You can taste the secret in Cascio’s spaghetti sauce.
A whiff of umami. A hint of spice balanced with a hint of sweet. Hunks of fork-tender meat. The kind of flavor that only comes from slow simmering for eight hours, because that’s how the Cascio family does it — has always done it — with a recipe straight from Carlentini, Sicily.
Cascio’s Steakhouse, tucked on the edge of Omaha’s Little Italy neighborhood at 10th and Hickory streets, is the last man standing of the Omaha-style “Italian steakhouses.”
Though this series is truly about beef, it can’t be told in this steak town without a detour toward a small Sicilian city and a glance at the Italian immigrants who created and have held down a certain set of Omaha steakhouses for decades.
“That history means a lot to me,” said Alfie Cascio, the third generation of the Cascio family to run the restaurant. “My oldest cook has been with us for 57 years. Our regular customers are like family. It’s demanding. I work 70-hour weeks. But I love it.”
Brothers Joe and Al Cascio opened Cascio’s Grille in 1946, initially located in an old drugstore. By the early 1950s, it had evolved into a steakhouse, and they renamed it Cascio’s Steak and Pizza House, before shortening it to today’s name.
A large fire destroyed the original Cascio’s building in 1978. Joe and Al rebuilt and opened in the massive 36,000-square- foot location where it remains today. The restaurant can seat a stunning 1,240 people, including 600 seats in the main dining room and bar, a 500-seat basement event center and a VIP room that holds 140.
Joe sold his part of the restaurant to Al in 1986, and in 1999, Joe’s son, Larry, bought it from Al. Alfie Cascio has been working at Cascio’s for 38 years. He took over from his father, Larry, in 2008.
Many other families ran Omaha Italian steakhouses, a list that reads both as a history of Italian immigration and a vanishing food culture.
Trentino’s closed in 1976. Marchio’s closed in 1985. The Original Caniglia’s closed in 2005. Mr. C’s closed in 2006. Angie’s closed in 2007. Eli Caniglia’s Venice Inn closed in 2014. Piccolo Pete’s closed in 2015. Anthony’s closed in 2022. The well-known Caniglia family ran many of those spots alongside immigrant families that mostly came from the small Sicilian town of Carlentini, now an Omaha sister city.
Only Cascio’s is still here.
Alfie Cascio said a few things make the Italian steakhouse stand out, primarily the focus on Italian-American specialties, like chicken parmesan, which is Cascio’s best-selling dish. There is that long-simmered spaghetti sauce and a side of pasta served with the steak dinners despite the baked potato that’s often on the plate, too.
I dined at Cascio’s twice, once with friends to try the Steak Town list, and another time to try the Italian specialties, which were easily the best of the dishes we tried.
It makes sense that the chicken parmesan is the restaurant’s best seller — Cascio said the restaurant serves on average 125 plates of it per week. It’s salty and crunchy, with a tasty breaded crust and a moist interior. Cascio said the restaurant bakes the chicken first, then finishes it in the fryer. The dish then gets slathered in the house red sauce and a blanket of melted mozzarella cheese before a finishing sprinkle of Romano. What’s not to like?
Cascio’s doesn’t stock the requisite Campari to make a Negroni cocktail, disappointing my Negroni-loving dining partner. But it will make you a strong, cold rye Manhattan without a blink. I had no complaints concerning this old-school version of the drink.
The onion rings are the flaky, lard-y kind, reminiscent of the style I almost always associate with old-school steakhouses like Johnny’s and Gorat’s, though the latter has since updated its recipe to taste more modern. Five plump shrimp came served with a standard cocktail sauce in the shrimp cocktail; the appetizer is fine, but not as memorable as others.
The ribeye at Cascio’s is the steak to get. It was the most flavorful of the two we tried, and was tender without being too soft. We preferred its texture over the filet, though it’s worth noting that both were cooked right to the temperature we ordered.
Cascio told me later the ribeye is a newer addition to the menu, popular with diners these days. He said the restaurant gets its steaks from locally owned Omaha Steaks, and has for several years. He’s able to keep the prices affordable for his long-time customers and said he appreciates the standardized weights and sizes of the cuts from the producer.
The steak dinner does indeed come with both a small side of pasta and a potato. The loaded baked potato here is basic compared to some of the others we’ve tried this year, with just a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, a few sliced chives and a dollop of sour cream.
If you get a salad, I recommend trying the house-made roquefort dressing, a chunky, flavorful version of blue cheese.
The second night we visited, in addition to trying the chicken parmesan, I wanted a closer look at the spaghetti sauce, so I ordered a plate of it, topped with an Italian sausage link, and a side of the house meatballs, on the appetizer menu.
The sausage links come heavily flavored with fennel, which I loved. They feature a snappy casing and a chunky, tender inside. Paired with an enormous portion of pasta and heavy ladles of sauce, I could only make it through only half of the dish.
The spaghetti sauce here is legendary, and though I couldn’t pry most of the ingredients out of Cascio, I did get one: beef bones.
Cascio’s massive dining rooms aren’t as busy as they once were, Cascio said. He has made some changes to the space, including updating the bar area and serving the full menu in there; it attracts a younger crowd on the weekends, he said, as do some new entrees, like full-sized salads with a choice of protein. He’s also pondering adding a patio.
The main dining room, decorated in tones of brown and orange, remains unchanged. He said he sees the reviews online that call it dated. He’s not going to update it, he said, because it’s a part of the family.
“That room is the nostalgia of the restaurant,” he said. “We don’t want to change.”
When Anthony’s steakhouse closed, Cascio said the restaurant adopted lots of its lunch business and large parties, including those for Creighton University athletics. Its five annual lunches with basketball coach Greg McDermott in the basement entertainment space have attracted close to 500 diners.
Cascio said there have’s been many rumors that he’s planning to close or sell the restaurant; for now, he says, those aren’t true. When he hits 40 years of working those 70-hour weeks at the restaurant, he said he plans to cut back to part time. Finally, he will take a long-planned trip to Carlentini.
“I promised my wife,” he said, laughing, “so it’s gotta happen.”
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