From Howard Cafe to Barry O’s

July 1, 2024

Located along 10th Street just north of Howard is a storefront that has been the home to a bar before The Old Market was The Old Market. When it opened in 1950, the building in which it sits, the Howard Hotel, was still a hotel.

Once sandwiched between the massive Jobbers Canyon warehouse district to the east and the slowly dying veggie and produce market, the hotel’s rooms were located on the upper floors while the ground floor served as home to a number of restaurants, bars, and retailers. In more recent years, the storefronts facing Howard have been the home to the fixture that is Mister Toad not to mention Phyl’s Deli and Ahmad’s Persian Cuisine.

Around the corner from the prominent intersection is 420 S. 10th Street, a location that had been the site of a cigar store dating back to the 1890s. That continued even after the construction of the hotel in 1909. By 1938, however, it was home to the Howard Cafe. Its location along the dividing line of the two districts made it a busy spot to get an affordable bite to eat for a decade, offering home-cooked food, pastries, and coffee. By 1948 the cafe closed and it seemed to have reverted back to its old life as a cigar store but in reality, it served as a cover for a bookmaking operation. According to an article in the Omaha World-Herald, the owner of Market Cigar Store said of his cigars, “Nobody buys ’em, I smoke ’em up myself.”

1916 Durham Museum photo of Hotel Howard. Howard Cafe (current day Barry O’s is around the corner beneath the Hotel sign that hangs over the sidewalk.

Its next life started in 1950 when it opened as what is The Old Market’s oldest continually operating watering hole: Sensation Bar. While the owners and the names have changed over the decades, its primary purpose has remained the same. There was little published about the Sensation in the Omaha World-Herald except one notable exception which was a break-in where the burglars entered an adjacent cafe, went to the basement and entered the bar by breaking through the plaster wall that separated the two establishments.

1921 Durham Museum photo of the Howard Hotel with the Barry O’s location being the Howard Cafe.

Following the Sensation was Cab’s Bar. Cab Nocita, a bowling enthusiast and founder of the Papio Bowl, opened Cab’s Bar in 1958. That same year he apparently bet his bowling mates that if he finished last in the Goodfellow’s League at Chops Bowling Alley that he would walk all the way from his bar to Trentino’s barking like a dog while saying “I am a dog” between barks. He, in fact, finished last.

1957 Durham Museum photo of the Howard Hotel. The present da site of Barry O’s was Cab’s Bar while Mister Toad was Ferro’s Cafe and JD Tucker’s was 10th Street Billiards.

Cab’s bar at the location was short-lived and Nick Pillege opened his establishment later that year. Originally named Nick’s Bar, he changed it to Ye Olde Inn to celebrate the Nebraska Centennial in 1967. He didn’t stop there as he also installed a new log cabin front and decorated the inside with charcoal decor. Old-timey storefronts were a common tactic of bars going back to the Golden Spike days of 1939. By this point, the produce merchants had largely abandoned the area leaving many buildings abandoned. It was, however, the beginning of a transformation to the entertainment district that would be dubbed The Old Market. The hotel had closed in 1969, the same year that The French Cafe opened making the spot a destination. The old produce and veggie hub was in the beginning stages of its transformation to the entertainment district that we know today.

Prepping for the opening of Barry O’s. Courtesy of Barry O’s Facebook page.

Two friends who had met while working at Gallagher’s, Mike Pueppke and Kevin Massara, bought the location in the up-and-coming district in 1982. The self-described “poor boys who borrowed a dollar from all of their friends” spent another $20,000 to make the space which already included antique fixtures their own. When it was finished, it featured exposed brick walls and was decorated primarily in Egyptian red, somewhere between crimson and orange on the color spectrum. They even added tabletops that were created from sections of the bowling lanes from the Music Box, a bowling alley and ballroom that once stood at 19th and Capitol Avenue. Finishing touches included French lithographs and a canopied entrance. It had come a long way from its days as a “cigar store” decades earlier.

Looking west at the Howard Hotel with Mister Toad on the left and Barry O’s on the right.

The friends named the new bar W. S. Walcott after a traveling medicine man who went up and down the Missouri River in the mid-1800s selling elixirs. Leaning into the theme, the menu read: “We, the proprietors of this establishment, want in no way to reflect Walcott’s occasional penchant for misrepresenting his products; however, we do salute his zest for living and his ability to derive the maximum yield out of a monetary investment.” Perhaps inspired by the popular new bar, The Old Market put on an 1880s-style medicine show during River City Roundup in 1983. An Omaha-based actor portrayed Walcott using a Union Pacific flatcar at 9th and Howard as his stage.

July 2024 photo looking north down 10th Street at Barry O’s.

From its kitchen the restaurant remained open until midnight and offered appetizers, sandwiches, salads, soups, omelets, crepes and desserts, a short wine list and Dom Perignon. Rather than having live music on the weekends, they instead had musicians perform on Sunday and Monday nights, as there was less competition on those days.

July 2024 photo looking at the entrance of Barry O’s on the ground floor of the old Howard Hotel.

By the time Barry O’Halloran took over the space in 1985, the one-time hotel rooms on the second and third floors were being turned into eight apartments. The O’Halloran family owned and operated a number of the most popular bars across town so it was no surprise that when Barry opened Barry O’s, it proved to be a big hit.

Barry O’s is a popular stop on St. Patrick’s Day and during the College World Series, predating the tournament’s move to the downtown stadium. It’s also popular among Creighton Bluejay fans. Former student, player, and coach Brian O’Connor even tended bar while he was there. Since departing for the University of Virginia, it’s become home base for Cavalier fans whenever they make it to the College World Series due to their connection to its coach.

July 2025 photograph of Barry O’s looking south on 10th Street.

Today the former Howard Hotel is home to two of The Old Market’s oldest institutions: Mister Toad, the oldest bar continuing to operate under the same name, and Barry O’s, the oldest continually operating bar of any name.