No Curses Here
Beer and Loathing in Dundee finds success where other businesses previously struggled
The bar on the southeast corner of 50th Street and Underwood Avenue may be a reference to writer Hunter S. Thompson’s druggiest saga, but Beer and Loathing in Dundee co-owner Dave Witt said his bar is about beer and he would be surprised to hear that a customer inside his bar was having the sort of psychedelic excursions found in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
“We were having fun with the title,” Witt said. “I’m definitely a Hunter S. Thompson fan, but we were trying to get clever with a little play on words.”
The open bar space is anchored by a sprawling main bar that takes up the core of the space. Beer and Loathing, co-owned by Witt and Mike Sartori, took over a space that was reputed to be a place that was hard to keep a business in.
After a longtime neighborhood hardware store closed in that space, four different restaurants tried to open in the space. All of them failed.
But Witt said he was confident when he took over the space, because Beer and Loathing was doing something different with the space.
“We never thought it was cursed,” he said.
Witt and Sartori gutted the restaurant fixtures, installed their bar and put some new décor on the walls, then launched their establishment.
Witt and Sartori have known each other since Witt took over Sartori’s shifts at Tiger Tom’s in northwest Omaha. Over time, the two became good friends and finally decided to tackle the bar business together. Since opening Beer and Loathing, Witt said the response has been great.
The bar plans to celebrate its third anniversary this September. Witt said the success really comes down to the staff of bartenders. Witt said he sought out bartenders that he encountered at other establishments and thought were exemplary servers.
Quality service has been one of Beer and Loathing’s hallmarks so far, he said.
“I think that’s what really drives our place, our staff,” Witt said.
Longevity and low employee turnover has also helped, he said.
“We still have all the main bartenders we started with three years ago,” Witt said.
The center bar’s size aids in service just by its roominess. Five or six bartenders can easily handle big weekend crowds behind the main bar.
Witt said his bar is sports-friendly, with plenty of TV sets around, but it isn’t all about ball games. He said it’s a good midtown meeting place, given its location in the heart of Dundee.
College students make up some of the weekend crowd, thanks to the relative proximity of the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Creighton University, but Witt said he doesn’t want people to think that Beer and Loathing is a college bar.
“Sometimes we get painted with that brush,” he said.
Instead he offers live blues on Thursday nights with 112 North Duck and a happy hour from open until 6 p.m. that knocks 50 cents off the cost of everything. The bar offers a little bit of everything, he said.