Omaha Interview: Emily Brewer, Community Development Manager at Millwork Commons

OmahaNebraska.com Interview: Emily Brewer, Community Development Manager at Millwork Commons

Emily Brewer with red brick background at the Ashton Building in Millwork Commons

Omahanebraska.com is here with…

Emily Brewer.

Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you came to be at Millwork Commons.

I am an army brat, so moved around a lot growing up… kind of fostered a love for people and new spaces early, early on. I grew up in Colorado, went to school out in Bozeman, Montana, did a year abroad my junior year, so I studied in Spain. Love to travel, love to be in new places and spaces, and ended up moving to Omaha in 2010 because my dad had taken a government job out here.

I moved to Omaha after just having visited once, ended up really liking it. Learned quickly that if I didn’t only want to hang out with my dad, that I needed to make friends and form a community. And so naturally, the best way to do that for me was by volunteering. I found some great nonprofits in the area. I joined Big Brothers Big Sisters. So I was a Big for about 6 years.

I guess I would say I cut my teeth on the Omaha scene by working in restaurants, so I feel very fortunate to have worked in some really incredible restaurants with some wonderful people over…I’d say the last decade plus. But what got me out of the service industry and into maybe a different kind of service industry was the pandemic. Like many of us, when things were shut down and there was so much uncertainty, certain jobs either had to really pivot to being remote or to change how they operated. With restaurants, it’s pretty hard to wait tables remote.

I was unfortunately laid off from both of my restaurant jobs, and I spent the next however many months trying to figure out what I could be doing, because although I have three college degrees and a minor, I hadn’t really used them since graduating. I always just thought I would figure things out. I joke that they are dinner party degrees, so they’re good for conversation. Very liberal arts focused, but I just didn’t want to teach and wasn’t sure how to use them. I just knew I wanted to go to college and I did, and then afterwards I was like, “Okay, now what?”

Aside from traveling, which again the pandemic really shut that down for a while, I was feeling pretty restless. I ended up getting a job at a medical staffing agency here in Omaha and fortunately or unfortunately, during the pandemic, those were really booming. Travel nursing was a big thing. The pay was great for those wonderful nurses and doctors at the time, and so I took a job and eventually was doing… initially my role was community outreach, because that just kind of fell in line with things I already valued and was plugged into, but I was doing it on behalf of the agency I worked for. That then pivoted to a more internal role, being very employee facing, and so I did employee onboarding, I did events planning, I helped run some of our groups, certain DEI initiatives, all sorts of things, but I really loved interacting with and being face-to-face with employees. That was important to me. I love people. Also, I called it the three C’s—internal communications, culture, and community outreach were the main hats I wore.

And then… gosh, I’ve done some copywriting, just freelance for some agencies and companies around town. I’m not sure if I should name them or not. I don’t think it’s a secret. Is that—? Well, Omaha Performing Arts was a client. Yeah, there’s just some great people I’ve met through being out there in the community.

I love networking. It’s got such a dry term, but I really just enjoyed meeting new people, and so I was very lucky when I was approached about this role here at Millwork Commons. My title is community development manager, and I’m still fairly new in this role and I am still learning. I had some really incredible predecessors. I’m actually friends with both of these gals, and so it’s been really neat to see how the role is kind of evolving as Millwork Commons and the neighborhood itself grows… as businesses and tenants start to move in and they get their footing. It’s been really cool to see how people choose to activate the space, whether it is kind of an organic, natural flow where they’re coming in and working archetype with a coworker or a friend, or if it’s a planned meeting. There are just a lot of great things happening around the neighborhood. And so my role is to find new ways to activate the space, but also, to make sure that our current tenants are happy and are able to utilize it in a way that best suits their needs, whether it’s personal or professional.

Millwork Commons was thought of and planned and took a long time to develop. Do you know a little bit of the history of that, and why this particular space?

Not as much of the concrete history as some of my colleagues would, but a big mission and goal of the neighborhood and the folks who are actively developing Millwork Commons is to really push arts, music, tech innovation, and entrepreneurship, which I know are some exciting buzzwords, but really what Millwork Commons is hoping to do is to give community members, artists, creatives, whomever a space and a platform to—I hate to keep using the same words, but to innovate and to be creative.

As far as the overall vision for Millwork, it’s hard to be future-thinking without reflecting on how we got here. I’m learning that it takes a lot. You see the sausage, but learning how the sausage gets made is a completely different process. It’s trying to think broadly, as far as what does Omaha as a community want? And what do they maybe need that they themselves might not even recognize? And so with the dock, which is located in the Ashton Building within the Miller Commons neighborhood, that’s a space with a state-of-the-art video wall, a great sound system, and so we allow people to use that to show art, or we partner with “KIOS at the Movies” to show documentaries and things like that. We’ve used it for our One Million Cups presentations, all kinds of things. It’s one of those things where when you get people in a room or a space together, often they are greater than the sum of their parts. By creating a vibrant hub as a way to activate a space and bring people to a neighborhood, we hope that it can exist as a legacy neighborhood, as something that you see in other cities, where there are interesting and creative things happening, but not just arts and music…where it can be a tech-focused thing.

We are so lucky to have the Nebraska Startup Academy housed here as well, in the Mastercraft Building. There are some brilliant minds at work over there, and the fact that we have a space for tech-minded folks and those who exist more in the arts and creative world is amazing. We are neighbors with Hot Shops, and that is a slew of… a community in of itself, of some really, really wonderful artists here in Omaha and they are just across the street from us right here in Millwork Commons. It’s exciting to see who are our neighbors and who is visiting this space. My goal is to be a good steward of this neighborhood and a liaison between people …

Oh, another thing that’s great to mention is Millwork Commons is working to be a very sustainable neighborhood. We have native prairie grasses out in our space that we call The Prairie. So a lot of the design of the building, it being a historic site, that meant we weren’t leveling it and rebuilding it  with cheap and also very costly materials. We were working with a structure that was here, to renovate it in a way that created less of a footprint, but also paid homage to what the structures were like beforehand. So the beams you’ll see when you walk around, or the exposed brick that we’re looking at right now, it was all very deliberate, but in an effort to lessen any sort of footprint and have a more gentle environmental effect. There are very smart people who are overseeing those measures, and I’m just grateful to be in a space that prioritizes composting and recycling and leaving a smaller footprint.

Three buildings: Hello Apartments (Left), Ashton (Center) and Mastercraft (Right)

There’s a number of buildings here, and it’s grown slowly. Please tell me a little bit about each building that’s part of Millwork.

Well, there’s a teammate I would love to loop in, Jeff Slobotski and Steven Ausberg… they’ve both been with PGSA for a number of years and have feet firmly entrenched in the city planning world.

We’ve got the Hello Apartments that are just such a delight to visit. I love the branding that they’ve chosen. It’s a whimsical apartment building to live in, and I just think it’s a very cool space.

Dizzy Mule Apartments are open, and there will be retail there.

One of the things I’m always curious about and that we’ve been working on the blog is understanding how neighborhoods thrive. What helps them thrive? What helps them not thrive? And then how do they have a resurgence?

And so one of the things we learned over time was in this area Hot Shops that you mentioned earlier really had an impact on helping develop this area. And it’s interesting that you’re putting an emphasis on artists, and so were they. From what I’ve noticed with other places in other cities is that the artists take a chance, and obviously they can’t afford the fanciest place in town. They take a chance on the area and start to develop it, it  starts to thrive. And then people get encouraged and excited by this, and then more development comes in.

So while in a lot of places, arts and science, arts and music and all of that are one of the first things to go, it’s one of the first things to help develop an area, which I find really fascinating.

Well said. I mean, truly, that’s a perfect way to phrase it. I think if you don’t give creatives—and you don’t just have to be an artist to be a creative, right?

Right.

You can just be someone who is passionate about something niche or something broad community wide, but I say “creatives” as kind of a broad categorization, but…

It’s innovators and entrepreneurs…they’re all creatives in some way.

Yes, exactly.

Even programmers. Yes, your language can be zeros and ones, or it can be watercolors or anything in between, but we want to give people a space. I think neighborhoods that folks are drawn to often have a center in creative arts because it scratches a lot of itches as far as aesthetics: you know, sight, smell, sound, touch, just an overall feeling, and not to get too hippy dippy, but I do think there’s kind of a palpable sense when, like, the energy of a space is more active. I mean, think about someone playing a show to a room of five versus a room of 200… even if it’s so silent in either scenario you could hear pin drop, there’s still this kind of electric shared energy.

And so neighborhoods that thrive. There’s some really cool ones in St. Louis, and there’s  art-heavy districts in other cities…Denver. There’s tons of great pockets of neighborhoods, and I want to learn from them and emulate certain programming to give artists and creatives… entrepreneurs… a chance here. I think that there is also some grace in that there is room for things to fail first time around or maybe not get off the ground in the way we would have hoped or anticipated, but it’s just pilot programming, some of it, seeing, “Do people respond better to events at this time of day or that time of day? What about doing something over the lunch hour versus what about doing something after work?” You know, unfortunately, based on different work schedules, personal demands, family responsibilities, things like that, we can never find the perfect thing at the perfect time, but hopefully as I settle more into this role I can get creative myself and offer sort of a diverse range of things at different times, so that there are accessible programs for people who are interested.

And I’m very open and I very much encourage ideas from the community. For example, I met with someone who wanted to potentially host a bonsai workshop…  the art of these trees. The Japanese art of pruning and growing and shaping these plants. But we talked about “Would that be something better suited to do in the dock for visibility?” And you know, it’s exciting to have people walk through and kind of be like, “Oh, what are you doing there?” Or I met with someone at Kross Strain, Sarah, who runs their programming… we talked about doing a Beers and Bonsai event. So people who sign up for this workshop, they get the materials, and then they can hang out and socialize and have a beverage if they’d like, but really, is that another fun way to activate a space within Millwork in partnership with one of our tenants? So yeah, I’m constantly floored by the really cool requests or ideas that people have shared. And again, if I had an unlimited budget, I would just say yes to everything, but until, you know… we’re a society that just trades in services and goods, I do have to keep in mind that I can’t say yes to everything.

The Dock at the Ashton

I know that there’s the dock here at the Ashton, and … Hello Apartments. Dizzy Mule is relatively new.

We have incredible tenants here [Ashton] , and I hope shining a light on them and supporting them just makes room for other really great tenants, too. You’re not going to see a chain restaurant or anything like that. There’s a reason we have Archetype Coffee here instead of Starbucks, or, Dolomiti for pizza or Heirloom and Clean Slate… Kros Strain, a local brewery. We want to support local businesses, and having them in Millwork Commons is really a treat and I’d say a benefit to those who live in the area or who are visiting. We’re so close to the airport. When I do airport runs, I always …love making a stop and coming in and sitting down at Dolomiti and grabbing pizza with whoever I just picked up and kind of making that a welcome to the neighborhood.

Entrance to Coneflower Creamery in the Ashton building

Coneflower Ice Cream  …  Oh my gosh. Amazing. They have the nicest staff, they give you as many samples as you want, and they never make you feel guilty about asking for a seventh, but I love bringing people by here to grab a coffee at Archetype or take a spin through Heirloom and just grab … hostess gifts over at Heirloom because they have just great little local products: candles, honey, things like that, in addition to really good food. They just have … cards or chocolates, something I can just take a lap through and be like, “Okay, I didn’t know I needed this, but it’s coming with me.”

(Learn more about the Coneflower Creamery here:
https://coneflowercreamery.com
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-brian-langbehn-and-katie-arant-chapman-of-coneflower-creamery-part-one
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-brian-langbehn-and-katie-arant-chapman-of-coneflower-creamery-part-two)

Painting in the background, center with the side of the large screen on the right and white modern table in the foreground

There’s great artwork inside and outside here.

Yes. And one we’re currently working with Amplify Arts to do…it hasn’t been posted yet, but we’ll be doing a call for art and so on. Our video wall in the dock, that, you know we’ve got unless it’s being utilized for something else, we’ve got… and I wish I knew how many artists we had featured in there, but before I started here, they had done a call for art with local artists, and they either created new work, or could submit something existing that they had, and it was selected by a team of people. Again, we are very lucky to be working with Amplify Arts because they’ve got a wonderful pipeline for all of this. But again, we have just different visuals on display, just all the time on that video wall. And so we just thought it would be nice to refresh it. It’s been there for over a year now and just to give other artists a chance to submit some of their work and have it be seen by fresh eyes, and so as far as how they’ll do a call for art for those outside public spaces, we’ve worked with some other great local artists. I personally don’t know how folks are tapped or how that’s curated. Typically we will work with an unbiased organization so that they can help us with an art selection. But so it doesn’t fall to Paul and Annette [Smith], who are art collectors and very generous philanthropists in their own right, but so that everyone has a chance to have their art get seen.

Sounds like another good story there.

And again, not just artists and creatives in that sense, but the Nebraska Startup Academy, housed in the Mastercraft building. Charlie Cuddy and John Grange and Alyssa Cave. They are movers and shakers in that world, and they are so giving of their time and energy and just advice. They hold VC, venture capitalist, office hours after the weekly Wednesday One Million Cups meeting for people who just want to talk through things or ask questions. So they’re helping develop young entrepreneurs and those in the tech world just as much as an arts grant from Nebraska Arts Council or Amplify Arts, is doing. It’s really amazing that Millwork Commons is kind of a space where those worlds are intersecting and supporting each other, and hopefully thriving and just creating pathways for more.

That’s what I was thinking, too. How cool that is.
…
Was there a question you would have liked me to ask?

How can we support our tenants? How can community members support our tenants? And the nonprofits housed here.

Heartland Bike Share is another tenant that comes to mind. And they are just doing such great work to make E-bikes accessible to anyone in the community. You don’t need a special license, anything like that. We want to make public transportation as accessible as possible. We’ve got United Way housed here, Habitat for Humanity.

So ways to support the goings on in Millwork Commons: to follow us on our socials. Even to engage with some of those posts helps generate more eyes on the happenings, which in turn helps bring more attention to what is going on, and it’s just got a ripple effect. Coming down to Miller Commons, maybe carpooling with friends or family and just visiting some of our restaurants and shops or popping by the Hot Shops and seeing what they’re doing and asking if you can have a tour. Engaging with the people. In our surrounding neighborhood is a wonderful way to support us, and that’s what I want to emphasize to anyone listening to or reading this: that we want to build a neighborhood that is good for Omaha and that gives back to the community as much as possible. And so by folks who visit Omaha or who live here and come to see us and spend some time here,  that’s the very best way you in turn can support us and then we can just continue this way of giving back and giving a platform to folks down the road.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. I really, really appreciate it. So yeah, even you being so flexible with time this morning was…  you’re a gracious interviewer and a lovely person.

Thank you.

I’ve seen you roll with quite a few punches. And shout out to, on the record, to our wonderful property management team, Mark with Colliers, and Bluestone Group. We’re grateful for them, too. Mark keeps the wheels on and then some, so I don’t know what I would do without some of these folks who operate behind the scenes. I think the takeaway is that I am lucky and grateful to be here.

Millwork Commons Social Media:

https://www.facebook.com/millworkcommons
https://www.instagram.com/millworkcommons
https://www.linkedin.com/company/millwork-commons
https://x.com/millworkcommons

Website:
https://millworkcommons.com

Shout out to Archetype Coffee for  the great coffee and service we had!

Oatmilk capuccino with a beautiful heart-shaped flower design in a ceramic yellow cup on a blue saucer on a wooden table surface

Catch our interview here with Isiah Sheese, owner and founder of Archetype Coffee:
Omaha Interview: Isaiah Sheese of Archetype Coffee
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-isaiah-sheese-of-archetype-coffee

Omaha Film Festival Interview: Amy Byer Shainman- Executive Producer, “Love, Danielle”, Part Two

OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Amy Byer Shainman- Executive Producer, “Love, Danielle”

Amy Byer Shainman- Executive Producer, “Love, Danielle” with painting in background

Please tell me a little bit of what you did before now and …

And how I got involved. Once I got angry and frustrated about what didn’t happen with my sister, it fueled something in me where I couldn’t go to sleep at night, or live with myself, if I didn’t start speaking up and sharing because I felt like I had these gold nuggets of life saving information that no one knew about.

How can people not know? How can people not know this? This is available and I didn’t know about this. And I consider myself a college educated woman.

The genetic testing has been around for 12 years and her top notch, her world renown physicians weren’t even bringing this up. They were worried really about the acute care and saving her life, which we appreciated, but the other puzzle pieces weren’t being put together. [They didn’t consider] what it meant for her because she was then still at risk for breast cancer.

…

It’s very important if you’re a BRCA gene mutation carrier, or any other gene mutation carrier, to have a manager.  I have a high risk oncologist who manages me and makes sure I get my blood work done. I get monitored for CA 125 and CA 19-9, which is pancreatic.

I should make sure I’m going for my colonoscopies.

In EUS, they do a clinical breast exam still on me. Even though I’ve had a mastectomy and reconstruction, I still get a clinical breast exam every six months because things can pop up. It takes one piece of breast tissue that was left somewhere. You have breast tissue all the way back here (indicates side of torso).

It’s very important to advocate and have a manager, who is monitoring your whole being.

I literally have a medical binder I bring with me to appointments.

I underwent preventative surgery in 2010. I had my ovaries, a full hysterectomy, a total hysterectomy, everything out. Later that year, I had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with immediate breast reconstruction. I did that because my cancer risk was as high as 87% in my lifetime.

Coupled with seeing what my sister went through and seeing her in the pain of ovarian cancer, knowing what the mutation meant, knowing my grandmother died when she was 33 and I was … 40 at the time. I was past the age of the guidelines where you were to have these surgeries.

I’ll infuse that here. The guidelines, the NCCN [National Comprehensive Cancer Network] guidelines are if you’re a BRCA1 carrier to have your ovaries [and] fallopian tubes out between ages 35 and 40. I was 40, so I feel like I was on the tail end of those recommendations.

I was, as we say in the film, a ticking time bomb.

I already had two kids. I was very fortunate. I felt so lucky. I had evaded a cancer diagnosis up until that point.

I’m so lucky (not to say that surgeries were easy). They weren’t. After that I had my surgeries and basically named myself a BRCA responder and became very involved in advocacy.

[I] was doing nonprofit stuff for a while, and then Angelina Jolie came out with her announcement. Do you remember that? In 2013, she came out with the announcement that she was a BRCA1 gene mutation carrier – [the] most beautiful, famous woman in the world.

And it was like, oh my gosh, we have our champion. This is amazing. And simultaneously, the Supreme Court overturned the patent on – it was May of 2013, I believe – the gene patent held by Myriad Genetics. Genes can’t be patented. It was a huge win, meaning that the cost of clinical genetic testing went down drastically because there was now competition in the marketplace.

Something that people don’t seem to notice or understand – how critical legislation and court cases are not just for having an opportunity for your business or for this or that but for life itself.

It’s really important [to know that] all genetic testing and direct consumer genetic testing are not created equal. … That’s really important. [It’s] why you go through a genetic counselor, so you’re making sure you understand who the test company is. They know the insurance companies. They know the best laboratories. They know how to interpret your results, and how to assess you.

So that’s why I always say, go to a professional. I always say, you don’t go to a podiatrist if you have a heart condition, vice versa. You don’t go to a cardiologist if your foot hurts.

What did you do before and how did you meet the writer and actress?

What did I do before?

I am always curious how people’s journeys towards where they are now helped them.

I was always kind of what I call creatively fickle. Always. I took film in college and songwriting and music, all of my electives. I was a communication major. I studied songwriting privately and music theory. I sew. I do crafts. I do [it] all. I have a need to be creative and also [have] a very philosophical side.

And I’m not shy. I was in theater and just gregarious. I’m sort of a gregarious loner. I’m out there, but I like my alone time.

Basically, after all of this happened and I was done with nonprofits and after Angelina Jolie came out with her information, I had my own epiphany of how I can I get this information out there on a global scale – as big of a scale as I can.

When I started going through my surgeries in 2010, that’s when I started to write my book. I started to journal and I had this idea. I’m going to journal because this stuff is important. Maybe it’ll be a book, maybe not. That process took eight years, so my book didn’t come out till 2018.

I started writing in 2010, but then I asked, how can I even go on a bigger scale? And then I was like, movies! Epiphany!  My first project was called “Pink & Blue: Colors of Hereditary Cancer” (2015).

I got connected to a guy named Alan Blasberg who was working – a great director, Alan Blasberg – working on a documentary about his own experience. So, I came on. I executive produced that. That was a great experience and total documentary though.

I was hooked and got involved with a couple projects with my college roommate. My college roommate is Leslie Osborne, who’s a fantastic actress, producer, writer, [and] director. She’s amazing. She’s a quadruple threat. And she’s married to Paul Osborne, who’s another director. He’s had films play at many film festivals and I got involved in some of his films too, kind of behind the scenes.

I became hooked on this medium of film because people are very visual creatures. Wow. We can really entertain, educate, empower people through film and visual arts in a way that we can’t do it by a doctor just sitting there lecturing, going to a class and lecturing away. A documentary even, you know, more than a documentary form. I thought, wow, this is really, a really cool thing we could do, have a trickle down effect. I got involved with Devin in this project, Segue. how I got involved in this project.

…

I was very active on Twitter. It was really big and did a lot of tweet chats and educational things.

…  Devin had posted something about breast cancer.

And since I’m the BRCA responder, I saw it. And I said, “Hey, by the way, I see you’re working on this project.” It wasn’t even titled at the point. It was just a project about BRCA carriers. Of course, I was like, “Oh, what is this? I would love to consult because I’m very passionate about things in the media and things, you know, in the arts and everything getting out there accurately just anywhere.” If you’re gonna do it, you know, let’s get it done right. I said, “I’d love to just consult and make sure everything’s done right.”

Simultaneously and serendipitously, my friend Paul Osborne, who I was just mentioning, was at the Phoenix Film Festival and met Devin’s co-writer. Got into a conversation with her co-writer and found out what the movie was about. And he said, “Oh, well, then you need to get Amy on board and talk to Amy, because she’s the BRCA responder.”

And so it was serendipitous. I don’t even know if you ever knew that story. And so initially I came out as a consultant, and of course, my personality is what it is, and end up executive producing the whole thing.

I’m open to feedback and I’m open to other ideas, but I definitely have strong opinions about things being good.

It’s good to listen to all those things, but it’s important to not continually pivot.

Yes.

Or pivot wrong.

Yeah.

They tell people in business to listen to their customers …  but you shouldn’t do everything that they want because it might not be good.

Exactly.

So you have to find that kind of balance, and then your experiences and everything else is what’s going to make it.

Yes. This project was too important to not be a part of and not get it done right.

Where did you film it?

The pandemic threw a wrench in a lot of people’s plans with everything in life. We started filming and then had to pause and then started filming. Things weren’t working. Did some reshoots. It took a long time to do this film, so it was really five to six years.

It was a long time. The original script doesn’t even look like the finished project because went through so many different permutations. But where it landed, I’m very happy with. It’s been exhausting, but exhilarating to finally see where it’s landed.

The cast.

We’re very fortunate with a fabulous cast. We have, obviously, our lead actress, Devin Sidell, and Jaime King. Jaime King [has] been around forever. She’s fantastic in this role. It’s a must see performance. At Garden State, they were nominated. [Jaime} was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Devin was nominated for support for Best Actress at Garden State Film Festival.

We’ve got Barry Bostwick. Barry Bostwick is fantastic. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the Garden State Film Festival. People would know him from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.

And obviously the iconic and wonderful Leslie Ann Warren, who …going all the way back to “Cinderella” (1965). She was nominated for an Academy Award for “Victor Victoria” (1982).

So we have an amazing cast. We also have Raymond, Raymond Cruz from “Breaking Bad”. In “Breaking Bad”, he plays a really terrible, mean character, drug dealer. He plays Tuco. And this is a total departure, complete departure from that character. I love the casting in that, especially because I can say he plays a male BRCA gene mutation carrier sitting in a waiting room waiting to get a mammogram. Here he is, this tough guy, and I love the juxtaposition of that because it’s those things that change the narrative.

… and let people know that it can be anyone.

Exactly. Exactly. We got Kim Coles, Kelly Jenrette. We’ve just got a great cast and their performances are outstanding.

Do you want me to tell you the film festivals we’re going to be playing at?

Sure!

Okay, so we’re playing here at Omaha Film Festival this weekend, Sunday, March 16th.

One of our producers, Mark Stolaroff, said, “Hey, it’s a great fest. Gotta apply to submit to Omaha.”  So we did. This is my first time here, and it’s awesome. We’re having this best time.

What is the pickle sandwich store right there?

Pickleman’s.

Oh, my gosh. I had my first. I’ve had my first ever Pickleman sandwich yesterday.

Shout out to you, Pickleman’s! Pickleman’s. And gave me a free cookie because it was my first time there.

So go to Pickleman’s. This is my pitch for Pickleman’s. [https://www.picklemans.com ]

What was your sandwich?

I got a number five, the turkey with the bacon. Heavenly. Heavenly. So see, you gave me the free cookie. You’re getting free PR here. It is so good. I want to go back now.

…  So we premiered at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis in October. We had a private screening in LA with Cancer Schmancer, which is Fran Drescher’s nonprofit organization. We’ve done a private, virtual screening with a cancer nonprofit.

What else do we have coming up? We have the Garden State Film Festival coming up, the Annapolis Film Festival coming up, the Phoenix Film Festival coming up, and a couple more coming up that I’m not allowed to announced yet.

But from there, our hope is to get distribution. You know, we’ve been talking to some distributors, but our goal would be to get the film out there by this Fall. That’s the goal. We want to do the festival circuit, but we also want people to see it already.

Is there a question you wish I would have asked?

Well, maybe talk about the misconceptions, like about men being affected and that’s important.

If you’re a BRCA gene mutation carrier it’s really important to know your health screenings and to know your health risks and know your appropriate screenings.

There are options out there to reduce your cancer risk.

It’s not just women affected. Men can carry and pass on a BRCA gene mutation to daughters and sons.

I inherited my mutation from my dad. The ramifications for men and women are different, meaning that women have a higher risk of breast cancer. But male BRCA1 and 2 gene mutation carriers do have a slightly elevated risk of male breast cancer. And that’s important for them to know. And there’s also an increased risk of pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer. These numbers are under 10%, but they’re an increased risk.

What you really are hearing about women so often is that breast and ovarian cancer, it’s a 60 to 85% risk of getting breast cancer in your lifetime if you’re a BRCA gene mutation carrier. If you’re a woman, for ovarian cancer risk, it’s anywhere from 20 to 50%. With BRCA1 carriers, it can be as high as 50% ovarian cancer risk in your lifetime. And there are no reliable screening methods for ovarian cancer.

And that’s why this information is important to know.

Because with ovarian cancer, it’s often found late when it’s in the later stage and later diagnoses. If you have upwards of a 50% chance of getting ovarian cancer, there are no screenings. This is why they’re recommending for BRCA1 carriers, NCCN, to get your ovaries out between the ages of 35 and 40.

Now, we could talk all day about surgical menopause. It’s not wonderful. These options to reduce your cancer risk for women are not great, but they are options and they can save your life. There are also other options [such as] Tamoxifen,

Thank you.

Learn more about this mutation and being diagnosed on her blog at https://thebrcaresponder.blogspot.com

Don’t forget to see her movie, 16 March at 11:45 AM at the Aksarben Cinema.

Get tickets here:

https://off25.eventive.org/films/love-danielle-67a2bb7c7bc4b36063695317

Sunday, March 16, 2025 – 11 :45 AM

Aksarben Cinema
2110 S 67th Street
Omaha, NE 68106

Omaha Film Festival Interview: Amy Byer Shainman- Executive Producer, “Love, Danielle”, Part One

OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Amy Byer Shainman- Executive Producer, “Love, Danielle”

Amy Byer Shainman- Executive Producer, “Love, Danielle” with painting in background

Omaha, Nebraska.com here with …

Amy Byer Shainman

Thank you. It was lovely meeting you here and totally wonderful and unexpected.

Please tell me why you’re here in Omaha.

Totally. I am here for the Omaha Film Festival and my film. “Love, Danielle” which is screening [at] Aksarben Cinema, Sunday 11:45.

That’s why I’m here. I’m here to represent the film, and we’ll do a Q & A after a little bit with me so we can answer any questions or anything anyone wants to know.

I’m very excited to be here.

We’re excited to have the festival and very talented people like you coming.

Please tell me about the film a little bit and then that difficult spot we talked about earlier.

Oh, sure. “Love, Danielle” is the first ever scripted feature film that addresses the issues and decisions faced by a BRCA gene mutation carrier who has not been diagnosed with cancer.

However, there is comedy infused really to make it more palatable for the audience and also because there is humor in everything, even cancer.

I think it helps people digest information more easily when they can laugh about something that is maybe a little bit more serious.

So the logline, would be amid family dysfunction and drama, a woman who carries a BRCA1 gene mutation must decide whether  she should remove her breasts and ovaries to reduce her cancer risk.

That’s basically our logline. And the film is scripted, but it’s based on our lead actress, Devin Sidell, who is the writer, producer and lead actress in the film; it’s based on her story because she is a BRCA1 gene mutation carrier.

And she started writing the script because she realized, “Hey, there’s really nothing out here that addresses this.”

And for her own [reasons], it was cathartic for her. And it was a combination of wanting to get this information out there and for her self-processing it.

That’s why she started writing it.

Please tell us a little bit about the mutation and what the acronym stands for.

Yes. Okay, BRCA. There are over 50 hereditary cancer syndromes and many genetic mutations.

BRCA, breast cancer gene. We all have BRCA genes. BRCA1 and BRCA2, we’re all born with them. You get two BRCA1s from your mother, two BRCA1 genes from your father.

I’m also a BRCA1 gene mutation carrier. We can go into that. That’s why, that’s part of the reason I got involved in this.

What happens is it only takes one mutated gene to have the condition where you are a BRCA carrier.

It’s an autosomal dominant condition. So basically, I have all of my BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes from my mother are working fine.

I have three out of four from my father that are working.

BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are tumor suppressing genes. What that means is they protect you from getting cancer.

If you are born with a mutated BRCA gene, you are birn with an increased risk of developing certain cancers.

Well, I mean, I’m not a certified genetic counselor or a physician, but this has been my passion, my advocacy since about 2008, 2009.

And I happen to know a lot more than the average person.

How did you discover that you had the gene?

Yeah, I can definitely talk about all of that. [In] 2008, my sister was diagnosed with both ovarian and uterine cancer. She was 48. And from there,  we found out that she carried a BRCA1 gene mutation because she ended up having genetic counseling and genetic testing.

She had to demand that, though, because it wasn’t just automatically given to her.

She basically went to an ovarian cancer conference and saw that she had the red flags for BRCA and hereditary cancer.

The red flags –She was under 50 when she was diagnosed. She had two separate primary cancers, and she was of Ashkenazi Jewish descent.

Now, mutations can affect all ethnicities, but certain populations  have a higher risk. For example, Ashkenazi Jewish populations have 1 in 40 chance of carrying this mutation, which is a 10x higher risk than the general population which has a 1 in 200 to 400 chance. Bahamians  have a high rate of BRCA mutation. Also, French Canadians. There are certain populations that have a higher risk for carrying these mutations.

Once my sister found out she carried this mutation, that meant that each of the siblings had a 50% chance of carrying, it as well.

We had the same mother and same father, so I had to undergo genetic counseling and testing and found out that I do carry it.

And then it was this whole thing of, what does this mean for me?

I had no idea, and I couldn’t find any resources out there.

I found one book by a woman named Jessica Queller called “Pretty is What Changes”.

She’s an actual writer in Hollywood as well, and she wrote a book, and that was the only way that I knew how to talk about it.

And then I got really angry because of what didn’t happen with my sister’s situation and how we had to find out about all this.

Because what I learned was genetic testing had become available – clinical genetic testing for these mutations had become available 12 years prior to her diagnosis.

I became very angry and was like, why weren’t the dots being connected?

I think this is more of a story than than only focusing on the film because it’s helping people. … The point of the movie. Right. Is to bring people this knowledge… and hopefully save some lives in the process with the information and…

Basically, we want people to prioritize their health, pay attention, and start having those conversations and be their own advocate.

In my book, I discuss my grandmother. I ended up finding medical letters about her and show those in my book.

That’s a whole other kind of story. But the puzzle pieces in our own family started coming together.

It was like, wow, she died when she was 33, and it was clear from those medical letters that it was metastatic breast cancer.

And she, most likely, from the medical letters, had ovarian cancer as well.

What can people do to learn about this?  … Be educated … Resources.

I mean, it’s important if you have a family history, that’s important to start having these conversations with your family at Christmas, Thanksgiving, holidays, just opening up, hey, why did Aunt Donna die? Tell me more about that. Or was Uncle Bill really sick and how old was he when he died?

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has released a new resource aimed at helping individuals understand genetic testing and counseling for hereditary cancers. This patient-friendly guide provides essential information on identifying genetic mutations that increase cancer risk and details the latest recommendations from experts in the field of cancer genetics. http://thebrcaresponder.blogspot.com/2025/01/new-resource.html 

Bring up your concerns to primary care providers and OBGYNs.

However, they’re not always trained in medical genetics.

And doctors are wonderful people, but we have to advocate for ourselves.

So, I always say the most qualified health care provider to assess your cancer risk, to order any genetic tests, if necessary, if they deem necessary, and then interpret those results would be a certified genetic counselor.

And doctors don’t necessarily always refer out to  genetic counselors.

Yes. And at the end of the the film, we do give that resource. Yes. Because where do people go? What do they do after they see this? We give some resources. I thought that was very important to do so, like nsgc.org. That’s the National Society of Genetic Counselors.

You can find a genetic counselor through their website.

It’s in person or telehealth. There are also other organizations out there. I am known as BRCA Responder on social media.  [https://www.facebook.com/BRCAresponder , https://www.instagram.com/brcaresponder/] And I always have a plethora of resources and everything.[https://thebrcaresponder.blogspot.com].

… The best thing people can do is start writing down their family medical history.

If there’s anything glaring, start having those conversations with their family.

And even if you’re not sure, don’t try to interpret it yourself.

That’s when you, you know, have someone who is trained to interpret what all of this means.

And there are programs out there. There are programs.  However,  all genetic testing is not created equal.

You have to make sure it’s clinical genetic testing.

It’s your personal story, Devin’s personal story. It’s possibly thousands of people’s stories. The future stories of people yet untold will be better because of your important movie.  Your film is not just a movie. You’re going to change the the future stories of BRCA families with this knowledge.

All the medical information and the dialogue and the actions in the film were fact checked by a certified genetic counselor and two physicians. So that was really important to me.

But, of course, it’s Hollywood. It’s a script. So, you have to edit out. There were things we had to leave out. We didn’t delve completely into the whole fertility aspect.

We just said, okay, I have an appointment for you with a great fertility specialist.

You can’t cover everything. You have to decide what is truly important to the story when it is a scripted film. We touch upon important things, but you have to have an editing eye and leave out certain things that don’t further the key elements of the story in a feature length film time frame.

Learn more about this mutation and being diagnosed on her blog at https://thebrcaresponder.blogspot.com

Don’t forget to see her movie, 16 March at 11:45 AM at the Aksarben Cinema!

Get tickets here:

https://off25.eventive.org/films/love-danielle-67a2bb7c7bc4b36063695317

Sunday, March 16, 2025 – 11 :45 AM

Aksarben Cinema
2110 S 67th Street
Omaha, NE 68106

Visit back later for Part Two!

Omaha Event: Showing of “Love, Danielle” at the Omaha Film Festival, 16 March

Just met Amy Byer Shainman, author and producer of a film playing this Sunday for https://www.facebook.com/OmahaFilmFestival!
Her movie, “Love, Danielle” is playing 11:45 AM at Aksarben Cinema on Sunday.
LOVE, DANIELLE Sunday, March 16, 2025 - 11 :45 AM Aksarben Cinema, Screen 5 2110 S 67th Street- Omaha, NE Starring: Devin Sidell, Jaime King, Barry Bostwick, and Lesley Ann Warren Amid family drama and dysfunction, a woman who carries a BRCA gene mutation must decide whether or not to remove her breasts and ovaries to reduce her cancer risk. Love, Danielle is the first scripted feature film to explore the difficult choices and challenges faced by individuals with a BRCA gene mutation who have not been diagnosed with cancer; these individuals are commonly referred to as previvors. It is estimated that around 1 in 200-400 individuals worldwide carries a BRCA gene mutation. GET YOUR TICKETS! omahafilmfestival. org
Promo for the “Love, Danielle” at the Omaha Film Festival.
Check out the trailer and get tickets here:
Amy writes us:
“‘Love, Danielle'” is coming to Omaha, Sunday, March 16th! All medical dialogue and actions were fact-checked by a certified genetic counselor and 2 physicians. The film is educational, powerful, heartfelt, funny, and inspirational!
I’ll be there for the screening and will do a post film Q & A. “
We’ll be posting her interview later on https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog
Aksarben Cinema
2110 S 67th St.
Omaha, NE 68106-2889

Omaha Interview: Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman of Coneflower Creamery, Part Two

OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Coneflower Creamery Owners, Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman, Part Two

Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman smiling inside Coneflower Creamery

And now …

Brian Langbehn: The third shop in Old Town Elkhorn …  is projected for mid to end of April, 2025.

Please make sure to invite me. I’d love to come.

Brian Langbehn: Oh, yeah, for sure.

This [Millwork] area has been really exciting to watch the development over time.

Brian Langbehn: Yeah.

Then there’s kind of a debate onto what this area is called.

Brian Langbehn: There is a little bit, definitely.

I mean, and when we came here, I think the original, the ultimate goal was to have a big enough kitchen space so that we could produce everything for all the shops.

What we really wanted to do was have kind of the central production facility that could supply up to three shops.

Now with that control of the quality and that consistency and efficiency that we get out of one kitchen.

So that was the main focus. But we’ve been really pleasantly surprised as to the foot traffic we’re getting at this Millwork location, as well.

As things develop around here, it’s becoming really, really busy.

Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman smiling inside Coneflower Creamery

How did you find out about Millwork? How long did it take to build out?

Brian Langbehn: We had looked a long time ago.

Katie Arant Chapman: We looked six years ago. We looked way pre-COVID at Millwork. It was totally gutted. I mean, the dock looked nothing like it looks now.

…

Brian Langbehn: And then all the work they have to do, and there really wasn’t the momentum happening down here. It was just like, okay, I could kind of see it, but we thought it was too …

Katie Arant Chapman: … A little too far off the beaten path. Yeah, found a good space that was right for whatever you wanted to do.

Brian Langbehn: We did like being next to the baseball stadium.

We could feel that there was opportunity in this area, but we were just a little early.

Katie Arant Chapman: We reopened Millwork as an option. We said, okay, well, let’s go look at it again. That was probably a tour three years later after seeing it for the first time.

But we still hadn’t found the spot that we wanted to go into, so we said, we’ll look at Millwork again.

We built it out at the tail end of COVID. What I found, I don’t know how you feel about it, Brian, but I have found that I feel like Elkhorn is moving so quickly, and they’re built out because this was a really big space.

There were historical issues to deal with, given that it’s a historic building.

And then just with all the COVID delays, I mean, it was over a year of build out, I’m sure.

Brian Langbehn:  Yeah. Millwork took a long time because of the supply chain issues, just the availability of the regular construction products.

So, this Elkhorn is going much faster now. Now that things are kind of opened up a little bit.

This one definitely took a long time. We love being down here. We’re so glad. We kind of like, you know, Dolomiti – Best pizza, Archetype. -Best coffee, Kros Strain – best beer. We Just feel like it’s a great little.

It’s amazing. The little treasures.

Katie Arant Chapman: Yeah.

Of things right here.

Brian Langbehn:  Right, right. Now, there is a lot of momentum. There’s stuff happening here, and that the whole block.

The Dizzy Mule project, is like that whole block to the south of us here that’s taking off.

And as the Riverfront develops with the park and the Luminarium, the museum, there’s a lot of really exciting things happening down by us here.

Not to mention the baseball stadium and summer College World Series.

Brian Langbehn: There’s a lot happening.

And it’s neat to see, like, an ecosystem kind of develop right in this area.

Katie Arant Chapman: Yeah.

Which a lot of other build outs I’ve seen in other places don’t seem to be that interested in the ecosystem of business and residential.

Brian Langbehn:  Right. It’s much more cohesive down here where there’s a vision of what they want this area to be. I think we’re here early to that vision.

But it’s exciting because now it’s starting to fill in around us, and to get established before is really important because they’ll be like, oh, we can go to Coneflower.

It’s kind of nice to get that first. No, we weren’t first, but one of the first ones down here.

I think we were talking earlier about how special ice cream itself is.

So tell me a little bit more about that and your favorite flavors and maybe some of your more unusual flavors.

And then, of course, nothing wrong with old favorites at the end, so people can have a list of things to wonder about when they do this and want to go try.

Brian Langbehn: Yeah. Do you want to go first, Katie?

Katie Arant Chapman: Yeah. I mean, for me, I am just in general, I’m an incredibly nostalgic person and nostalgic eater specifically.

If I’m taking a pint home, it probably will be the cookies and cream, but the flavors that I’m really proud of here that are a little bit different, probably the brown butter almond brittle is a really comforting … It’s not a classic, but it has like some classic elements to it. The warmth, the brown butter and the nuttiness of the almond toffee I really love.

We do a … I mentioned the saffron and roasted white chocolate has been a really fun one to do that resonates with a lot of people.

Trying to think of one else that I just can’t get enough of.

Brian Langbehn: There’s so many.

Katie Arant Chapman: Honeycomb is one of my all-time favorites too, that we actually just started doing in the last two years.

But we make a honeycomb candy with local honeycomb and swirl that through a vanilla base.

It’s called Hokey Pokey in other parts of the world.

But that’s a really fun kind of like classic to other.

It’s very classic in Canada. Classic to other parts of the world. It’s really delicious. And then the thing that gets me, gives me a little pep in my step all the time is the seasonal stuff.

Christmas, we have an amazing Christmas list of flavors and then we get to move right into Valentine’s Day and do all the really fudgy, rich, decadent flavors.

Now we’re just past that, so we’re doing some Mardi Gras stuff.

We have a Bananas Foster and King cake ice cream. And then we get to roll right into St. Patty’s Day and do chocolate mint and Irish coffee and things like that.

And then after that, it’ll be the first little bits of little hints of spring and then College World Series flavors.

There’s just always something new going on. It’s just fun.

What are you thinking of for College World Series flavors?

Katie Arant Chapman: So for College World Series, traditionally we have three flavors.

We have a Big League Chew, which is bubblegum. And we actually make that naturally by combining vanilla, lemon, orange and banana.

If you combine those in a certain combination, you without a doubt hit bubble gum.

Brian Langbehn: It’s incredible.

Katie Arant Chapman: So we do Big League Chew. We do a spicy Cracker Jack, which is a buttered popcorn base with a sriracha caramel and cayenne peanuts.

It’s really fun.

And then we also do a malted milk chocolate, which is kind of an homage to those little malted milk Goodrich cups that you get at the stadium with the wooden spoon.

The tough thing is, we have so many classics that people look forward to every year.

We look forward to making them, balancing that with being innovative.

And we only have so many slots in the freezer up here when we’re keeping ice cream.

Brian Langbehn: So, yeah, if you don’t make the favorites, you would definitely hear about it.

But we always like to try to, you know, innovate and create as well.

So, yeah, that’s a balance.

Katie Arant Chapman: I think we’ll want to get together this year and, like, figure out something new to add to the CWS roster. But it is always a challenge to fit everything into the ice cream case.

Your turn.

Brian Langbehn: I guess for nostalgia one of the things, some earlier memories for me, if we would make ice cream at home that was, like, a really special occasion usually, or it was just something that was not regularly done, but it would be really special, and it would be the little canister that we throw in the freezer. We usually would just make vanilla, but it would be gone within two days, and it was just unlike anything you could get at the store. And it always blew my mind. And so those are some of my, earliest memories of ice cream.

I think trying to tap into that feeling of ice cream is special when you make it, and when we can make our own flavors, try to get that feel of it’s not just from the store. It’s like, there’s a lot going into it and using those good ingredients

For flavors. I’ve got a lot of. Some of the seasonal ones are really. When we work with local farmers, we’ll get some.

But, yeah, some of our seasonal flavors, in the summer we’ve got an abundance of fresh, local ingredients that we have access to, and our farmers are growing for us.

Some of the ones, like black raspberries, if we can find them, you know, we do a black raspberry crisp.

There’s a black walnut ice cream is one of my personal favorites.

It’s just very unique, but very Midwest, very flavorful.

But at the end of the day, I’m always like Katie. There’s that nostalgia. I’ll get the vanilla with some of our homemade hot fudge with some nuts, and it’s the best thing ever.

I just love it so much. So that’s usually one of my goto’s. But yeah, we have a lot of really fun flavors. We do a strawberry ice cream where we actually take our whole staff and we hand pick the strawberries that go into that ice cream.

It’s just kind of a fun thing that we do every year, a tradition.

We only make that strawberry ice cream when the strawberries are in season.

And it’s kind of a fun. There’s nothing more fresh, nothing more, you know, nothing better than that at that time.

And when it’s gone, it’s gone. And so, yeah, it’s about second, second or third week in June.

Usually, we can start picking that first week if the weather is okay, and then by the second or third week, we’ll have the ice cream.

It’s a tradition and we kind of get a team together, we go eat breakfast together, and then we go hit the fields early enough, hopefully before it gets too hot in the day.

And we pick as much as we can, and then that’s what we use to make that year’s batch of strawberry ice cream.

So really special, fun,

Wonderful things you’re doing to what everyone has as an old favorite.

You told me a little bit about your classic flavors that you always keep… Any more you want to add in terms of classics?

Brian Langbehn: What’s normally or we try to have available every day would be our Vanilla Bean.

Not necessarily. They can sell out from time to time, but we try to make them all the time.

There are exceptions, but the Vanilla Bean, our dark chocolate, the archetype coffee.

I haven’t tried that one.

Katie Arant Chapman: Oh, it’s good.

Brian Langbehn: Cookies and cream. When we have them again, this is not like set in stone, but we do make that quite often.

The Blackstone Butter Brickle. That’s our tart cherry crumble and grandma mini lemon bar.

Brian Langbehn: Yes…

Katie Arant Chapman: Those are kind of our core flavor s…

Brian Langbehn: …  so lots of different choices, but yeah.

What are you planning in the Elkhorn location?

Katie Arant Chapman: So Elkhorn will be slightly less seating than Millwork.

More seating than Blackstone. It’s kind of in between those two in terms of square footage on the customer’s side.

The ice creams, we’ll try to keep. I mean, even between Blackstone and Millwork right now, we try to keep them as similar as possible.

Whatever we’re scooping in Millwork, we also like to be scooping in Blackstone as well.

So that will hold true for Elkhorn as well as best we can.

It’s always gonna feel a little different, but yeah, I mean, we’re really hoping to kind of recreate some of that … the organic elements that you see in our Blackstone or Millwork shop, like the brick and the cool tile and things like that, we’re trying to infuse into the space out in Elkhorn, too.

So we’re really excited about it. It’s gonna be cute.

I am, too. Three locations. It’s fantastic. And so similar ideas between each of the locations where you’re there at a really cool time for growth and excitement in the neighborhood.

It’s amazing timing.

Brian Langbehn: Yeah. I think we’ve been really fortunate to get in where we have and when we have.

Katie Arant Chapman: And we didn’t try to jump into anything too soon, you know, after Blackstone.

We looked at a lot of spaces all over town, and it took a long time to kind of land on this.

And, you know, Elkhorn has kind of come sooner, but.

Well, and we’ve kind of looked. We always kind of had our eye on west, but it took a long time to kind of really see where we would fit in.

Well, the best. And we found the one in Elkhorn. It was like, oh, yeah, this feels like a Coneflower.

Like, should be here. It has the same kind of, like, a nice community of local businesses.

Thank you.

Omaha Interview: Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman of Coneflower Creamery, Part One
https://www.omahanebraska.com/blog/omaha-interview-brian-langbehn-and-katie-arant-chapman-of-coneflower-creamery-part-one/

Coneflower Creamery Locations:

Coneflower Creamery – Blackstone
3921 Farnam Street
Blackstone District
Omaha, NE 68131
402.913.2399

Coneflower Creamery – Millwork
1241 Millwork Ave
Millwork Commons
Omaha NE 68102
402.913.2399

https://coneflowercreamery.com

Omaha Interview: Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman of Coneflower Creamery, Part One

OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Coneflower Creamery Owners, Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman

Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman smiling behind the ice cream case with menu and signage in background of Coneflower Creamery

OmahaNebraska.com here with …

Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman.

Brian, please tell me a little bit about yourself and your background right up until you start the business.

Brian Langbehn

Brian Langbehn: Okay. So I went to University of Nebraska in Lincoln, got a business degree, and actually did that for a few years.

Found out it really wasn’t my calling, my passion. Decided to change gears completely. Went to culinary school. I went to a school in Chicago called the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago.

Just wanted to get out of Omaha for a while, and so I went to school there.

Worked a few jobs while I was studying. Didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I was definitely more interested in desserts and the sweet side of things.

Sugar.

And so, I actually found a job while I was there in Chicago.

I saw … I was reading a Bon Appetit magazine … and saw a place that they were talking about in Chicago that was kind of one of the hot spots at the time.

It was called Sugar. It was a dessert nightclub. Really interesting concept, and so that appealed to me.

I went there, just out of the blue, and said, “Are you hiring?”

And fortunately, the day before, somebody had put in their notice, and they said, come in next week.

I kind of fell into that. It was great. I didn’t really realize at the time, but the chef there was really talented, and she was actually the Pastry Chef of the Year that year, 2005.

I kind of fell into this really exciting job and learned from someone that was kind of my, you know, a mentor to me at that time for pastries and things.

So worked there while I was in school. [I] came back to Omaha, and then, I hadn’t had a tremendous background in cooking, so I immersed myself in restaurants.

I was baking. I was doing catering. I was doing whatever I could do, various restaurants, to just get the skills and start working in the industry.

Along the way, I met someone that was working at the 801 Chop House, and he said, “Hey, we’ve got a pastry opening down here.”

I went, applied, got a job there as their pastry [chef].

And then, yep, I’m back in Omaha. Then took a kind of an interesting path. I was pastry chef and worked my way up to executive chef at that restaurant.

And then it was at that time when I met Katie. When I was executive [chef], I was like, we need somebody on pastry.

And we hired Katie, and she was looking for a pastry job.

So, you both have the pastry background.

Brian Langbehn: Yep. So, anyway, I guess I’ll continue with my story, but hers kind of definitely will meet with it.

Yeah, but so, you know, after 801, I again, kind of found myself in a position where I was wanting to do something different and the time was right. Blackstone, the neighborhood, was really starting to take off, and I had noticed an empty bay there. If we were going to do it, that would be a really hot spot, I thought.

You sure picked it well. I’ve never had not had a line.

Brian Langbehn: Right. And so that kind of led me to thinking, okay, if I’m going to do it, the time is now.

I was in between jobs at the moment. I called Katie late one night and left her a message saying, I found this perfect spot. We had kind of talked about an idea about this, and if we’re going to do it, I’m not gonna do it unless it’s you and that you’re a part of what we’re doing, because I know we can do it and do it successfully.

Yeah. So then she came back, and I’ll maybe let her. You’ll never guess …

Katie Arant Chapman

Katie Arant Chapman: I went to culinary school pretty close out of high school.

I did one semester at UNO. Realized it wasn’t the path for me, and I switched over to culinary school, and I went to Metro here in Omaha. Did that for three years, and simultaneously worked in restaurants around the cities.

I worked at Vivace and M’s Pub back when they were kind of more connected.

We worked at the Voltaire, Jones Brothers Cupcakes for a little while, just trying to get as much experience as I could.

It was while I was at Vivace and M’s Pub that another cook came up to me and said, “Hey, I also work at 801 Chop House, and there’s, you know, they’re looking for a pastry chef.”

I went over, met with Brian. We hit it off. And then I ended up working as the pastry chef at 801 for a year. And then it was kind of just, you know, I was like. I was really young, starting to feel antsy, kind of feeling like I wanted to work in a larger pastry market.

I wanted to work on a big pastry team with a lot of people.

And at that time in Omaha, it was mostly like a restaurant had one pastry cook or one pastry chef.

I ended up moving out to Napa Valley in California and worked out there for three years.

I started at Bottega in Yountville and then moved to Bouchon and Bouchon Bakery within the Thomas Restaurant group out there in Yountville as well, and was really enjoying California.

Katie Arant Chapman: When I had been at 801, Brian and I used to talk a lot about ice cream.

And we both just have kind of this, like, nostalgic pull and this nostalgic tie to ice cream and what it means for people.

And, we always say, you eat it when you’re happy, you eat it when you’re sad, when you’re celebrating someone broke up with you.

It’s just kind of … It’s just everybody has … We feel like everybody has kind of this, like, nostalgic feeling when it comes to ice cream.

We would talk a lot about that. We talked. Talk a lot about how cool it would be to someday do ice cream to the full extent and to the way that we really wanted to with, like, fresh homemade sauces and stuff like that.

So that was …, those were great conversations that we would have, but then [I] moved to California.

It was when I got the call from him that I kind of.

I knew what it was going to be because I hadn’t heard from him in three years.

Katie Arant Chapman: And he called me and said, oh, no, I’m gonna be tempted to come back to Omaha.

Brian Langbehn: (joking) What does he want?

Katie Arant Chapman: So what does he want? So anyway, so, yeah, so I finished out my time there and headed back here in the summer of 2016, which is kind of as the shop was gearing up.

The shop was in Blackstone, was mostly built out by the time I got to town.

I got to town probably about a month before we opened the doors.

Was it cold?

Katie Arant Chapman: It was July. So, no, it was, yes, an easy transition.

I’ve met a lot of people who’ve come here from California, and, of course, the weather is difficult for them to get used to.

Katie Arant Chapman: Yeah, yeah.

We moved here the first time during the blizzard, which they’re not supposed to move you.

Brian Langbehn: Oh, my gosh.

So it was, bring in the chair, shovel out the garage, bring in the couch, shovel out the garage.

Welcome to Nebraska.

But we fell in love with Nebraska. The people here, we always joke it wasn’t the weather, but the people here are just amazing.

We’re very glad you both are here in Coneflower. Now we get to the extra fun part. How does Coneflower start?

Brian Langbehn: I mean, so we. Katie came back, right? And we were gonna open the doors. The plan was not to open after summer. We had, there have been delays in construction, of course, and things that beyond our control.

We actually opened at the end of August. The beginning of September, really.

Kids are back in school. Summer is kind of over at this point. But I think for us there was … because there was some of that delay. It kind of helped with the hype and the buzz was out there and people were really anticipating.

When we did open the doors finally, I felt like there was a tremendous response kind of right from the get-go. We were just doing something like Katie said, …we weren’t reinventing the wheel, but we had a focus on ingredients, we had a focus on local, we had a focus on the techniques that we had learned in making all the mix ins.

We came up with the waffle cone recipe. She designed the cookie recipe.

There’s things that we just, we said, if we’re gonna have it, we’re gonna try to make it.

It was an approach that was kind of unique to Omaha, I think, at the time.

And there was just a lot of excitement and …

Katie Arant Chapman:  … well, we wanted to toe the line between having cookies and cream and chocolate. Just doing it really, really well. You know, cookies and cream was my favorite flavor when I was a kid.

Doing those really classic flavors really well and elevated, but then also doing saffron and roasted white chocolate, or things that people don’t typically see in ice cream for.

So we feel like we still. We’re always trying to balance the case, balance the ice cream cabinet with, you got your chocolate chip cookie dough and you’ve got your black sesame brûlée.

That’s important for us.

Brian Langbehn: Right. We wanted to make sure that every flavor in the case was not only something we were proud of, but it could be somebody’s favorite, but they’re all unique, so having that 20 or 20 some options that are all appealing to someone was a big part of what we were doing.

Yeah, it’s just been kind of a whirlwind since then.

We’ve kind of gotten a reputation for these long lines.

We wanted to make waiting in line kind of fun and an experience and something that people were willing to do based on the exciting flavors and the service that we were giving.

And I think we accomplished that.

Katie Arant Chapman: We want to make sure that we’re all moving really fast, scooping as quickly as we can.

But if you’ve waited in line, that you get your time in front of the case in front of the ice cream cabinet, and that anything you want to sample, any questions you have, you know, we want you to feel like it’s your time to really take a breath and try everything.

Brian Langbehn: Yeah, it’s not rushed, but it’s…

Katie Arant Chapman: We’re rushed

… Rushed where it needs to be rushed.

But you still have great customer experience.

Brian Langbehn: Exactly. We wanted the feeling of, like, oh, I can take all these flavors in and I can try them, and we can learn about them, but still being. Keeping people moving. So that’s our goal always.

So you have the first location in Blackstone about 2016.

Then you came here to Millwork  …

Coneflower Creamery location at the Ashton building in Millwork Commons

Katie Arant Chapman: … in 2023.

Visit back for Part Two and of course visit this great ice cream restaurant!

Coneflower Creamery Locations:

Coneflower Creamery – Blackstone
3921 Farnam Street
Blackstone District
Omaha, NE 68131
402.913.2399

Coneflower Creamery – Millwork
1241 Millwork Ave
Millwork Commons
Omaha NE 68102
402.913.2399

https://coneflowercreamery.com

Save the Dates: Omaha Rescue and Reuse Event-April

From our friends at Rescue and Reuse:
”
We are hosting four durable medical equipment collection and rehome events in Lincoln, Scottsbluff, Omaha and Kearney in 2024-2025 to recycle/rehome equipment, diverting it from the landfill and to assist persons with disabilities and their families by providing an accessible and cost-effective option to recycle/rehome.

If you have questions about these events, please contact Executive Director Kimberly Carroll Steward at director@nrcne.org .

Omaha Rescue and Reuse Event:

Equipment Drop-off Days:
Tuesday & Wednesday, April 8-9 (12-5 pm)
Thursday, April 10 (12-7 pm)
Friday, April 11 (8 am-noon)

Equipment Rehome Day:
Saturday, April 12, 2025 from 8 am-1 pm

Event Location: 8111 Dodge Street, Suite 141, Omaha, NE

Need moving assistance for equipment donations in the Omaha area?
”

More at:
https://nrcne.org/rescueandreuse