Published October 4, 2026 | Updated October 4, 2026

Nino’s Place. I’ve often wondered about the origins of the red, white, and green sign. It’s been a Grover Street fixture sitting between Little Papio Creek and 66th Street for as long as I can remember.

The sign marks the spot where Nino D’Agosta operated his small tavern. The son of Sicilian immigrants, he had a larger-than-life personality. He was born to Salvatore and Maria D’Agosta, owners of the Pearl Harbor Cafe at 10th and Pierce Streets.

Nino spent some time as an amateur heavyweight Golden Gloves boxer who caught the eye of the champ, Rocky Marciano, while Marciano was in Omaha and looking for a fighter to train. Despite losing four of his five fights, Nino convinced Marciano with his build and strength that he could go pro. Nino moved to Boston for a bit to train with the champ, but things quickly soured when he said that the arrangement wasn’t what they’d agreed to. Having to pay his own way, Nino lived in a YMCA and worked long hours in a skirt factory for a man who not only owned the business but also part of his contract. That left little time for training. It also seems that Marciano was preoccupied and unable to meet with the 21-year-old boxer. Nino returned home and, despite saying he was still interested in amateur competition, he never fought in a ring again. Later, he recalled that he was a better street fighter.

Back in Omaha, he married Kathleen Olson and found work first in construction and then as a liquor salesman to support his young family. In 1969, he took over the Super Bar at 113 S. 13th Street, a seedy bar whose regulars were known to rob or beat other customers. He renamed it Nino’s Place and, while turning it into a respectable joint, he banned troublemakers and even disarmed a guy with a gun.

He moved Nino’s Place to its familiar location at 6503 Grover Street in 1974. The property sat on four acres. Ten months after he bought it, the Army Corps of Engineers declared the area a flood plain but never told him. The designation prevented him from expanding the bar or building the retail center he’d planned along the street. For the prior two decades, the property had been home to Grover Street Lakes, a tavern with a man-made fishing hole.

The property was home to a few dozen wild ducks and attracted a sandhill crane. It was also home to a resident groundhog, which, along with squirrels, stared at the customers through the windows. The small dive bar with a pond stocked with fish was certainly unique. According to the Omaha World-Herald, it resembled an “overgrown mobile home” and featured a jukebox, a pinball machine, and a worn-down pool table, all complemented by 1950s-era decor.

The place could barely contain the hulk of a man who was Nino. The former boxer had hands so large that he could pick up six pool balls with a single hand. He once told the newspaper, “Nobody who comes in here leaves a stranger.”  To entertain his customers, he would perform trick pool shots, coin tricks, one-liners, and even recite one of his hundreds of poems. Beverage Analyst magazine called him the “poet laureate of the industry.” Nino also hung some of his poems on the walls and even tried to get one declared the official Statue of Liberty poem.

At some point, the pond stopped serving as a fishing hole and in 1978 the newspaper reported a nude woman walking into Nino’s before exiting and jumping into the pond only to be pulled out of the water and resuscitated. The pond eventually dried up but Nino’s bar remained quite popular until the Grover Street bridge running over the creek was replaced in the early 1980s. Over the next nine months, customers could only reach Nino’s from the west. Though Nino kept it going until 2005, it never fully recovered.

The bar closed following Nino’s death from a heart attack at 68. He now rests at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. Nino left behind his framed poems, inventions including a weight-lifting device, and boxes of T-shirts that read “KIGBR” (Keep It Going, Big Red!). Only after the bar closed was its longtime home demolished. In recent years, the property was used as an industrial site and filled with materials and heavy equipment. Now it is listed for sale or lease.

Knowing the backstory, it’s easy for me to see why Nino’s sign still stands. It exists as a tribute to an amateur boxer who caught the eye of the only heavyweight champion to retire undefeated. And to the poet who endeared himself to the community as the owner of a neighborhood bar that welcomed everyone who walked through the door.

Omaha Exploration, 2026. All rights reserved. Excerpts and links are welcome with full credit given to Omaha Exploration and a link back to the original content.