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 D.J. 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 Jeweler, 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 sauna-like room jam-packed with people, the evening’s M.C. introduced a series of impeccably dressed performers who lip-synced, vogued and cartwheeled down a short runway to different popular songs (and the dollar bills of appreciative audience members).
Finally, the M.C. 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 steakhouses with reasonably priced lunchtime options. The Drover is one, a dimly-lit, cavernous restaurant with a very tasty seven-ounce, whisky-marinated sirloin ($15.95).
Johnny’s Cafe, opened in 1922, greets diners with a vaguely intimidating, elaborately wrought set of metal 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 neighborhood 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?
