Best and Most Eco-friendly Places to Eat in Omaha
Last updated: April, 2026
You’re in Omaha. You wanna eat. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably a conscious consumer. You wanna support your belly and the environment at the same time.
We have good news for you. Omaha has a ton of eco-friendly places to eat!
Omaha may have a west vs east divide, but one thing that unites us all is our love of eating out. So we actually have a pretty insane amount of incredible places to eat.
But here’s an interesting thing we’ve noticed: many of the “best places to eat in Omaha” locations are also eco-friendly. If you care enough about making incredible food, there’s a good chance you’ll wanna invest back into the systems that produce great food.
So we compiled a list of the most delicious and eco-friendly restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, and caterers in Omaha. Many of them are …
Investing in local soil health by composting
Cutting down carbon emissions by sourcing locally
Practicing zero-waste methods and/or ditching single-use plastics
Here's what makes this list different: it's Hillside-verified.
We haul landfill, recycling, and compostables for local businesses, and every place on this list uses us for at least one of those services. That means we see what's in their bins and we know where it's going. We also run Soil Dynamics, the Greater Omaha Area's only industrial composting facility — so if a restaurant composts, it's coming to us. And if they're serious about sustainability, they’re probably working with us.
The bar to make this list: At a minimum, every spot composts. We also flag who's recycling, using compostable take-out, or going further with zero-waste practices.
Quick Navigation
Casual Dining →
Date Night & Special Occasion →
Bakeries & Sweets →
Catering →
Before we get to the full list:
Here’s our top 5 most eco-friendly places to eat in Omaha.
When you have a list of 40+ locations, it’s easy to miss some of the most consequential locations. The following are absolutely blowing our minds with what they’re doing.
Amateur Coffee Shop
3913 Cuming St., www.amateurcoffee.com
They’ve done what no other Omaha coffee shop has done: zero-single use items. Even the to-go stuff.
Glass jars for every drink. Reusable utensils for every muffin. (Unless you bring your own). Regardless of whether you stay or go.
Since 2019, they have kept 185,000 paper and plastic cups out of the landfill. If you wanna do the same, here’s the deets on the program.
Add in that they make their own beans in-house and are 100% vegan, we think they probably have the smallest carbon footprint of any local coffee shop.
Because of these bold moves, we gave Amateur Coffee our 2024 “Reuse Award.” Here’s the video we played at the awards show.
Grove Juicery
3 locations, thegrovejuicery.com
Omaha’s first all-organic juice shop with a zero-waste production facility. They offer a glass-jar buy-back program, and do clever reuse things like make snacks out of juice pulp (while of course composting the rest).
They even use some of the compost they help create to pot the soil for their shop plants. And they have front-of-house options to recycle and compost.
If you’re a health-nut, you’ll love the selection
Block 16
1611 Farnam Street, block16omaha.com
This restaurant basically grows a bunch of its own food.
The owners live on a farmstead in the Loess Hills. The place sounds like a Garden of Eden: bees for pollination and honey, egg-laying hens, farm-raised pork, and goats for weed control. Fruit trees, berry bushes, and a summer garden with all the produce, herbs, and edible flowers you could conjure.
Since farming is a seasonal endeavor, they also have a geothermal greenhouse. Boom! Year-round produce like lemon, orange, banana, and fig trees.
And for the extra credit: they're doing this on land that's been in the family for 100 years.
Dolomiti Pizzeria
1105 N 13th Street, www.pizzadolomiti.com
Chef Tim Maides runs this restaurant like a Mediterranean grandma from the 1800’s. Not because it’s an Instagram-worthy moment. Just because it’s how he lives his life (like an old nonna knee-deep in the garden).
Think “scratch kitchen” model where ingredients are local (because that’s where the best flavors are). Sourdough crust they hand make using organic local grains (because it tastes better). Reusable dishware when dining-in (because the dining experience is better).
Plus, all wine bottles are recycled. They use digital menus to cut down on paper waste. They source half of their ingredients domestically or locally. They make relationships with their farmers who grow organically and prioritize seasonal ingredients.
Lola’s Cafe
4952 Dodge Street, lolasomaha.com
Think Parisian cafe, but with loads of vegan options for a low-carbon emissions dining experience.
Just like Dolomiti, they too have an old-world approach to food. Making sourdough bread the slow and wholesome way. Making friends with local farmers. Seasonal goods. Supplying wines that aren’t certified organic, they just are organic because that’s the way the vineyard always did it. Reusable dishware for dining-in. Take-away is compostable. And out back, their compost bins are pure and their empty wine bottles fill 120-gallons worth a space each week.
They also have a downtown cafe called Fig that follows many of these same practices.
Coffee & Cafés
We love us some coffee grounds! Nitrogen-rich, fast to break down, consistent every week. Every shop below sends theirs our way — and the bold ones are figuring out what to do about single-use cups.
Zen Coffee
Farnam Hill (Flagship location), 2504 Farnam St. // Tiffany Plaza (West), 2505 S 133rd Plz. // zencoffeecompany.com
Green America's Green Business Certification isn't easy to earn. Zen's flagship location is the only Omaha coffee shop that's done it — and they've put in the work. They compost and recycle glass at multiple locations, source fair-trade and direct-trade coffee, bake all their pastries in-house, serve dine-in drinks on real tableware, and skip straws by default (agave when you need one).
Our favorite part? They offer a cup swap program and/or give you 15% off your drink if you bring your own. Free bags of coffee grounds for your garden, too.
Urban Abbey
1516 Jones Street, theurbanabbey.org
A coffee shop, a bookstore, and an inclusive Sunday worship service — all in one spot. The milk comes from Nebraska cows (lower carbon footprint), the coffee is fairly sourced and locally roasted, and 10% of every coffee bar sale goes to a rotating local nonprofit. They've partnered with 30+ organizations and given away over $100,000.
Café Postale
950 S 10th Street, cafepostaleomaha.com
Rooftop solar panels plus renewable energy credits?!
That makes Café Postale a carbon-neutral building — perhaps the only Omaha restaurant that can make that claim. Inside, it's a lovely Little Italy breakfast and lunch spot with locally sourced ingredients, partnerships with other Omaha businesses, vegan options, and compostable service-ware that actually gets collected on-site (the part that matters). Bonus: those cute "newspaper" wraps for food.
Myrtle & Cypress Coffee
517 N 33rd St, and 7023 Cass St, myrtleandcypresscoffee.com
They roast on an electric fluid-bed air-roaster (cleaner than traditional drum roasting), make their own cashew milk in-house, and run a 50-cent discount when you bring your own container. They compost with us, host a Compost Club drop-off site at the Midtown location, and source locally. We know firsthand: anything Myrtle & Cypress does, they've thought about it carefully first.
Cups Café
8501 N. 30th St, nmepomaha.org
They grow their own herbs in a hydroponic garden inside the café — and you'll taste them in seasonal drinks like the Honey Bear Latte and Summer Fizz. Cups is operated by No More Empty Pots, a North Omaha nonprofit focused on food security, which means buying coffee here funds their broader mission. Locally sourced everything, locally roasted coffee, they recycle/compost, and host a Compost Club drop-off site.
Archetype Coffee
3926 Farnam St, and 1229 Millwork Ave, drinkarchetype.com
Archetype changed Omaha's coffee scene. Most of us were drinking burnt carbon until they showed up. They're sourcing from farmers using natural, non-chemical processing methods, small-batch roasting for quality and less waste, and composting all their food scraps and coffee grounds with us at two of their locations.
Roast Coffeehouse
1904 S 67th S, ahillofbeans.com
Direct-trade sourcing from farms using regenerative and organic methods, energy-efficient roasting, recyclable and compostable packaging, and a 50-cent discount when you bring your own container or reuse a bag. Roast also turns less-than-perfect beans into chocolate bark and coasters — and composts their grounds with us. Aksarben locals know it as the central spot for studious UNO students and business-casual networking vibes.
Durham Cafe
2200 Dodge Street, joslyn.org.org
Inside the Joslyn Museum's Conagra Brands Atrium, the Durham Cafe is run by Clean Slate Food Co. and pours Archetype Coffee — two of the most sustainability-focused names on this list, both in one spot. The menu rotates seasonally, leans plant-forward (think Mediterranean salads and lemon orzo with butter beans), and accommodates vegans and gluten-free diners by default. They recycle glass and compost pre-consumer food waste with us.
The Village Grinder
8706 Pacific St, villagegrindercoffee.com
The Countryside Village neighborhood spot — cozy, traditional, the kind of place you go for a slower morning. Daily in-house baking cuts down on packaging waste, and they compost coffee grounds and food scraps with us, recycle their cardboard shipments, and properly dispose of milk jugs and creamer bottles. Solid foundational practices, executed consistently.
Coffee Alley - Callejon del Cafe
7310 Harrison St, callejondelcafe.com
A bilingual, family-run coffee shop — women-owned and Latina-owned — that hosts neighborhood cleanups and Earth Day community events as part of how they show up locally. The eco work isn't just behind the counter; it's out in the streets. They also compost coffee grounds and leftover baked goods with us, and the panaderia-style desserts and Mexican-inspired drinks are reason enough on their own.
Fig
345 Riverfront Dr, figomaha.com
Owned and operated by the team behind Lola's Cafe — which means Fig inherits the same scratch-kitchen, locally-sourced, eco-conscious DNA. The riverfront location inside the Kiewit Luminarium is reason enough to come (pair it with the museum), and the food is among the most fun in town (get the burger). They use compostable single-use items and make every sorting stream available to guests so leftovers actually go where they belong.
Rooted Table
8705 Shamrock Rd, rootedtablecafe.com
Rooted Table built an actual food waste protocol, and you can feel it on the plate. Carrot tops become pesto. Broccoli stems go into soups. Day-old bread becomes croutons. The Countryside Village cafe is fully vegan and from-scratch, runs on flexible portion sizes (so you eat what you order), partners with local farmers who turn the scraps into compost and animal feed, and donates extra prepared food to community partners. They also use the Hefty Renew bag for hard-to-recycle plastics and compost the rest with us.
Casual Dining
Casual dining is Omaha’s preferred lane. And these are the one’s doing great food and being good to our environment at the same time.
Kitchen Table
1415 Farnam St, kitchentableomaha.com
Kitchen Table was the first Omaha restaurant to ditch plastic and switch to compostable serviceware — back when nobody else was doing it. They were also one of our OG composting partners. Today, they keep weekly partnerships with farms like Long Walk Farm (beets, greens, and seasonal produce), make almond milk in-house, and accept "ugly" produce that other restaurants would reject. The kind of “slow food” place that's been quietly setting the standard for over a decade.
Noli’s Pizzeria
4001 Farnam Street, nolispizzeria.com
One of our original composting partners! Noli’s was early to the eco-movement, paving the way as one of the first to offer front-of-house recycling and composting to customers. Meaning that you can have a zero-waste dining experience when you put all your items in the right bins. And they source local and seasonal when they can.
Herbe Sainte
1934 South 67th Street, herbesainteomaha.com
Fancy casual hip spot for southern flare & killer cocktails. Plus our compost piles go nuts for leftover grits. Bonus points: they recycle more glass bottles than any other Aksarben Village restaurant.
Mootz Pizza
8725 Shamrock Rd, mootzpizzaomaha.com
Arguably the best pizza in the Westside district & easy on the planet. They toss pizza, compost food waste, and recycle Coke bottles. Slice up sustainability!