concept
will open soon at ninety eight twenty South seventy First
Plaza that's in Papilion near seventy second and Cornhusker. It's
in a retail strip near Jersey Mike's. It is adjacent
to Golden Apple Fay, which opened in June of twenty
twenty four and has the same ownership the mutual of
(35:07):
Omaha Skyscraper downtown. They're now working on the twenty eighth floor. Wow,
the concrete sheer tower is going up pretty fast. It'll
eventually be forty four stories. They are already on floor
number forty four. All right, Let's go into a couple
of other restaurant things that we have for you today.
(35:27):
Freddy's Frozen Custard and Stake Burgers assigned a development deal
to do three more restaurants with the franchisee here in
Douglas and Sarpe Counties.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
We don't know where.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
They haven't announced where yet, but the burger chain, based
out of Wichita, Kansas, currently has five hundred and fifty
restaurants in thirty six states, and we'll keep an eye
on where they're going. In Omaha, we have Signor Tequila,
a new Mexican restaurant going into the former Cilantro space
near one hundred and forty fourth in f sign up
(36:00):
up and Silantros is supposedly moving to Oakview Mall area
to the former Smithy's garage space, but I don't believe.
I've heard that they have opened. The Hideaway Grill and
Barr recently opened at eight oh seven South twenty first
Street in the former Whistles Pub and Grub space and
Council Bluffs. I'm told they have five dollars lunch specials
(36:22):
if you want to get a really good deal. The
Only Facial will host its grand opening and ribbon cutting
January twenty eighth at ten twenty South seventy fourth Plose.
It's a facial spa specializing in single signature facial tailored
to individual skin types and concerns. Wow, that sounds fancy.
The Nebraska location is the first around here. They also
(36:47):
have ones in Missouri, Texas and Indiana. Got some closings.
Hate to say it, but you got to know it.
Out Back Steakhouse seventy six and Castreet gone. Amigo's location
in Gretna gone, but don't worry. There are always more
restaurants opening than closing. Trenton Finally, could be a little
controversy here, but Starbucks now says if you come to
(37:10):
use the restroom or hang out and read a book
or work on your laptop. You have to actually order
something because they're a for profit business trying to actually
make it out of here.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
So apparently I used to be able to go there
for the last seven years and buy nothing and use
the restroom or sit there and read your book. Now
not so much. Buy some coffee. All right, The music
is playing, which means we are done. Hope everyone has
a great week. I'm Jeff Beels.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
And I'm Trent and Maggot.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
You've been listening to Grow Omaha, brought to you by
Dingman's Collision Center along with Cheer Athletics and Perkins Kretzer Construction.
Well chat with you next week at nine o'clock right
here on news Radio eleven ten KFAB
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