Month: March 2025

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

OmahaNebraska.com here with …

Brian Langbehn and Katie Arant Chapman.

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

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: 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  …

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