"Rome didn’t know it fell. One day, the guy who was supposed to repair the roads just didn’t show up.” It is an old adage, but it is a good reminder that constant taxes, maintenance, and repairs are important for shared infrastructure. It is, however, entirely frustrating in Omaha to drive around downtown, or anywhere along Farnam Street. Too many good, local businesses have had their revenue impacted by the insane levels of construction on Omaha’s roads. 

In brief: 

• February 2023, the Omaha Metro Planning Agency received $750,000 from the Safe Streets For All program.
• June 2023, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Omaha a $2 million RAISE grant for our roads.
• May 2024, Omaha was granted another $2 million from the federal government for street infrastructure around the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
• Also in 2024, Omaha was awarded an even bigger road grant from the federal government to a tune of $16.96 million.

Furthermore, in 2024, Omaha Voters approved $152 million in transportation bonds. 

This is still the above-the-water part of the iceberg, though. 

Originally, the streetcar cost was imagined somewhere around $169 million, but has since ballooned to truly imaginary numbers for Omaha taxpayers: $421 million.

Still, roads need to be maintained; however, in the meantime, businesses suffer – which is why the Daily Record is going to begin a series on visiting the restaurants along the Streetcar route! After my editor searched and searched for anyone who would possibly torture themselves by braving the horrid parking and “suffering" good food, I finally relented, agreeing to review as many foodie places as possible along the planned route. 

Always, for you, Dear Reader. 

To start, I decided to begin at the start of Farnam Street and work my way down, restaurant by restaurant. I almost missed the very first locale, ‘Flora’, which was kind of hidden next to the Indian restaurant next door. Thankfully, it proudly displayed "Mexican food,” which my South Omaha stomach is quite able to endure (huehue). Parking for Flora is generally easy right at 10th and Farnam, as there is a paid parking lot just behind it, and the Gene Leahy Park/Downtown slides right in front. 

Just inside Flora, the walls were painted with a beautiful, soft yellow, like that of a Spanish sunflower at sunset, and above the neat tables, a trellis of herbs and little flowers hung, which themselves were brighter than the walls. Above those was a second floor for seating. Decidedly, I was immediately comfortable in the setting. At the advice of my kind server, I ordered the most popular tacos, the ‘quesa-birria’, as well as the homemade, house salsa and chips. 

As a South Omaha native, we can get kind of elitist with salsa. Ordering the homemade salsa was more for me than for you, a-ha. 

When the three tacos came out with fried tortillas, to the side was also a cute, small bowl of soup with a warm, dark-brown broth. The porcelain bowl immediately reminded me of one I’d see in an old western, or in an abuela’s house. At the instruction of the waitress, the broth was what they had cooked the taco meat in, and it was meant to be used to dip the tacos into. 

I was a tad worried, seeing “melted cheese” as an ingredient for the birria tacos, as many restaurants that I have gone to erroneously believe that more cheese is better, rather than understanding that it is vastly more important to get right the ratio of one ingredient to another to maximize the efficacy of all the parts for the whole dish. When first biting into the fried tacos made with Flora’s “secret birria recipe” and melted cheese (before dipping it in the broth), they were certainly good tacos, but slightly too much. 

Dipping them, I felt, was absolutely required to enrich flavors, to soften the taco. It was, however, when I noticed that I missed the lime provided with the tacos that I knew I messed up. 

Squeezing a line of the lime’s juice between layers of each taco shell, then the rest went into the broth, lacing together all the ingredients like a beautiful green ribbon through the hair of a Spanish beauty. The depth of the broth was made greater by the rich flavor of the birria, with the sweet citrus together classifying it as a fantastic taco. 

And the homemade salsa was… fantastic. It had a kick to it, sure, but not like the poor attempts at adding heat where wannabe cooks just add jalapeños or habaneros or some such thing. It would be better to say that the salsa wasn’t shy, but not overbearing or too much in any sense – in the same way that a confident woman will rock a sundress one inch shorter than is proper, but not so crass as to fall into the realm of the distasteful. 

Flora had some awesome tacos (don't forget the broth and lime!!) and confident salsa. Located at the beginning of Farnam Street, it was a great intro to this new series supporting our local restaurants affected by the streetcar project. 

Flora Cafe

1009 Farnam Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68102, 

(531) 466-2727

Monday - Thursday  8AM - 9PM, Friday - Saturday 8AM - 10PM

Sunday 8AM - 8PM

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.