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Omaha Interview: Mouth of the South Restaurant Interview with Samuel Voss, Part Two

OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Samuel Voss, General Manager of Mouth of the South Restaurant in West Omaha, Part Two

Please tell me a little bit about Ryan Ernst coming here, because both of you weren’t born here.

No, Ryan had family here as well, so he was raised kind of all over. But he had family here and came up. He kind of migrated north, and he just got into the food scene, and ever since then it just is the thing that drives him. And so that’s how he got here. But I was already a Midwest person. Didn’t really travel much until later on.

I’ve been around now.

Probably six months ago I was in New Orleans for about a week. And I was actually disappointed. You see all these cool pictures and Mardi Gras happening, Bourbon Street, all these things sound amazing. But I got down there, and it smells. Like, this city stinks. It’s cool to look at, but the smell and the heat and all that stuff. I didn’t find anything good to eat until the third night when we went to Drago’s and we got their char-grilled oysters. Amazing. Like, we should have gone here the first night. The second night, I’d take a Big Mac at that point. I was so disappointed because we serve better food here than you can get there. Ours has better flavor. Ours has better presentation. The rice isn’t cooked to death. Sometimes when you heat a sauce that has a has a roux in it or it’s thickened, sometimes if you get it too hot, it breaks. And so sometimes there’s oil pooling on the top, and that’s kind of what it was and just really disappointing. So I was, like, man, there’s gotta be somewhere where I’m gonna hit a home run. That third night we went to Drago’s, and I was like, this is probably the best I’ve ever had.

But for me, New Orleans was kind of one of those things where it’s like I’ve been there, and I’m good now. I know what we do, and I know what they do…

You have an amazing culinary background, you’re in a good place, and you went to New Orleans and just…

I wasn’t I wasn’t over thrilled.

This makes a really great testimony. You work here, and it’s really great.

I think the greatest thing that came for me out of New Orleans was I did a couple of tours like city tours, and their history is amazing…and the history of music, because I’m a music guy. And so you didn’t know a lot of these artists came out of New Orleans. You’re like, I didn’t know Harry Connick Junior was the one that helped build this music center where these kids that have no future can go in and learn how to play instruments and learn how to play music. I had no idea of any of that. And even touring the above-ground cemeteries, that was super interesting. So the history of the place was just amazing. And then it was at that point when everything clicked. Then it’s like, boom, the story comes from…you know, people in New Orleans eat red beans and rice on Monday. And you’re like, well, why do they do that? I could eat it Tuesday or I could eat it Friday or Sunday. Well, they do it on Monday because it’s an entrée that you can start on the stove and you don’t need to watch it. And Monday was laundry day, so back in the old days, these ladies are just with their washboards, their pot of red beans are just boiling away, simmering on the stove while they’re just grinding, washing laundry. And you’re, like, that’s what they ate on Mondays, because that was laundry day. Who knows that? Who, walking in Omaha, Nebraska, knows that? So some of those little nuances to the stories made perfect sense. But the history and the tourism and the architecture were probably the highlights of that trip for me.

You said he had family here…when did he get the idea for a restaurant and then starting out in Florence? I’m just curious.

Oh, boy. I would say… I’m not sure, exactly, of the dates. It was something that he wanted to do. Obviously, trying to get into this business is really difficult, and it’s very costly. We have some pretty unrealistic restrictions. too, in the city with build outs and trying to go through plumbing boards and getting inspections done is kind of challenging, so I’m sure he had some obstacles there, but it’s always been something he wanted to do. It was always in his heart, just waiting for him.

It was the right opportunity when the location came up down on 30th and Florence. Even to this day, I wear this jacket or the shirt. I’m always in something that says Mouth of the South. And when I’m at the store, I’m stopped, like, “Oh, my God, you work at Mouth of the South.” I’m, like, “Yeah.” “I just love that place. When are you coming back to Florence?” And it’s like, “Well, there’s not really a location in Florence right now, but we do have the Lakeside location of 168th and Center, and visit us out there.” A lot of the same menu items from day one. A little bit of menu evolution that went on there, a little bit, but probably 60 to 80% of the menu is still the original from day one.

It must be hard figuring out what to keep and what to change. As you said, people’s tastes are evolving or can be influenced by different trends.

Yeah. Sure. Sure it is, and literally this business is all about trial and error. There’s not any equation like a perfect equation where you could get online and compute “I want my restaurant to be very successful.” There’s a lot of components that go into this business. This is probably next to the medical industry, and I always joke… because my good friend is a nurse and so we always chat. It’s like you have so many working pieces in your industry with medicine, so I can equate all the different medications to ingredients. If you make a wrong move to a patient and they’re harmed or whatever, I could do that too, if I don’t abide by guidelines for temperature and time. So, just like Chi Chi’s, the chain that closed years and years ago, they found a foodborne illness in green onions that tanked their corporation, something as simple as that, and it got back to somebody didn’t wash their hands. There’s so many working pieces. Like, from the vendors, you need to make sure that you’re getting reputable suppliers with products to make sure that you don’t have anything coming in that’s contaminated. And then it’s how do you train and teach your staff to handle things properly and cool them correctly and follow things correctly and reheat correctly and hold it correctly. There’s just a lot, and so this business is really, really complex. That’s the thing. Sometimes when you get on Food Network and you see these competitions, it’s all about the glitz and glam. And I just sit there and I chuckle, and… like, there is so much more to it than “Oh my gosh. you burn a salmon and the whole night just went to heck.” There’s so much more behind that.

Not just fast, fancy chopping for 25 seconds…

Right.

It’s hard work.

Right. If I could take 14 minutes to put a garnish on an entree, I certainly would do that, but it’s not… When you’re in the… and you got tickets to move, and you’ve got people to serve…because in my history, what I have realized in this business is people coming in, they get hangry. They want to eat right now. They don’t want to wait. And I don’t blame them cause I’m the same way. When I go somewhere, I’m like, “I am starving, and I want to eat.” I don’t want to wait 45 minutes for something to come out, or 30 minutes. I want something quick.

But it’s also amazing to say I’m where you are.

Right. And so that’s where you the balance comes in, to teach your staff on how to do that and how to execute that the right way. Don’t cut corners. You don’t get anywhere in this business by cutting corners. Just don’t. And that’s what I teach, too. You can’t rush something. We don’t microwave anything, so don’t even think about it.

So nothing is microwaved.

Yeah. We don’t use a microwave at all. And even our freezer space is super, super small. We don’t have a lot of things that come in frozen, either, so it’s fresh. And like I said, we process, we make, and we sell. We do it in small batches. So it’s the freshest that we can get.

Mouth of the South’s Shrimp and Grits, artfully placed in a bowl on wooden table by window with sun streaming in to the restaurant

I enjoyed the meal that I had here. The shrimp was very fresh. It didn’t seem like it was sitting in a freezer forever.

Right.

And then the peppers were really good. What kind of peppers were those?

Those are poblanos, and we get those fresh. And again, like, when I say literally we do everything, we’ve got a team back there that roasted peppers. And then they wrap them and then they’ll stand… and I’m like, holy cow, there’s got to be a simpler process for this. But there really isn’t. And they love it. Like the Hispanic crowd that we have back there—amazing workforce for us. Love them. They’re just literally like a family. They’ll stand back there for hours just peeling the burnt pieces off of these roasted peppers. And that’s what we put in things, so it’s…

There was a little surprise with the shrimp in there, and it was just like at the perfect timing. You’re enjoying all these flavors. And then there was the pepper, and it was really enjoyable.

Awesome. I appreciate it. So yeah, that’s it in a nutshell. That’s Mouth of the South. It’s always evolving. There’s always things coming. We sort of got menu ideas stabilized to where we want to go, and now I think it’s time we…because dining out is more than just grabbing a bite. It’s more about, you know, you want an experience. If you’re going to…especially in this day and age, we hear the word inflation so much and it’s like I understand that word, and how do you then create a better value for somebody that’s coming to your establishment to spend money with you? You’ve got to give them a better experience. That’s what it is.

When I go out to eat, I love to just chat with the server, because it’s more than just… Of course they’re taking care of me, but they’re not my servant. I can form a relationship with somebody and ask, “How are you? How long have you worked here?” Because I always ask those questions when I go out. And I always frequent places that I find somebody that’s interesting like that, where my service was just the best I’ve ever had, and then I tend to go there. I’m a creature of habit. If I like the product and I like the service, I always go back. And so that’s kind of what we preach here: Just get to know your people. Just give them what they expect. Don’t cut corners. Don’t rush. Never ask anybody to hurry up or leave. Even if there is a wait, they have the table for as long as they want it. And that’s just kind of how we operate here. And we have a lot of good people, too, and I think it gets back to the character of the person as well. Everybody here gets along. There’s not a single person on our team that we have an issue with. Everybody just knows what to do. They’re willing to come in, they’re ready to take care of people, they’re ready to give good service, they’re ready to sell a really great product, and they’re ready to get somebody to come back. We want repeat business because that’s the way that we can showcase what we’re doing.

But like I was saying earlier, our next plan of attack is our bar offerings on that side, to kind of elevate cocktails a little bit. So we’ve got a bunch of new glassware that we just got in. We’re going to be making a few changes there, just with some better things. Trying to get some local things. Maybe instead of using an off-brand vodka like a normal bar does, just provide a good vodka like a Tio’s. There’s no reason to put a really crappy vodka in something nice that you made. And the syrup from scratch, that you’re just going to load it down with this garbage vodka.

Yeah, this just seems to need to have a better partner. I haven’t had anything here, but when you’re spending that much attention to detail and trying to keep the food more like food instead of some of the other things we have out there, it makes sense that you’d want to do that as well.

Yeah, yeah. We do want to elevate it. And like I said, that’s kind of my motto. Every day that I walk in, I look at something and say, “How could we do that better?”

So constant ideas, creativity, innovation…

Have to. Yeah, have to every day. You just can’t… and sometimes you get those places that are just unwilling to look at the menu, or like, “There’s nothing wrong with my Caesar salad.” You’re right. It’s not. I’m not saying that it’s wrong. It’s good. But I think your dressing could be better. Maybe if you used anchovies in there like a true Caesar salad, it might be a little bit better and have a little bit more robust of a taste instead of just it tastes like mayonnaise with a little bit of Parmesan cheese in it and maybe a crack of black pepper, right? Or there’s no reason why you’re buying pre-cut lettuce. Like, lettuce should be fluffy, and the edges shouldn’t be brown, and it shouldn’t be soggy and dense. Lettuce should be nice. Okay, well, is there a farm somewhere where we could buy locally grown lettuce, you know? And that just where my mind is always at… like, what can we get? How can we do it better? Even from a layout. Like, does the layout of the restaurant makes sense, or are people kind of packed in here like sardines? Do I want to sit this close to somebody else if I’m sitting here, like, they’re trying to have a good experience and so am I, but I feel like we might be part of the same group, right? And so there’s just some of those…

Yeah, in some places it’s way too tight.

Right. So it’s just thinking outside of the box in those ways, and it’s every day. You just walk in, even when you park your car. You look at the patio, like, “Oh, wow, our patio…”

Yeah, it was very inviting.

And in the midsummer, it’s like, “Oh, there’s wrappers out there. I gotta go get them, because they blew off the table” or “Could the landscaping be better?”

Thank you. Thank you so much. Favorite menu items are things people should try?

I would say probably my go-to is gonna always be the shrimp and grits.

Yes, it’s amazing.

We have the best grits. Like I said, I always chuckle every time I pass a Waffle House, and I was like, “Man, I used to love their grits,” and I think they just boil them with water and there’s nothing to them. Maybe a little salt. They’re just kind of flat. But then I got here, and ours are just fluffy. It’s just like clouds, you know? And you got that Gouda coming through, and you taste the butter and it’s just real. Our burgers are really good. We hand patty those in-house so we’re not getting like a pre-done, pre-grill-marked or pre-frozen patty or a “puck” is what they call them. So we patty those. The crispy romaine salad is really good because we do the crispy tasso, which is like a Southern-style New Orleans bacon. Sometimes when people hear the word tasso, they’re like, “Oh my God, what is that?” It’s like, “No, you’re going to love it. It’s cured, it’s salty, it’s crispy. It’s just like bacon. And then we make our famous black peppercorn dressing the real way, with eggs and all that.

Oh, I’ll have to try that.

It’s really good, and we take the Gruyere and we shave it. So you’ve got nice strips of Gruyere in there, and then we make our croutons out of French bread. We toss those in oil and some herbs, and we cook those, so it’s a really solid sandwich. A lot of people love the kicking chicken, but I’m not a I’m not a carb guy, so I don’t eat a lot of pasta or bread. I try to stay more on the whole-muscle meats. I love the Bourbon Street Surf and Turf because that’s got the crawfish and the Hollandaise on it with blackened shrimp and the mashed potatoes with garlic and real butter. It’s super good.

I’m very full, but now you’re making me kind of hungry and wanting to try something.

It’s super good. Super good. And we have a Gouda ale right now that’s really delicious.

I saw that. That sounds really strange.

It’s really good, and we use Abita beer. That was a nice thing, too, I forgot to add about touring New Orleans. We try to feature as much Abita products as possible because they’re based out of New Orleans. I toured their brewery while I was there. I got a VIP tour.

Oh, nice.

It was amazing. I got to try a lot of things that we can’t get up here in the Midwest. And I was just, like, bummed. I’m, like, “Why? I want your… your blueberry wheat beer was delicious.” I think people here would really love that. But so I would say for the most part, that. And obviously the bread pudding. Once in a while, I’ll snag a bite if somebody’s got one. I can’t eat it, obviously, for the for the bread and the carbs. But we’re known for that. It won awards here in the city, #1 Bread Pudding in Omaha.

Ooh, okay!

And we do a Bananas Foster cheesecake that’s really phenomenal.

I saw the description on that. That looked really good.

Yeah. It’s, like, bruléed bananas, and it’s just really tasty. The brownies that a lot of the younger kids like those, like the teenagers. It’s just this big brownie that comes all bubbly with this praline frosting and a big bowl of French vanilla bean ice cream, and homemade chocolate sauce that we make with… there’s whiskey in it. Yeah, it’s just… there’s so many things that are just really good.

Thank you. I’ve got a lot to look forward to for next time.

Sure.

Thank you. I appreciate the interview.

Visit this Omaha restaurant at:
Mouth of the South
16909 Lakeside Hills Plaza
Omaha, NE 68130
(531) 375-5399

Omaha Interview: Mouth of the South Restaurant Interview with Samuel Voss, Part One

OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Samuel Voss, General Manager of Mouth of the South Restaurant in West Omaha

Samuel Voss at Mouth of South Restaurant

Tell me your name please and a little bit about the restaurant and how you came to be here.

Okay. My name is Samuel Voss.

Mouth of the South is a restaurant that I visited when it was in Florence on 30th. I ate there, had no clue that I would ever work at it. You just never make those connections at that point. I just loved it from day one. And I think back then, I don’t even know what I had. It was something like a kicking chicken, I think. It was just a small place and that’s how it started. Ryan built it from basically nothing.

Obviously there was a fire 10-plus years ago; that one burnt to the ground . It started with a smoker that caught on fire. It took the building. And so he looked and looked to rebuild because it’s just his passion. He found a spot on 72nd and Ames. There’s a Baker’s right there. There’s a Home Depot. I think there’s a seafood place in there now. A little bit too big of a building; it just never really fit.

And so then he opened up Lakeside . Gosh, I think this was on Year 5 or. 6. And this has really been kind of the bread and butter. It just fits the area, the people…just a really supportive community that really, really love it. And it’s just doing great.

It’s home now…

It is.

He comes from a little bit of a background… his family is from New Orleans. And so the thing sometimes that I get discouraged about is there’s an education piece that comes along with this concept. And so when people hear of Southern food, they automatically think of soul food, and so both are really good.

Cajun Creole is not soul food, and so sometimes there’s a misconception there or a stigma. But soul food kind of generates more of like your Georgia area, kind of the more of the Bible Belt, and Cajun Creole is specifically, like, Louisiana, that kind of sell. So you’re going to have more seafood heavy, and it’s more robust in spice and flavor. People come in sometimes and they’re, like, “Oh my gosh. I thought you would have fried chicken on your menu,” and it’s just not in the cuisine. One of my favorite things to eat is fried chicken, but I wouldn’t expect that here just because of my background and being in this industry for 28 years and doing the culinary school thing at a really young age and living in Chicago, a big city, for many, many years.

So I kind of understand what all these cuisines are, and that was just my expectation. I understood it from day one, and I loved it. He’s really good with flavor. His palate is really good. He just knows how to pair things together, things that work, things that don’t work. And he’s not unwilling to try things either, which is really good, too. As we know, we (chefs) are as good as our last meal. That’s been the saying in the culinary world forever. And palates and taste do evolve. What was good yesterday isn’t necessarily good tomorrow, and so you’ve got to evolve and change. I say that the Food Network and all that stuff has just ruined restaurants, because now everybody has become a foodie with no formal training. Sometimes when I watch those shows my head just explodes. It’s like “That’s not what that’s called” or “That’s not the processor” or “That’s not the true way to do it.”

Where did you go to culinary school?

At Le Cordon Blue in Chicago.

Wow.

I graduated in ’07, many years ago, and restaurants have just been something that was in my DNA. My mom was from a huge Catholic family, and cooking was the thing that always brought everybody together. But it’s just been an interest to me. I love that in this concept it’s small, but it’s mighty. People sometimes underestimate what it is or, or maybe just don’t know what it is or aren’t willing to give it a try. And I think once they kind of step out of that… over the line or out of those boundaries, they love it and they understand it. This is one restaurant, I would tell you, that since day one has been true scratch, 100%. There’s not a lot of restaurants here that can say they mix up, case, and smoke their own sausage.

Yeah, I was really surprised and really happy about that [real made from scratch cooking including the sausages].

Right. We process all of our meats. We cure a lot of things. We smoke everything here. There’s very little that we get in besides butter and milk—we don’t have a cow out back. where you know, I can churn butter. I can certainly do that, but it just seems to be a waste of time for me. But to really put the focus into scratch. And I think when you do that, you can control not only the taste or any of those things, but you can control the quality. You can also control what ingredients that you’re then selling to your guests to then consume. Like, we’re having meatloaf. There’s no reason for it to have red dye in it. Like, what’s the reason for that?

Oh, my. I didn’t know it could have red dye in it.

Right? I want our meatloaf to have beef, and I want it to have onions and aromatics and vegetables. And maybe a few eggs and a handful of bread crumbs or two. And that’s truly what meatloaf is. But, you know, a lot of places where they get it out of a package, you have no idea what you’re eating. So that’s a big thing for me too. Outside of the restaurant, I try to eat as clean as possible. And so inside the restaurant, it really just makes me excited that we don’t add artificial flavorings to things…even in the bar, with the bar drinks. And that’s been kind of an MO for Ryan. We make the peach syrup, we make the blueberry syrup, we make the strawberry syrup. And so when somebody wants a flavored lemonade, we don’t run and get this red jar of things or this yellowish off-colored jar of something that sort of remotely tastes like a peach. We make it with real peaches in the back. And so it’s sugar and it’s water and it’s lemon juice and it’s a pinch of salt and it’s peaches. And we boil that and maybe add a little bit of natural agave or sweetener to that. And that’s really sort of in every component and aspect in this restaurant. I’m really excited to be a part of that, and it’s good to know that people really support that because it is seeming to be more of a lost art, I guess, in a sense. I can open a can or my sister can open a can of green beans. Sure, they’re going to keep you sustained, but they’re not good. Let’s just get some fresh green beans and maybe, you know, blanch them a little bit, sauté them with a little avocado oil or olive oil. A little bit of sea salt, and call it a day. We don’t have all that junk. If you turn the label over and there’s all this other additives in there, it’s like it doesn’t make any sense. And like I said, that’s kind of been Ryan’s thing from day one. It just impressed me coming on, because I didn’t have that expectation, joining Mouth. And I knew what the food was, but I didn’t know how it was made. I knew how it looked, but I didn’t know like what the process was or how it was prepared, and it was just interesting to see that. He’s got stacks of recipes everywhere and he just writes them all the time.

Wow.

And so it’s neat to do that, but it’s been a fun, fun ride cause I stepped from kind of multifaceted concepts. I’ve done a lot of things. I worked at Coco Pazzo in Chicago in the NBC Tower. I was executive chef at 19 years old. I wasn’t even old enough to drink, and I was running an eight-million-dollar piece of business in downtown Chicago. So I’ve done, that and then it’s just… you know, when you’re at a young age you want all that glitz and glam, and then as you start to mellow out a little bit, you’re just like…I’m content with good. I’m content with great. It doesn’t need to be big or a lot, but I want it to be good.

I think you want to experience a lot of things, see what’s out there, and then eventually you learn what’s important to you. And for some people, maybe it’s staying here. And for other people it’s making other choices.

Yeah. And you know that.

But without doing that, then you don’t know how valuable right here is.

Right. And scratch is just something that just fits in my vocabulary, and that’s why I appreciate here. When I was growing up, a canned good to me meant something else than it meant to another kid in my class. We didn’t have 10 cans of carrots or 10 cans of corn. It was a Mason jar. I grew up on a farm. We had all kinds of animals, and we had a garden, and that was a different meaning to me. It’s like “What is this tin thing?” “Oh, that’s a can.” I’m like, “Oh, my God. Mine comes in a Mason jar. I’m not sure where you got that thing.” But that’s how we ate as kids. So, just kind of starving for that. Even to this day, I do a lot of my own preserving and canning at home just because I know the benefits of it.

It’s something I wanted to learn and do once, but I haven’t found anyone to…for that process. It looks pretty laborious.

It is, but it’s easier than you would think. It is. You see all these gadgets, and then everybody has a different method of doing things. And you have to sanitize the jar and you gotta boil this and you gotta simmer that and peel this. It’s not as daunting as it appears. Actually, in my case, I think it’s actually therapeutic to just stand there over a boiling pot of tomatoes, making stewed tomatoes and you’re just jarring them up. You’re in your own world. You’ve got music on in the back and the dogs are laying across the room, and you’re just doing your own thing. And all of a sudden it’s just gratifying to hear all the little pops and tings on the lids as soon as they seal as they sit there and cool down. That’s really cool. And even jams and jellies, sauces, and all those things, I make from scratch. In this restaurant, too, there’s a lot of things we make, all the way down to the Bloody Mary mix. There’s obviously stuff that we have to get, like the raw ingredients, natural ingredients. We’re not going to make cheese, for example, because it’s very hard and it’s risky if you don’t time and temperature control it just right. Bacteria can do really horrible things to people. But that’s maybe something that we might learn at some point, I don’t know, but it is what it is. Now, most mozzarella I can make. I can make that with my eyes closed, or cream cheese, or all that stuff. But I’m not going to make a wheel of cheddar or a great big wheel of Parmesan or whatever it is.

How did you end up coming here from Chicago?

I’m from the Midwest, eastern Iowa, and I actually moved here probably five or six years ago, maybe. I was doing a long-distance relationship and just realized, like…when you hear Nebraska on a map, you’re just like, “Oh my gosh, that place sounds boring.” Like there’s nothing in Nebraska, and I know what it’s like driving across western Iowa, and then you get to Nebraska and it’s twice as long and there’s nothing. So anyway, I came here and I was just like, “Holy moley!” Omaha’s a city of food. There’s restaurants everywhere. If you want anything at any time of the day, you can get it, and it’s a 20-minute drive or a 15-minute drive wherever you’re going. You go all the way north, all the way south, east, or west, and it’s still 20 minutes. And so that’s how I ended up here. But I ended up back in the Quad Cities after Chicago during the recession. It was really tough in the city in, like, 2008, 2009. It was really tough. So I actually went back and ran the restaurant that I worked in, going through high school. I had an opportunity to take it over, and I did that, so that’s how I got here. But and then just the corporate thing… I worked at a restaurant over at Village Pointe, an Italian place. They went belly up probably six months ago, but I sort of had an inkling that it was coming. It was poorly run by a corporate office, and that’s when this became available. And then Ryan and I just clicked from, like, day one. We are just, like, literally the same person on the same level.

Wow.

We always say to each other, “Just get out of my head.” We could probably finish a sentence if we wrote half of it on paper, I could probably write the rest of that sentence, but we’re just on the same page. We’re working on some new menu items. We’ve got some ideas that we’re going to launch, starting out with brunch, because I feel like brunch is one of those things where you’re just out for the day to relax. You just want to have something good, sit down and have a conversation and make it a social event. So we’re going to attack our brunch menu first. And in the office, even, here, there’s just things that we have done that we have printed and posted to the wall with notes like “This is awesome, but I think it needs this” or “I like the idea of that, but I think it needs sunnyside up eggs instead of over easy.” And then, like, “This one’s a go. This was spot on—everything about it: the taste, the presentation, all of that.” So what we’re working on now is just dissecting, thinking outside of the box, to where…you know, I like to go out and have an omelet or a thing of scrambled eggs, but I can get that at home. If I’m going out, I want to have something that’s a little bit elevated, something that I wouldn’t normally eat at home, or something that I might not even select at all if it was an option, like would I eat avocado toast if I went out? But this sounds really good. I certainly wouldn’t make it at home because I don’t eat a lot of carbs, but I’d eat the avocado, I’d eat the crab salad, I’d eat all of that stuff. But it’s trying to get that and pass that along to people that really appreciate it. So that’ll be coming out here probably in the next two to three weeks.

Mason Jar Lighting, one of the unique features of the Mouth of the South Restaurant

Visit this Omaha restaurant at:
Mouth of the South
16909 Lakeside Hills Plaza
Omaha, NE 68130
(531) 375-5399

Omaha Interview: Ryan Barry of Willie Dogs and Willie’s Ice Cream

OmahaNebraska.com’s Interview with Ryan Barry of Willie Dogs and Willie’s Ice Cream

How did you come up with the idea of Willie Dogs?

A few years ago, I originally thought I would just kind of get a hotdog cart to make some extra money and have a lot of fun. But soon, I realized there was a gap in the market as far as a nice local made hot dog.

Of course, New York’s got theirs. Chicago’s got theirs. So, my intent at that point was to create Omaha’s hot dog while doing everything as locally as possible. So, we do it from scratch by hand. These are all natural casing cold smoked hot dogs.

What were the ideas or flavors running around your head that were inspired Omaha?

Omaha to me is always kind of been the home of beef and baseball, right? You know, we’re the home of you know, stockyards and a lot of a lot of baseball, Men’s College World Series and other things. And it kind of always frustrated me that like we didn’t have something that kind of represented Omaha during those times or that took those things into consideration. So, for me a lot of those flavors were of course a natural casing that was the must have there’s something about that snap that is just like, it just it just hearkens back to that old-fashioned-Old World style of of making sausages and things of that nature.

I grew up obviously with the Stoysich families around and other butcher shops. My wife’s family was a butcher shop family as well, the Bickels family. So, we have this idea of this flavor. We’ve had these sausages, these hot dogs, we’ve made it home. It was really about taking that that flavor profile and kind of sharing it with the rest of the city.

You have a lot of different flavors from time to time. What are your favorites? The different specials that you have…

Yeah, so I think my favorite is always goes back to the Willie Dog itself like that’s, you know, it’s like your firstborn.

That’s my favorite. I haven’t tried all of them yet…There’s just something about the Willie Dog that I just have to have.

Same. Same. Yeah, I think you know, the Willie Dog. I really do think the scope for the sausage is probably the greatest sausage you have ever had. It’s just really good. It’s a quarter pound sausage. It’s natural casing. It goes to a hickory snow process. So, it’s a little bit more smoky flavor. A little bit more cured. A little bit coarser grind. A little bit more fat to it. So, it’s just a tasty sausage.

Man, I think. I think if I had to pick a favorite, it would be less a different sausage. It would be more about some of the toppings we’ve done. I think the opening weekend topping was really awesome. That was a roasted garlic goat cheese with the bacon that went over really, really well. Anytime we do anything with goat cheese, I’m usually a fan of it.

I like goat cheese too.

Yeah, most recently we did a whipped goat cheese with a balsamic onion jam and that was pretty darn tasty.

Of course, Willie Way, not just because it’s named after me but because it is my favorite.

Where does the name Willie come from?

It’s definitely one of the, you know, probably more prominent questions that we get. My middle name is William. My son’s middle name is William were named after William Barry that originally came from Ireland. And so that’s kind of where Willie started to come from. And then we also kind of like to joke in our family that Willie Nelson is our spirit animal. So that’s why we spelled it the way that we do.

I was suspecting it might be a middle name or something..

I’m Ryan William Barry. My son is Carter William Berry and our relative emigrated from Ireland, United States, William Barry.

We have always a couple of different types of sausages. There’s always the smoked sausage and then always the Willie Dog and we have some other ones that filter in how. We also do pretzels. We will look at the different ways so I do a kind of classic style which is just buttered with salt and cheese, which we have a new cheese we’re using now that we are making like little ale and beer cheese ale which I really dig and so hopefully everybody else is. You can also do cinnamon roll pretzels, so we’ll coat it with butter tossing cinnamon and sugar and then it gets topped with our house made cream cheese frosting. Or a salted caramel pretzel where it starts out the same way as the originals with the new gets a twist with our new caramel sauce.

One of the surprises I had when I was trying to different things at your restaurant was your baked beans. Those were so good and I was not expecting that.

Yeah, so the baked beans was normally something that on the hotdog carts or food trucks that we would only view during the College World Series because we were in one spot for a longer period of time as opposed to a couple of hours like like a normal food truck event. And so, we did it every year at the College World Series. There’s people that come from other states, other cities that will come just to get the beans and the dog from us during the CWS and when came to Inner Rail, obviously we wanted to offer some other side options and some other things that weren’t always you know, hotdog related, and so that we decided to bring those smoked peach baked beans here. So, take peach pie filling and smoke that. Take our big beans and they smoke those and then we marry it all together and then smoke it again.

Those were just so good.

Yeah, they’re pretty, pretty darn tasty. Some people look and they see smoke peach baked beans and I go “peach”? I am like, just don’t knock it till you try it. I’ll give you a free sample, if it’ll help change your mind.

How did you come to Inner Rail? Please tell us a little bit about it?

Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question. So, Inner Rail kind of came after us. There is an individual that works for Inner Rail. His name is Wes. We were both part of Culinary Team Nebraska which is a competition culinary team. It’s very high level like fine dining, very highly scrutinized competition and working for Inner Rail, someone in Inner Rail had said that they wanted to bring a hot dog in a new concept. And Wes says,” Hey, I you know I’m on a competition team with the guy that makes his own hot dogs. You should reach out to him,” which they did. We had a nice meeting here at Inner Rail and within about five minutes, it became pretty clear to everybody sitting at the table that maybe this would just be a good fit for Willie Dogs. Already we had the branding. We already kind of had the messaging. We already have the dog and the sausage and some of the other things that we already go into the toppings. And so yeah, they came after us and gave us an offer to come in here. And it’s been pretty awesome so far to the point where we’re expanding into another stall here with another company.

Please tell us about that.

So yeah, absolutely. So, one of the things that I’ve always kind of prided myself on with Willie Dogs is that it really kind of pulls on some of those nostalgia strings. Those nostalgia heartstrings.

There’s something about that old world style that natural casing, that snap. That just is not around anymore. A lot of our older clientele go again now that that’s the hot dog I remember from when I was younger.

Taking some of the that same marketing and that same kind of brand identity and applying it to a different option, like a dessert option is how we’ve landed on Willie’s Ice Cream is to really hearken back to some of our kind of good old fashioned ice cream shops. The soda fountain type shop, you know that scooped ice cream, malts, shakes, sundaes, and banana splits. Really not trying to reinvent the wheel but what we’re doing and what’s on the menu, we’re just trying to do very, very well.

And then it’s also going to be a fudge shop so we’re going to be making homemade fudge here at the Inner Rail.

Will you be having an Omaha spin?

An Omaha spin within the ice cream shop? Yes. So, there’s a lot of desserts a lot of things that are very famous around here, but butter brickle ice cream was actually invented here in Nebraska in Omaha. And so taking some of the notes from some of the more classic dishes, you know, and some of the famous splits, trying to kind of recreate an era.

We are trying to get as local as we can with all of our ingredients. So, the milk that we use is local. The ice cream that we’re using comes as local we can get it. It’s only a couple hours away. And so, we’re trying to tie it in as close as we can.

In some of the menu ideas that we have down the road for some of the specialty sundaes and stuff, we’re really trying to tie into the to the old Aksarben area and hearken back to some of those horse racing times.

When will Willie’s Ice Cream be open?

Shooting for February 2.

Check out Willie’s Ice Cream at Inner Rail and visit back here for more stories.

For up to date news on the opening or any date change, visit:

https://www.instagram.com/williedogsomaha
https://twitter.com/WillieDogsOmaha
https://www.facebook.com/williedogsomaha
https://www.williedogs.com

Inner Rail Food Hall
1911 S. 67th St
Omaha, NE 68106

Omaha Restaurant Review: Mouth of the South-Southern Grub

Image of a purple sign for Mouth of the South restaurant on brick building with many stairs

I ordered the Bayou burger with onion rings and coleslaw.

Image of onion basket with large onion rings and ketchup

The onion rings came first, were great and a great surprise. The breading was super light and flaky and not oily. The onions were an impressive size and cooked perfectly. So far, these are my favorite onion rings in Omaha! (Please send me your favorites to try in the future.)

Image of a very tall burger with one patty but many layers described below and a big bowl of coleslaw on white rectangular table

The burger was medium to well-done and blackened. There were layers of red onions, bleu cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, comeback sauce and blackened shrimp. It was so tall it was hard to get all in on the first bite.

The waitress asked if I wanted salt pepper and hot sauce. I liked the salt and pepper on the onion rings and the hot sauce. The Louisiana Hot Sauce went well with both the onion rings and burger.