Joseph Tesnohlidek, a commercial fisherman, opened a soft drink parlor which he later converted to a tavern at the end of prohibition. Following the example of many Eastern Europeans at the time, he simplified his name to Joe Tess. Joe Tess Tavern was located south of the 24th Street business district where the road curves to the east. Joe began displaying his catches from the Missouri River in a display case from a corner in his bar around 1935. The ploy to pull-in a few extra customers by offering a snack launched what would become a South Omaha institution when his wife, Mae, began frying carp sandwiches in a cast-iron kettle and selling them for 15 cents in 1937. At that time, she could only cook six pieces at a time. She said to the Omaha World-Herald that “people would snap ‘em up as fast as I could cook ‘em”. After about a month they had to install large fryers to keep up with the demand. The popular sandwiches were served on thin rye bread and came with hand-cut jacket fries and creamy coleslaw.
During World War II Joe closed the tavern and instead focused on the fish market which was located in the basement. Housed at 5460 South 24th St, the building had large concrete pools through which fresh water was constantly pumped from a special well. This is where Joe kept the live fish until it was time to butcher them. While he dedicated the former tavern space on the main floor to displaying and selling the fish, often-times customer’s would just walk down the stairs where they would form a line behind Joe. They picked up their filets from the cleaning table as quickly as he could prepare them.
The restaurant reopened by 1947 at which point Joe began buying fish from commercial fishermen rather than getting them from an increasingly polluted Missouri River. The restaurant business really began to take off by then and in 1951 he built three large fish ponds which were fed by natural spring water in a ravine at 19th and N St. By the time of his death in 1957, they were serving as many as three tons of fish per day. Mae continued to operate the restaurant for a few years after Joe’s death but eventually sold it to Bill Falt in 1963. Bill started working at Joe Tess’ Place in 1947 when he was just 13 years old. Bill would go on to open a fish market at 20th and L St with his brother before returning to Joe Tess. Even after she sold the business, Mae continued to live in the apartment upstairs from the restaurant. The restaurant remained popular even after its founder’s death and on Friday night’s, people would line up along the sidewalk waiting for a table. Business was so good that Falk expanded it by opening a second location at 6572 Ame Ave in 1979 followed by a third in Lincoln in 1982.
The expansion of the Kennedy Freeway resulted in the original building being torn down in 1984. The new building was constructed just a few lots north of the original. At that point the address changed to 5424 S 24th St. The new, larger location also contained a live fish market but added the convenience of a drive-thru window in addition to a large parking lot. By this point, Mae had moved to an assisted living facility. Despite the closure of its other locations, Joe Tess remained popular and was featured on Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” in 2009 along with other Omaha restaurants.
When the pandemic hit, Joe Tess closed its dining room and like many other restaurants, focused on takeout orders and continued to operate its drive-thru. Business never recovered though and the dining room never reopened. In addition to the pandemic, staffing shortages and supply chain issues were cited as reasons for the restaurant’s closure in June 2022. Today the building remains for sale.
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