Best Eco-Friendly Restaurants in Omaha
This is our Eco Eats Guide, a running list of the best eco-friendly restaurants in Omaha. Every spot is Hillside-verified.
Last updated: October, 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.
TL;DR: The best eco-friendly restaurants in Omaha include Kitchen Table, Coneflower Creamery, Bánh Mì Shop, and Heirloom — alongside the other spots on this Hillside-verified guide. Every restaurant featured here composts food scraps with Hillside Solutions, the only industrial composting facility in the Greater Omaha Area, and many also recycle, source locally, or run zero-waste programs. This guide is updated regularly — last updated October 2026.
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.
Find them on the map
All Hillside-verified spots, mapped by category. Toggle layers in the legend to filter by use-case (coffee, casual, date night, sweets, drop-off sites, and more).
Updated whenever a new Omaha restaurant joins. Open the full map →
Quick Navigation
Coffee & Cafés
The best eco-friendly coffee shops and cafés in Omaha include places like Amateur Coffee, Archetype Coffee, and Myrtle & Cypress Coffee — among the other shops on this Hillside-verified list. Myrtle & Cypress roasts on an electric fluid-bed air-roaster, Archetype roasts with shade-grown and direct-trade beans, and every cafe below composts their grounds with Hillside Solutions. Many also tackle single-use cups with reusable mug discounts or BYO-cup programs.
Amateur Coffee
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 takeaway drink. Reusable utensils for every pastry and waffle. (Unless you bring your own). If you stay, you can enjoy your drink in one of their pretty to-stay wares. Since 2019, they have kept 214,168 paper and plastic cups out of the landfill (as of October 24, 2026). If you wanna do the same, here’s the deets on the program. Add in that they roast 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.
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.
Lola’s
4952 Dodge Street, lolasomaha.com
Lola’s is a woman-owned restaurant on Dodge Street that feels like a little spot in Paris, NYC, or London. They make sourdough the slow way, cook with seasonal produce from local farmers they know, and serve plenty of vegan and vegetarian dishes next to the meat ones. Many of the wines come from old vineyards that farm organically without ever getting certified. Each week Lola’s sends more to compost and recycling than to the landfill. Eat in and your food comes on real plates. The straws are compostable, and so are the cups for the wine you take next door into a movie at Film Streams. We take their food scraps to Soil Dynamics for composting, and their wine bottles to Ripple Glass. The same team runs Fig downtown, where every to-go container is compostable.
Grove Juicery
Downtown, 2401 Farnam Street / Elkhorn, 18101 Chicago Street, Aksarben 1911 S. 67th Street, 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
Saddle Creek Breakfast Club
8734 Pacific St · facebook.com/SCBCOmaha
The beloved Omaha breakfast spot is keeping it sunny side sustainable — composting eggshells, coffee grounds, and food prep waste with us before the lunch rush even starts. The menu rotates with the seasons, almost everything in the kitchen is locally sourced, the coffee is Amateur Coffee (one of our top picks), and the sausage and bacon come from O'tillie (an Omaha butchery). Plus the neon-pink walls and pop music make it the brightest mood you'll catch before noon.
Located inside Countryside Village, the shopping plaza quietly has more eco-verified spots than any other Omaha neighborhood. If you want to do a one-stop eco-eat tour, this is your shortcut.
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.
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 St, ahillofbeans.com
Fresh-brewed coffee, espresso and award-winning cold brew, all roasted by A Hill of Beans Coffee Roasters right here in Omaha since 1993, alongside locally crafted bites. This time of year, look for seasonal roasts like Pumpkin Spice, Caramel Walnut Shortbread and Cinnamon Sticky Bun. The beans come direct-trade from farms using regenerative and organic methods, the roasting is energy efficient, and the packaging is recyclable and compostable. Bring your own coffee cup and you get 50 cents off your drink. Their coffee grounds and food scraps go to Soil Dynamics for composting, their recycling goes to First Star Recycling, and their glass goes to Ripple Glass. Roast is part of Aksarben Village, which gives many of its tenants access to recycling, glass recycling and composting, a program we’ve run with Aksarben Village since 2019. It’s also the go-to table for UNO students cramming for exams and anyone setting up a coffee meeting.
Durham Cafe
2200 Dodge Street, joslyn.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 food is Clean Slate’s: locally sourced and scratch-cooked, with a seasonal menu that leans plant-forward (think Mediterranean salads and lemon orzo with butter beans) and accommodates vegans and gluten-free diners by default. Silverware and to-go boxes are compostable, and cardboard, plastic and aluminum get rinsed and sorted in the kitchen. Their pre-consumer food scraps come to us for composting at Soil Dynamics, and their glass goes to Ripple Glass.
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
The best eco-friendly casual restaurants in Omaha include places like Kitchen Table and Bánh Mì Shop — alongside the other Hillside-verified spots below. Kitchen Table was the first restaurant in Omaha to ditch single-use plastic, and Bánh Mì Shop became the first restaurant in Bellevue to compost. Every casual restaurant on this list composts food scraps with Hillside Solutions.
Casual dining is Omaha’s preferred lane. And these are the one’s making great food and being good to our environment at the same time.
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.
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), and accept "ugly" produce that other restaurants would reject. They’re also a CSA pick-up site for Iowana Farm, so Iowana CSA members can grab their farm shares there. 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.
Bánh Mì Shop
923 Galvin Rd S #101, Bellevue, thebanhmis.com
The first restaurant in Bellevue to compost — and the only one as far as we know. The Bánh Mì Shop also hosts a Compost Club drop-off site where members can bring their food scraps. They sell reusable Bumblers for boba tea (cuts down on the single-use cup pile), prioritize local and low-waste sourcing, and recycle cardboard and other materials with us. And of course the sandwhiches are amazing, as they bake bread in-house and make their own mayo and pickle their own daikon and carrots.
Vitality Bowls
1922 S 67th St, vitalitybowls.com
While Vitality Bowls has a ton of locations around the country, we can vouch that this Omaha location in Aksarben Village is giving us all the banana peels and fruit peelings we can handle. It’s a fast-casual spot with super-duper healthy options: organic açaí bowls piled with granola, fresh fruit, nuts and honey, plus savory wraps, grain bowls, protein bowls, salads and sandwiches. Best açaí bowls we've had. Vitality Bowls leans into the zero-waste mindset most fast-casual chains don't bother with: strawberries nearing peak get frozen for smoothies instead of tossed, mistake bowls get eaten by staff, organic superfoods are the standard, and they'll use imperfect-shaped produce instead of rejecting it. We take their banana peels and fruit peelings to Soil Dynamics for composting, and their recycling goes to First Star Recycling. That’s through Aksarben Village, which gives many of its tenants access to recycling, glass recycling and composting, a program we’ve run with Aksarben Village for about seven years.
Clean Slate Food Co.
1233 Millwork Ave (Ashton Building, Millwork Commons) · cleanslatefoodco.com
Three businesses under one roof: a Millwork Commons cafe serving made-to-order breakfast and lunch, a weekly meal delivery service that drops insulated cooler bags at your door across Nebraska every Sunday, and a catering operation that also runs the Durham Cafe at the Joslyn (also on this list). Locally sourced, scratch-cooked, with a dedicated 100% plant-based menu alongside the omnivorous one. Meal delivery comes in compostable containers, lids and even sauce ramekins, and they collect the used ones, plus the cleaned and sanitized cooler bags and ice packs, when they drop off your next meals. Catering events get upscale compostable plates, forks and napkins, with the compost brought back to their kitchen for us to pick up. Both cafes use compostable silverware and to-go boxes, cardboard, plastic and aluminum get rinsed and sorted in the kitchen, and Saving Grace picks up surplus food once a week. They’re inside Millwork Commons, which gives all of its tenants access to every recycling and composting service we offer.
Fine Dining & Date Night Drinks
The best eco-friendly date-night and fine-dining spots in Omaha include Au Courant, Koji, and Le Bouillon — among the other Hillside-verified restaurants below. Au Courant builds tasting menus around hyper-local, in-season produce; Koji provides small plates from David Utterback (the James Beard finalist behind Yoshitomo); and Le Bouillon anchors Old Market with classic French cuisine and a long-standing composting program. Every restaurant in this section composts with Hillside Solutions.
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.
Au Courant — Benson
6064 Maple St · aucourantrestaurant.com
Watch the loop close in real time at Au Courant. They compost their food waste with us. We turn it into soil. We sell that soil to Stream Meadows, an organic tomato farm. Stream Meadows sells those tomatoes back to Au Courant. Au Courant cooks them and composts the trim with us. The same atoms, cycling through Omaha's food system. And the loop starts even closer to home: chefs and owners Ben and Ashley Maides live on and run a farm that supplies the restaurant’s pork and eggs. Their weekly changing tasting menu is about 80% local (maybe more at the height of the season), sourced from about 10 local farms year round. Watch the documentary →
Avoli Osteria
5013 Underwood Ave, avoliosteria.com
One of those places you go when you're ready to spend money and get blown away by Northern Italian fine dining. Just happens chef Dario and Amy both drive electric cars and are serious recyclers and composters — the same care they put into the food shows up in how they run the place. Pasta made fresh in-house daily, weekly menu rotation tied to what's actually in season, and a real range of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. They use as many local farmers as they can, from chicken to cheese and everything in between, and in summer almost all of their produce comes from local farms. Their food scraps come to us for composting at Soil Dynamics, and their glass goes to Ripple Glass.
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.
Fizzy's Fountain & Liquors
1408 S 13th St, fizzysomaha.com
Imagine a 1950s soda fountain, but for adults. Boozy shakes with Fernet Branca. Wagyu burgers. Orders placed on the corded phones hanging in your booth. To reduce carbon footprint (and have delicious food) the Lil' Bohemia spot makes their own sodas, syrups, and infusions in-house, sources local beef from Jon's Naturals, coffee from Archetype (on our list), and ice cream from Coneflower (also on our list). Cherry on top: they compost and recycle glass with us.
Masa Luna
1258 S 13th St, masaluna.com
Little Bohemia’s tamaleria and agave bar skips avocados, which don’t grow anywhere near Nebraska and often spoil before they’re used, and makes Gus Guac instead: a creamy, vegan guac made from local asparagus. We know their sustainability setup is legit, because one of the co-owners helped build Hillside’s own zero-waste protocols. Nearly everything is made in-house, with local, seasonal ingredients where possible, and straws, napkins, and silverware are compostable or reusable. Kitchen prep scraps and uneaten plates get composted with us, we take their cardboard, cans, and plastics to First Star Recycling and their beer and liquor bottles to Ripple Glass, and soft plastics go in Hefty ReNew orange bags. Their takeout boxes are recyclable on purpose, since more people can recycle at home than compost. After all that, a full week of landfill trash fits in two 96-gallon carts, about what two households toss.
Le Bouillon — Old Market
1017 Howard St · lebouillonomaha.com
French-inspired Old Market gem that loads us up with carts of food waste every week, including a massive amount of oyster shells. Those shells are rich in calcium and help balance acidic soil, which makes them a real gift to a compost pile. Chef Paul Kulik (a James Beard Outstanding Wine Program semifinalist) runs a seasonal menu sourced from local producers, with a daily oyster happy hour at the raw bar that's worth the trip alone. The cassoulet, the steak frites, the French onion — proper comfort food from rural France, executed at the level you'd expect from one of Omaha's most-awarded kitchens. Pair the meal with a bottle from the attached Howard Street Wine Merchant or duck into Mon Cave for a nightcap. They compost and recycle glass with us.
Koji
8718 Pacific St · izakayakoji.com
Sushi, yakitori, and small plates from David Utterback (the James Beard finalist behind Yoshitomo). The restaurant is named for koji, the fermented mold that gives miso and soy sauce their depth, and the kitchen leans into that same patient, intentional approach across the whole menu. Yakitori grilled slowly over charcoal, fish broken down to its last edible piece, vegetables sourced fresh and used carefully. What's left over comes back to the earth — they compost with us.
Sage Student Bistro
5730 N 30th St, Bldg 22, Metropolitan Community College · mccneb.edu/sage-student-bistro
Omaha's only restaurant-as-classroom — and one of the most serious fine-dining eco-operations on this list. Sage is the working bistro inside MCC's Institute for Culinary Arts, where one of the top-15 culinary programs in the country runs. The building is LEED-certified, the dining room uses real dishware (with certified compostables for takeout), and the kitchen sends us around 2,000 pounds of food scraps every week — test kitchen waste, catering trim, dinner service, all of it. Sustainability is built into the curriculum the same way knife skills are. Hillside speaks once a semester to a group of students.
Inkwell
8716 Pacific St · inkwellbar.com
A literary-themed cocktail bar three feet from Koji's front door — the natural pre-dinner stop. Owner Tyler Schaeffer learned his craft tending bar in Miami and LA, then brought a curated drinks program back to Omaha. House-made ginger beer (jalapeño, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla — force-carbonated overnight), reimagined classics, and bartenders who'll build a bespoke cocktail off your flavor profile if you'd rather not order from the menu. They recycle glass with us, which for a craft cocktail bar means a lot of bottles.
The Casual Pint
8718 Countryside Plaza · countrysidevillage.thecasualpint.com
Owners Dave and Becca Vannier brought The Casual Pint concept back to Omaha after falling for it in Knoxville. The Countryside Village spot pours 30 rotating craft beers on tap and stocks 200+ cans and bottles, plus flatbread pizzas, pretzels with house-made beer cheese, and a rotating mystery beer that's free if you guess the brand. The "BeerTenders" know their stuff — first time with craft beer or twentieth, they'll guide you through. They recycle glass with us and compost their drink garnishes, which on a 30-tap operation adds up.
Duck Duck Bottle Shop
4917 Underwood Ave (Dundee) · duckduckbottleshop.com
Thousands of people come through Duck Duck between Thursday and Sunday, and by the end of the week their 96-gallon trash cart, the same size a household gets, is usually less than half full. A household of four usually fills that same cart. Chloe Fortina and Casey Fictum turned a 100-year-old Dundee yard into an outdoor bar with a backyard stage for live music, a Saturday morning radio show, and author readings, with a bottle shop and small bookstore in the basement. If you stay, your drink comes in a reusable cup. The to-go cups are the only truly plastic-free ones we've seen in Omaha: no plastic liner, no film, and the cap is built into the cup. Straws are sugarcane, and empty oat milk cartons get reused as to-go carriers. The food menu and every milk option are plant-based (Amateur Coffee is in that club too), every wine and tea producer was picked for how they farm, and the plants and landscaping get no pesticides or fertilizer. They've composted, recycled glass, and recycled everything else with us since the day they opened.
Bakeries and Sweet Treats
The best eco-friendly bakeries and ice cream shops in Omaha include Coneflower Creamery and Conscious Comforts — alongside the other Hillside-verified spots below. Coneflower has been named Yelp's #1 ice cream shop in America and sources from local dairies, and Conscious Comforts is a 100% vegan catering company. Every bakery and sweet shop on this list composts with Hillside Solutions.
Indulge your guilty pleasures while not feeling guilty about the environment.
Conscious Comforts
2320 Keystone Drive · consciouscomforts.com
A 100% vegan catering company and wholesale bakery — co-owned by Lauren Wright and Alexis Jensen, who've been at this since 2019. They started as a pop-up serving allergen-friendly nostalgic comfort food (deep-dish pizza, Nunzas — yes, vegan and gluten-free Runzas — pop tarts, cinnamon rolls, decadent cakes) and built a serious customer base for people who'd given up on those flavors after going vegan or gluten-free. Pickup and delivery four days a week, plus pop-ups at venues across the metro. They compost all pre-consumer food waste with us and host a Compost Club drop-off site.
Happy Mango Bakery
9635 Giles Road, La Vista, happymangobakery.com
Yes, the baked goods are very sweet and very delicious. And yes, they recycles plastic, packaging, and shipping boxes religiously, offers gluten-friendly and dairy-free options on request, and composts with us.
But our favorite part? They donate day-old baked goods, free, available for any neighbor who needs one through La Vista bakery's Community Table program. And just to toss this in, Happy Mango sources from local women-owned partners (Nurtured Dough Co, Dough & Co, Sprinkle Joy),
Coneflower Creamery
Blackstone (3921 Farnam St) and Millwork Commons (1207 N 13th St) · coneflowercreamery.com
It's not the cow, it's the how. And how you gonna pass up this dairy dreamboat when you know they're composting 100% of pre-consumer food waste? As far as we can tell, Coneflower is the most eco-friendly ice cream shop in Omaha. Their “farm-to-cone” sourcing slogan means business. That's because milk comes from Burbach’s Countryside Dairy, a family farm in Hartington, in glass bottles that Coneflower sends back to be reused, just like the old milkman days. Lavender and honey come from Fruit of Levine farm in Bennington, rhubarb and raspberries from Farmer John in North Omaha, and the coffee from Archetype Coffee across the street. Everything is made in-house: the cones, the sauces, the toppings. They compost 100% of their pre-consumer waste with us at both the Blackstone District and Millwork Commons shops, and at Millwork Commons we haul their recycling and glass, too. And extra credit: Yelp once named them the #1 ice cream shop in America.
Rebel Rise GF Bistro & Bakery
11039 Elm St (Rockbrook Village) · rebelrisegf.com
Talk about a bakery and bistro that operates from the heart! Beth Gregory started baking gluten-free at home after a celiac diagnosis — and after her four biological kids were diagnosed too. (She’s a mom of 12, six of them through foster care.) After years of testing, she'd cracked the code. Rebel Rise is a 100% gluten-free scratch kitchen, celiac-safe, no cross-contact, no shared surfaces. Donuts, sourdough, cinnamon rolls, breakfast, lunch, dinner — all of it built from the ground up gluten-free, with vegan options labeled alongside dairy, eggs, soy, and nuts. Her mission for Rebel Rise: 24/7 access to safe food that tastes amazing, so you never have to compromise your health to eat. Plus, they compost with us!
Catering
The best eco-friendly caterers in Omaha include Catering Creations, Patricia Catering, and Heirloom — alongside No More Empty Pots and the other Hillside-verified caterers below. Catering Creations achieves 90%+ event-waste diversion through composting and recycling programs, Patricia Catering runs a five-bin sorting system at its events, and Heirloom duplicates its eco-practices across both its catering kitchen on 72nd & Cass and its market in Millwork Commons. Every caterer on this list composts events with Hillside Solutions, the only industrial composting facility in the Greater Omaha Area.
Events produce a lot of waste. But it doesn’t have to. These are the local catering services that get the eco-approval.
Catering Creations
1915 Jackson St., cateringcreations.com
Omaha's first and only zero-waste caterer. Catering Creations diverts 90%+ of event waste from landfill by treating it as a resource: food scraps and uneaten leftovers go to industrial composting, surplus prepared food goes to Saving Grace for food banks and shelters, and fiber, glass, plastic, and metal all get recycled. In 2023 alone, they kept nearly 14 tons of material out of the landfill. When you book them, upgrade to the zero-waste package — they handle the compostable serviceware, the on-site sorting bins, and the staff training so guests don't have to think about it.
For all this great work, we gave them our 2023 “Resilience Award” at the Hillsides Award Ceremony. You can view the video here.
Patricia Catering
436 Galvin Rd N, Bellevue, patriciacatering.com
Our very first catering partnership, and Bellevue’s first and (as far as we know) only zero-waste caterer, serving events across the Greater Omaha area. Since 2019, they’ve offered compostable plates and cups, run a five-bin sorting system at events for only a $75 upcharge, and partnered with us for hauling.
But our favorite part? The head chef gets some of the finished compost back, then uses it to grow herbs used in their food.
No More Empty Pots — Catering & Event Spaces
8501 N 30th St · nmepomaha.org
NMEP coordinates food for your event from the local food entrepreneurs also renting their North Omaha commercial kitchens — meaning every booking funds culinary training, food security work, and small business incubation in the neighborhood. They've also got 6 rentable event and meeting spaces under one roof: a rooftop garden, the Cups Cafe community room, conference rooms, and a kids’ kitchen. And all the food entrepreneurs have access to NMEP’s extensive recycling and composting infrastructure.
Heirloom Catering, Cafe, and Market
Catering kitchen: 72nd & Cass · heirloomff.com // Cafe & market: 1210 Nicholas St · heirloomffmarket.com
Lots of Omaha food concepts have multiple locations. Few duplicate their eco-practices across all of them. Heirloom does, and they’ve been at it for 10 years. Their catering kitchen on 72nd & Cass and their cafe and market inside Millwork Commons both compost coffee grounds and food prep waste, host a Compost Club drop-off site for members, and prioritize sourcing from local, low-waste and ethical vendors. Everything in the market is made from scratch daily in the catering kitchen (soups, egg salad, chicken salad and more) by chefs who’ve worked in James Beard-nominated and Michelin kitchens or trained at top culinary schools. The shelves are stocked with local brands Heirloom helps get off the ground, like Perennial Homestead, Lulubees, Fat Head Honey, Bagel Bin bagels, Le Quartier bread, Vic’s Popcorn, Rotella’s bread, Sweet Stash and Norma’s. Their line for it: “We take our food seriously, but not ourselves.”
Composting at home is the next step.
Reading about restaurants composting is one thing. Doing it yourself is another. Compost Club gives you the option to drop-off at 60+ sites or get your yard waste and food scraps picked up weekly from your curb — just like the places on this guide.
Meet the Compost Club →Already a member? Forward this to a friend.
-
An eco-friendly restaurant in Omaha typically composts food scraps, recycles glass and metals, sources locally where possible, and minimizes single-use plastic. Every restaurant on this guide composts with Hillside Solutions, the only industrial composting facility in the Greater Omaha Area, and many go further with carbon-neutral buildings, reusable cup programs, or zero-waste catering.
-
All of the restaurants on this Hillside-verified guide compost food scraps with Hillside Solutions. That includes coffee shops, casual restaurants, fine-dining spots, bakeries, ice cream shops, and caterers across the Greater Omaha Area.
-
Conscious Comforts, a 100% vegan catering company and wholesale bakery, is on this guide. Several restaurants here also offer strong plant-based menus, including Grove Juicery and Lola’s Cafe.
-
The most recognized eco-friendly caterers in Omaha include Catering Creations, which achieves 90%+ event waste diversion, and Patricia Catering, which runs a five-bin sorting system at its events. Heirloom Catering and No More Empty Pots are also Hillside-verified eco-conscious options.
-
Yes. Hillside Solutions' Compost Club offers weekly curbside pickup of food scraps and yard waste, plus a drop-off options using 60+ sites around the Greater Omaha Area. It's the same composting service that all the restaurants on this guide use.
-
This guide is updated regularly as new restaurants join the Hillside-verified list or update their eco-practices. The current version was last updated October 2026.