I was staying in the Aksarben Village area of Omaha on a recent trip out to that fair city, a city that has always been one of my favorite places to visit. They had been getting a lot of snow in the area this past winter and I had just driven around the city for a good portion of the day after they had gotten five to seven inches of heavy, wet snow earlier in the day. Walking distance from the hotel is a pizza place that I've noticed on previous visits to the area - Dudley's Pizza & Tavern. I decided to head over there for dinner on a cold evening when I wished I was home instead of on the road.
When I first moved to the Quad Cities over 25 years ago, there was a long-established pizza place next to where I used to work called Dudley's Pizza Works. Knowing that the Dudley from that place had retired a number of years ago and moved to the mountains of south-central Colorado, I didn't think the same guy - or his family - would have a stake in this place. Turns out that they don't. The place is named after Dudley Smith, an Omaha resident in the late 19th century who coined the phrase "Aksarben" - Nebraska spelled backwards. And it was two brothers - Tim and Rob Malm - who came up with the name.
The Malm brothers took over the old Mojo Smokehouse & Ales location in the Aksarben Village in 2013. They initially called their venture Railyard Pizza and Tavern. But confusion over affiliations with other businesses in Omaha and Lincoln that had similar names caused the brothers to shift directions and name it after the man who originally came up with the "Aksarben" name. They opened Dudley's in late 2013.
The Malm brothers eventually sold their shares in Dudley's Pizza and Tavern in 2015 to Bill Barstow, the owner of a number of movie theaters in Omaha and Lincoln including the Aksarben Cinema next door to Dudley's Pizza. Barstow installed Tony Digilio to run Dudley's for him. (The Malm brothers have resurfaced in Omaha with a new Mexican taqueria concept - Hook & Lime - located on the north end of Omaha's downtown area.)
I walked through the parking garage next to the hotel, over and around to Dudley's Pizza and Tavern. (see map) It's set back from the street a bit, but still pretty visible if you approach it from Center Road up S. 67th in Aksarben Village. Mounds of snow from previous snowstorms - including the six-plus inch dumping from earlier in the day - were piled up on the patio that probably would have been filled with al fresco diners if the weather was much more warm.
Inside Dudley's, I was sort of surprised to see how small it was. In fact, it appeared that they were in the midst of downsizing the space they were in. High-top and regular tables were in the center of the room with booths along a short wall on one side. A local artist by the name of Chris Saub - who goes by the stage name of Christopher Raven - was playing guitar in the dining area during the latter part of happy hour. The music was very good and very relaxing.
I ended up seated at one end of the three-sided bar toward the front of the restaurant. A couple of flat screen televisions hung over a set of beer spigots with a glass-front refrigerator was off to the side. I was greeted by one of the bartenders, a young lady by the name of Kat, who gave me both a food menu and a beer menu. Nothing on their tap list tripped my trigger, but I did see that they had the Cardinal Pale Ale from the Nebraska Brewing Co. in a 16 ounce can. I ordered that from Kat while I looked over the menu and listened to the music.
Pizza is definitely the main item on the menu at Dudley's with a choice of either a thicker braided-crust pizza or a thinner "tavern-style" pizza. (Gluten free crust is also available at Dudley's Pizza.) But they also had burgers, sandwiches and wraps on the menu, along with a number of appetizers including chicken wings, fried dill pickle spears, truffle-salted pub fries topped with Romano cheese sprinkles, and sausage-stuffed fried ravioli that was also topped with grated Romano cheese and served with both a pesto and a marinara dipping sauce. I thought about just getting the ravioli and calling that my meal for the evening.
But the tavern-style pizza was calling my name and I ordered up a small - 10" - sausage, pepperoni and mushroom pizza. When it was brought out to me, I was sort of surprised on a couple three fronts. First of all, tavern-style pizza - to me - is cut into the square pieces. This was cut into triangles. Secondly, the crust wasn't all that thin - at least not as thin as I was expecting a thin-crust pizza to be. And lastly, I wish I would have had a ruler with me because it looked like the smallest 10" pizza I've ever seen. I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and let the pizza cool down while I got another Cardinal Pale Ale.
Quite actually, the pizza at Dudley's wasn't all that bad. In fact, it was surprisingly good for what it was. While the crust wasn't all that thin, it was crispy enough that it had the consistency of a thinner crust pizza. The toppings were all fresh and very good. I especially liked the sauce - it wasn't too sweet, nor was it too tangy. It was a good mix of tomato sauce and paste - something I have trouble with in making sauce at home from time to time. Yeah, I wish it were a little larger, but I was fine with what I had when I finished the pizza, which wasn't all that hard to do.
The pizza I had at Dudley's Pizza and Tavern was good - not exactly what I was expecting in a "tavern-style" pizza - but good enough that I enjoyed the taste of it. They had a good selection of craft and domestic beers to choose from, and other than a minor hiccup when I needed a couple more napkins and no one was behind the bar for five minutes, the service was pretty good, as well. And Christopher Raven's music was a nice relaxing touch at the end of the day. Over all the years I've been traveling to Omaha, I've only found maybe one or two pizza places that I thought were really good. I wouldn't put Dudley's into that category of "really good", but it was serviceable pizza that didn't suck.
(Update - April 2020 - I understand that Bill Barstow bought out his partners in the Dudley's venture and closed the place down. He replaced it with the Backlot Taphouse, a craft beer/Detroit-style pizza place.)
Comments