Omaha Exploration

After working in chain restaurants all over the country, Scott Boles knew that in order for a restaurant of his own to succeed, it needed to stand out. In order to accomplish that, he opened the state’s first craft brewery.

For a little context, the last company to brew beer commercially in Nebraska was Falstaff, which closed its Omaha plant in 1985. Three years later the state legislature legalized breweries as long as they served food and served their beer on-site.

Scott, alongside his brother Brian and friend Jay Jarvis, spent the next three years raising the money to purchase brewing equipment, which was quite expensive. They opened Lazlo’s Brewery & Grill in Lincoln’s Haymarket District at 710 P Street in 1991.

The name “Lazlo’s” was actually a nickname the brothers had given Jay, the restaurant’s chef, years earlier. With that settled, the new brewery needed a head brewer. That’s when Scott began visiting stores that specialized in selling homebrewing supplies and asking who the best brewer in town was. They all said the same thing: Rich Chapin. At just 36 years old, Rich had been homebrewing for 15 years and won multiple national awards for his beers. They hired Rich as their head brewer, at which point he began to convert his recipes for a larger-scale operation.

The craft beer offerings were designed to complement the food, which included meat grilled over a hickory wood fire. Brewed behind a glass wall that was visible to diners, Rich began brewing the first beers, which included Lougales Gold, Captain Donovan’s Special Amber, Creamator Stout, Black & Tan, and Brewmaster’s Special.

Lazlo’s was an instant hit and its founders immediately wished they had room for a larger brewing system. By the time Omaha’s first brewpub, Jaipur, opened in 1992, Lazlo’s was already considering opening a location in the larger city 50 miles away. They delayed opening in a new market, instead settling for a second location in South Lincoln.

It wasn’t until 1996, after the state passed a bill allowing breweries to sell their beer through wholesalers, that the brewery became a separate entity from the restaurant. The name, Empyrean Brewing Company, was based on a belief by ancient civilizations that paradise existed at the highest point in the universe within a fiery sphere called “The Empyrean.” At that time, they moved to a larger brewery in the old Coffee & Spice building around the corner at 729 Q Street. One year later, Empyrean was bottling and distributing its Third Stone Brown, LunaSea ESB, and Chaco Canyon Gold beers.

Lazlo’s finally fulfilled its vision of expanding beyond Lincoln when locations opened in Fremont and Omaha in 2006. While the Omaha location remains open, the Fremont location closed in 2007. Meanwhile, the brewing operations continued to grow and started distributing outside of Nebraska in 2009 after expanding to Iowa and the Dakotas. In 2022, they began distributing to Chicago. Back home, Lazlo’s continues to operate three restaurants while Empyrean brews 14 beers, not including its small batches and limited releases.

Tragically, Lazlo’s lost one of its founders when Scott Boles passed away in 2022. He credited his start in the restaurant management business to Valentino’s, where he started working in 1977. Scott was an inspiration and lived by the motto “don’t suck, make the world a better place, and love one another.” He was also the author of Lazlo’s laws, by which the restaurants continue to abide.

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