Omaha Exploration

The son of a taxi driver, Sid Wertheim moved to Omaha in 1957 after landing a sales job. Growing up in Brooklyn, he feasted on submarine sandwiches so he was shocked to find that such restaurants were nearly nonexistent in the area. He set out to change that after he quit the sales job that brought him to Omaha in the first place.

Sid always had a desire to work for himself so he and his wife Barbara bought an east coast sandwich franchise called Little King. Based on The Little King comic created by Otto Soglow in 1930, the parent company, King Features, owned the comic and the name. 

They opened the sandwich shop on 8024 Dodge St in 1968. After the first week, the franchisee never heard from the parent company even though he paid the necessary fees. Frustrated with the lack of support, Sid eventually called a meeting with the other 15 or so franchise owners. Discovering that they also received nothing in return, they all agreed to break away from the corporate office. 

While Sid wasn’t sure of the fate of the other locations, he would go on to create a corporation of his own. To avoid legal trouble, he hired an advertising firm to develop a new look for the king which was quite a bit different from the original character. That got him into hot water with Burger King who thought that his new king looked a little too familiar to their king. In a true match of David vs Goliath or in this case, Little King vs Burger King, Sid fought back and won. 

The Little King proved to be quite popular with its freshly sliced bread, meats, and cheeses in addition to fresh garnishments including tomatoes, onions, lettuce, etc. When Sid began selling his own franchises, it got the attention of the parent company which demanded royalties. Not one to take kindly to a threat, Sid responded that his restaurant would be just as successful if he changed the name to “Big Bob’s” or something similar. Even though he never heard back from them, he did patent his rendering of the Little King. 

The chain grew rapidly at that point peaking with 100 locations by 1990 including a few in California and Florida. Perhaps tired of running such a large corporation, Sid sold all but 12 Omaha restaurants to Arizona-based Mammoth Resources in 1991. After moving the headquarters to Arizona, the company fell on hard times which led to legal disputes and ended with filing Chapter 11. Sid was saddened to see the result of his hard work over the previous 24 years go down the downhill so quickly. He was adamant to step in and return the king to glory. He was the highest bidder during bankruptcy proceedings and took over in 1993.

He returned the corporate headquarters to Omaha and continued to operate the chain for another four years. When he sold it for a second time in 1997 there were just 45 locations remaining. Its new owner, NY-based Jreck Subs Group operated 180 sandwich shops and planned to expand even more with the acquisition. It seems Little King was allowed to operate at least somewhat independently as Sid remained on as the president until his son, Bob, took over in 2001. 

I’m not entirely sure what happened after that but Omaha-based Lockwood Development bought Little King from Bob in 2021. Lockwood, who hadn’t been in the restaurant business before said in an interview with the Omaha World-Herald that “It felt right for something we could revive. It’s one of those great companies that was started here and has a great reputation. There is quite a runway for Little King to be bigger and better”. While the king had shrunk to just seven locations, we know that the king is nothing if not resilient. To that end, he’s staging a comeback with a new location opened near the original on 86th and Dodge and plans for two more.

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