After a falling out with his business partners that got very messy and involved multiple lawsuits, Rusty Harmsen was looking for a new start. Before we get into that, let’s rewind for those that are unfamiliar. Rusty was one of the Old Market’s earliest tenants and went on to become a prominent Omaha restaurateur. Among the restaurants he started are Redick grill, Cafe Carnevale, Bellevue Yacht Club, Doodles, Gallagher’s, Scribbles and S. P. Ghetti. Today just three remain open. I covered the first two, Mister Toad and Spaghetti Works, in earlier posts. Today we’ll explore the last one.
It was 1989 and Rusty returned to a familiar place for his next business venture: the Old Market. This one was just down the street from Spaghetti Works on 12th and Howard. Located inside the historic Woolworth building which dates back to 1887, Billy Frogg’s was somewhere between a fast-food joint and a full-scale restaurant. After seating yourself, a server would come by to take your drinker order. When you were hungry, you walked up to a window in the back to order food. This allowed you to dine at whatever pace you liked. The concept was very similar to a KC burger joint called Fred P. Ott’s which was looking to expand into the Omaha market at the time.
The opening of Frogg’s stopped Ott’s in their tracks as the expansion never materialized. Rusty being Rusty, he wanted his new place to be one where you could see anything on the walls. To accomplish this, he retrieved items from his personal vault and loaded the space with metal signs, posters, brass items, a bust of Abraham Lincoln not to mention hundreds of other collectibles. Rusty proved he still had the touch when he opened the doors in 1989. It quickly caught on with the college crowd with its burgers, cheap beer and signature pitchers like Pond Scum, Groggy Bottom and Blue Whale. It proved so popular that he soon opened another location on 87th and West Dodge Rd.
The one on Dodge was even more popular prompting Rusty to consider opening franchises in Lincoln, Des Moines and Kansas City – take that Fred P. Ott! I believe that the only one opened outside of Omaha was in Lincoln. Perhaps the concept never caught on in Lincoln or maybe there was just too much competition for the college set, but it closed no longer afterwards in 1996. For reasons that are unclear to me, the West Dodge Road location despite being constantly packed also closed in 2015. Today only the original Billy Frogg’s in the Old Market remains open. It’s also worth pointing out that all Ott’s have since closed.
In an interview with the Omaha World-Herald in 2006, Jim Trebbian of the Metropolitan Community College’s Institute for the Culinary Arts said that Rusty helped transform the Omaha restaurant scene from predominantly steakhouses. When asked, Rusty attributed his success to serving good food in a pleasant atmosphere which was inspired by his travels across the world. While Rusty passed away in 2006 these three ventures live on.
Please feel free to comment to share your thoughts and memories.
Until next time, keep exploring!
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