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Grant Triplett Cracks Beers, Jokes, and the Code to Omaha’s Greatest Dives
There’s no denying the rapture of a fine-dining experience—the genuflecting waiter ushering guests to a white-cloth table, the elegant menu with word likes ‘pan-seared’ and ‘braised’ in Baskerville typeface, the polished silver promising a bite of euphoria with every cut. Yet, for most folks, such occasions are a flash in the pan—and the ritual of it all, the pomp and spectacle, leaves little space for genuine interaction.
For that, dive bars are the people’s choice local watering holes where the drinks are cheap, the laughs free, and all manner of personalities converge in stunning disarray. Local author Grant Triplett is well acquainted with such locales he’s deciphered bathroom stall etchings, measured stale beer gas levels, and has organized expeditions to more than 50 Omaha dives. One part David Attenborough, one part Bill Burr (with a wedge of Hunter S. Thompson), Triplett published his findings in taxi diver: a compendium of omaha dive b ars in 2021.
In the book’s preamble (following the dedication and preface, and before the ‘note to the bars’ and ‘how to use this book’ sections), Triplett makes his inten tions clear:
For example, he writes of the Therapy Bar & Grill:
“
Any place that shows Cops, the 5’ o’clock news, or Jeopardy! automatically passed the Dive Test […] Wanna watch police beat the hell out of tweakers in bumf**k West Virginia while you sip an IPA? They got your back. ”
Grant initially developed his passion for (and crass style of) writing while attending the University of Nebraska Lincoln in 2006, penning columns for the Daily Nebraskan
“[The Daily Nebraskan ] hired me and then I wrote about whatever I wanted,” Triplett recalled. “I did one on drinking absinthe, and I got drunk on absinthe and talked about kissing my bed. I did one on sh*t
“I tried to write this in a manner that immerses the reader into dive culture. That is the reason it is crass, cheap, uncouth, and dim. The things you will read are things that are not uncommon to overhear at drinkeries. I love Omaha’s dive bars because you can witness such a vast array of splendid content. They are places where individuals can be untethered and unfiltered no matter how exotic, peculiar, or batsh*t crazy they are.”
Location doesn’t factor into Triplett’s selections from Joe’s Duck Inn in Millard, to the Leavenworth Bar near Midtown, to the Caddyshack Bar & Grill in West O. Rather, he narrowed down the featured bars based on firsthand experience, reputation, an d longevity.
“There’s a few bars that are 60 or 100 years old,” Triplett said. “I think The Happy Bar is the second oldest in the book, so that’s why I joked [in that chapter] that somebody was probably at this bar when Kennedy’s head explo ded, right?”
Each chapter follows the same structure: initial impressions, a “dive test,” and concluding thoughts. Points for the dive test are fairly subjective, but the underlying criteria is “a reason they are not a fancy, ritzy, otherwise cl assy joint. ” breath just bad breath […] I did one on why I didn’t vote back in the day, and I remember I got a death threat. So, that was my first dose of negative criticism, whic h was fine.”
By the time of taxi diver’s release some 15 years later, Triplett was not only hardened to criticism he was e xpecting it.
“Sometimes you have to accept criticism, and that’s something I’ve learned over 20 years of writing. It comes with it it sucks, it never really doesn’t, but it gets easier,” Triplett explained. “Somebody thinks that you called their place sh*t, because you said it smells like mothballs and brimstone? But at the same time, it’s a net good thing are more people laughing than crying? Are more people happy than angry? I’ve had to have helped at least one or two businesses bring in a little bit of money […] and if not, at least th ey laughed.”
As for his focus on reviews, Triplett had been invited by a friend to the Omaha Food Lovers Facebook page in 2019, where he “lurked and lurked” until heartbreak inspired his first post.
“Kind of what reinvigorated my spark for writing was when I wrote something three years ago [on the Omaha Food Lovers page] about how I got stood up on Valentine’s Day for a date, and got a 40-ounce of Highlife and then got a Sonic meal, because I only eat fast food once a year,” Triplett said. “But I wrote about it and clicked, and then went about my day, drank the 40 […] and then I checked back about an hour later, and I had 600 notifications on my phone.
“Then I go ‘Oh God,’ the first thing I thought was ‘I must have said something offensive or pissed somebody off […] and it was just a bunch of ‘This is the funniest thing I’ve ever read’ and ‘This is hilarious, who are you?’ All this stuff…it kind of reinvigorated my desire f or writing.”
Afterward, Triplett began posting regularly, amassing a following over the 90 or so reviews he’s posted since. The end was result was Triplett’s sophomore book in 2022, the relatively tamer G’s Spots: A Guide to Omaha Eateries a collection of 60 of his posts and a bonus “March Madness” bracket pitting each restaurant “against each other in a battle to the death” to determine “t hee G spot.”
“Just because you get rid of the ‘F bombs’ doesn’t mean it’s not gonna be [crass],” Triplett noted of his second book. “I talk about it in the book, but my mom actually tasked me with I made too many poop references and diarrhea and sh*t references and she’s like ‘I want you to write one without one.’ So, four out of five now are sh*t free, but still, 20% of them have something to do with diarrhea.”
Needless to say, subtlety isn’t a strength (or perhaps, weakness) of Triplett’s. Whether reading taxi diver , G’s Spots , or listening to his podcast SMPL an acronym for Sh*t My Pants Laughing his content, and his goal, are as unfiltered as a hazy IPA.
“It’s to make people laugh and to help a business hopefully both at once,” Triplett said. “That’s the whole point of everything I’ve e ver done.”
Triplett’s books are available on Amazon, and his podcast on Spotify. Visit Omaha Food Lover’s page on Facebook for more information.
Growing up in Albion, Nebraska, food scientist Tessa Porter, 35, learned scratch baking from maternal grandmother Ann Kinzer, and an appreciation for natural ingredients from paternal grandmother, Norma Porter. Laying foundations for her father, construction contractor Randy Porter, steeled her work ethic.
Today, those lessons are infused in her candy development and manufacturing company, Sprinkk. Porter’s lab is based in Omaha, and a soon she’ll open factory in Albion her hometown as of 2020. She’s since collaborated with Norma on organic fruit snacks that hit store shelves last fall, while her dad is renovating a family-owned building for the new plant.
“Things really have fallen into place,” Porter said. “It’s not just about the candy, it’s about the people I grew up and worked with and the things I get to create and how it impa cts others.”
Curiosity and creativity have taken her far; though she never imagined becoming a real-life Willy Wonka.
“Even as a kid I always had this urge to make things out of nothing, whether cooking, crafting, [or] building ,” she said.
She and her sister discovered their love for confectionary in their grandmother’s cafe kitchen, where they were free to experiment with mixing, baking, and entre preneurship.
“I used to pretend I had a cooking show in her kitchen,” Porter said. “She taught us the right way to mix things and to make all these really rich, indulgent desserts. I had a side business making elaborate cheesecakes and building custom boxes for them.”
Porter worked as a waitress and cook, serving breakfast to construction crewmates. To forget the hours of hard labor, she recalled, “I used to pretend I was making brownie s or candy.”
At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Porter weighed studying to be a chef before finding her interests lie in learning, particularly, “what goes into the food we create and how to make the products that stand on the shelves.”
“Food science is a combination of art and science,” Porter explained. “The science and the chemistry are how all the molecules interact. But then there’s the art of making it taste delicious. A lot of nuanced things go into it.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree at UNL, she completed her master’s at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was awarded the American Association of Candy Technologists scholarship more than once. Her entry in the male-dominated industry came via the iconic Hershey company.
“I learned a ton about the nitty-gritty chemistry of candy. I got to work with some really cool innovation there,” she said.
Mentor Michelle Frame connected her to Ferrara Candy Company in Chicago, where Porter’s R&D team concocted the first truly organic gummy, Black Forest Gummies. She also led the team for NERDS Gummy Clusters, earning awards at the national Sweets & Snacks Expo.
Porter briefly left Ferrara for a sports nutrition company, before being recruited back as head of innovation and technology to integrate brands and lines after several mergers. Having already reached her dream job in her 20s, she admitted, “I realized I need big ger goals.”
Returning home to shape those goals and spend time with family held st rong allure.
“Maybe more than making candy, I really love being an aunt. I was missing out on things. I knew I wanted to be closer to family,” Porter said.
Whether in Illinois or Nebraska, Porter is among the vanguard of female candy creators and she’s excited about what women can bring to the field.
“My generation is the first bringing femininity to the industry,” she noted. “There are only a few of us that really speciali ze in candy.
“Big companies can come up with new ideas but there’s really no place to test and manufacture them. Even at Ferrara we had all these great ideas that never saw the light of day because manufacturin g ran 24/7.”
That’s when she formulated candy startup Sprinkk, short for Sprinkles.
“Since I really have a love of creating things, figuring out processes, working in manufacturing I figured, ‘why don’t I create a flexible contract manufacturing facility where we can do development and run the first manufacturing tests?’” she said. “That way we can validate process-formula on a much smaller, lower-risk scale.”
“Tessa recognizes opportunities, and goes after them,” observed Frame, who admires that Porter helps other small candy makers find their place in t he industry.
Proof of concept came with turning grandma Norma’s elderberry syrup into a handcrafted fruit snack.
“Grandma Norma gave me the elderberry, the ginger, the cinnamon, the honey components, and I made that fruit snack happen,” Porter recalled. “I picked some rhubarb out of my mom’s garden and boiled it down. I kept the honey, the cinnamon, and other parts the same and created a strawberry rhubarb gummy. That’s how the two formulas came about.”
Her Hershey mentor, Mark Heim, is a big fan of Porter's Midwestern ethics and openness to learning.
“[She's] curious about everything confectionery,” Heim said, “she not only learns, but strives to understand. Seeing what she was able to do with her grandmother’s treat, turning it into a new product…makes her someone for the industry to kee p watching.”
“It’s a little overwhelming how much people like it,” Porter confessed. “People are really surprised by the uniqueness of the flavors. They’re a bit more sophisticated, adult-leaning. The elderberry ginger was a finalist for best new sweet snack at national products expo [in 2023]. Th at was huge.
“It’s been really rewarding to come back to start Sprinkk and launch a brand together with my grandmother. People love that there’s this organic, real story of our lives were putting into these products and building a candy factory together with my dad.”
Porter isn’t resting on her laurels, paying her success forward by cooking up ways to blend candy science with STEM education through various platforms.
“I love to use candy to teach science and to get students excited about science,” she said. “It is a surreal realization what I get to do and how I get to bring this back to my family and c ommunity.”
Visit sprinkk.com for more information.