Alfonso Orsi left his family of olive and grape growers in Tuscany at the age of 16. After first finding work laying railroad tracks between Chicago and Omaha, he eventually settled in Omaha, where he found employment as a baker for Louis Pardini. Pardini’s bakery was located at 2119 Pierce St. That building later became home to both Rotella’s Italian Bakery and Malara’s Restaurant.
After serving in the Italian Army during World War I, Alfonso returned to the bakery. By 1919, he had purchased it with his brother Ralph and renamed it Orsi Brothers. In the early days, they frequently made bread deliveries by horse and carriage. The business prospered, and in 1931 they relocated to 621 Pacific Street in Little Italy.
The new location had previously been a saloon owned by the Schlitz Brewing Company. After expanding the building, Alfonso hired a craftsman from Italy to build a brick oven constructed with thick walls of brick, sand, glass, and hardwood. The oven served the bakery well, providing both a distinctive flavor to the bread and the only source of heat for the building.
Alfonso suffered the death of his wife, Livia, during in 1939, followed by the loss of his brother and business partner, Ralph, just five years later. Despite these tragedies, he persevered and was joined by his son Claudio in operating the family business after he returned from World War II. The younger Orsi assumed control of the business by 1949.
Claudio replaced the original oven with a modern, far more efficient natural gas oven capable of producing over 3,000 loaves of bread in eight hours—an enormous increase over the 320 loaves produced by the old oven. Despite the upgrade, Claudio later remarked that the original oven was a work of art and said he wished he had kept it.
Orsi’s continued to operate as a neighborhood bakery throughout the 1950s. It wasn’t until the late 1950s or early 1960s that it began offering its now-famous pizza. Although Alfonso, one of the two founders, passed away in 1961, the business remained in capable hands, and the growing popularity of its pizza took Orsi’s to a whole new level.
Bobby, a third-generation member of the Orsi family, took over the business in 1987. Like his father Claudio, Bobby was an avid bowler and competed on the Professional Bowlers Association senior circuit in the 1990s. Both father and son are members of the Greater Omaha Area Bowling Association Hall of Fame.
Were it not for a supportive community that rallied around the bakery following a devastating fire in 1997, Orsi’s may have been forced to close for good. Instead, neighbors and nearby businesses helped clear debris and raise funds, allowing the bakery to rebuild on the exact same site. During the reconstruction, the space was expanded and the ovens were once again replaced.
In 2006, Bobby Orsi Jr., longtime employee Jim Hall, and their wives took over the business. Together, they left their mark by remodeling the interior and adding an Italian deli and imported goods section, allowing Orsi’s to offer hard-to-find Italian products. Despite the losses of Bobby Sr. in 2010 and Claudio in 2018, Orsi’s remains a fixture and one of the few visible remnants of Omaha’s Little Italy neighborhood, continuing to use the original family recipes.
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