Neighborhood: Downtown

  • “It Tastes Like Liquid Cinnamon Roll” – A Christmas Cocktail Courtesy of one of Omaha’s Best Bartenders

    “It Tastes Like Liquid Cinnamon Roll” – A Christmas Cocktail Courtesy of one of Omaha’s Best Bartenders

    You need a Christmas cocktail, and Clark Ross is here to help. The co-owner and cocktail impresario behind Mercury – my favorite Omaha cocktail bar – agreed to share a holiday drink recipe with you, (print the recipe here) the loyal readers of sarahbakerhansen.com. Consider it the holiday bookend to the Thanksgiving cocktail, the Mr.…

  • Six last minute gifts that support Omaha’s food & beverage scene

    Six last minute gifts that support Omaha’s food & beverage scene

    This year it is more important than ever to keep our dollars in Omaha and shop local this holiday season. It’s also more important than ever to support our local, beloved bars and restaurants, especially if we want to keep them open beyond the pandemic. To that end, here’s six ideas to consider for all…

  • A list of SBH-approved Omaha-area spots offering Thanksgiving takeout

    A list of SBH-approved Omaha-area spots offering Thanksgiving takeout

    Thanksgiving — the quintessential American food holiday — is going to look very different this year. Many of us (myself included) will miss seeing family and friends. Some of us might be eating alone, or with family over Zoom, and might not feel like cooking at all. That’s where this list comes in. Restaurants have…

  • Letter of recommendation: Burgers and Manhattans on 16th Street

    Letter of recommendation: Burgers and Manhattans on 16th Street

    A couple of weeks back, Matthew and I took a stroll downtown and ended on 16th Street, where we spent our whole evening. I’d like to recommend you consider doing the same: locally-owned bars and restaurants need our business right now, and the two in question this week — Mercury and The Green Room — have new patios to experience.…

  • You should probably try an “Aksarben” from Kitchen Table

    You should probably try an “Aksarben” from Kitchen Table

    You all know by now one of my favorite foods is the Runza, or bierock, which I’ve written about many times before. (I like to claim I wrote its definitive Nebraska history.) I like to eat bierocks from Runza — in fact, I’ve recently moved from the classic Runza to the cheese version in my…

  • Matthew Hansen: On the joys of dining outside in a pandemic summer

    Matthew Hansen: On the joys of dining outside in a pandemic summer

    Sarah and I haven’t wined and dined inside a restaurant or bar since COVID rudely interrupted life’s regularly scheduled programming in March. Five months feels like five decades. We miss cozying up to our favorite back table at Dante and splitting the Cortona pizza and the Bolognese. We miss sidling up to the sushi bar…

  • The Dundee Dell is the tip of the iceberg

    The Dundee Dell is the tip of the iceberg

    Greg Lindberg feels like two years have passed since the beginning of March.  He’s reinvented his business model at least a dozen times since then, the unofficial start of the COVID-19 pandemic.  None of it mattered for the Dundee Dell, the restaurant he bought in 2016 and that has been a midtown staple for 86…

  • Six patios I love, plus a recommendation on taking takeout outside

    Six patios I love, plus a recommendation on taking takeout outside

    The summer of 2020 has been the summer where I do exactly none of the things that I enjoy about summer, and that absolutely includes drinking wine on as many restaurant patios as possible. (It also includes the College World Series and the Maha Music Festival, but I probably shouldn’t get started down this path.)…

  • Celebrate Juneteenth by supporting a Black-owned business in Omaha or Lincoln

    Celebrate Juneteenth by supporting a Black-owned business in Omaha or Lincoln

    It’s Juneteenth, now recognized as a federal holiday in the United States. Want to learn more about what the holiday is about? Here’s a good primer. We encourage you to support these businesses, restaurants and otherwise, which create a varied and important part of our community. Editor’s note: The form to add a business is…

  • Corona cocktail club with Matthew: Mercury’s Booze Cruiser is teaching us how to survive a pandemic

    Corona cocktail club with Matthew: Mercury’s Booze Cruiser is teaching us how to survive a pandemic

    They bought a gently used Nissan. They stenciled their formidable bar’s name near each taillight and hand-painted a trippy celestial scene all over the faded black paint job. They gave their new rolling headquarters a name, emblazoned it on the driver-side and passenger-side doors in electric green: BOOZE CRUISER. And then they headed out, to…