Hillside Solutions

10/14/2026

Lola's Cafe in Omaha feels like a little spot in NYC or London. The kind of place where they make sourdough the slow way and pour w**es from old vineyards that farm organically without ever bothering to get organic certification.

That’s why most people love them. But our #1 reason is that they produce more compost and recycling than they send to the landfill. 😆

And that thoughtfulness extends beyond the bin. Eat in and your food comes on real plates. Take a glass of w**e next door into a movie at Film Streams, and it goes in a compostable cup. The straws are compostable too. The kitchen cooks with seasonal produce from local farmers, with plenty of vegan and vegetarian dishes (which cut down on carbon) next to the meat ones.

Every week we haul their food scraps to Soil Dynamics for composting, and their w**e bottles to Ripple Glass.

We're so appreciative of the wonderful establishment that Clare, Corina, (pictured), and Philip have put together. If you like this place, you'll also love their sister restaurant Fig. Omaha inside Kiewit Luminarium.

If you've been there, tell the others why they need to check it out ...

10/13/2026

So many great collaborators in one here. We highly recommend checking this out at MAMO Gallery.

10/13/2026

Update from Duck Duck Bottle Shop's trash man: we're going to go ahead and call it. We think it's the most eco-friendly w**e bar in all of Omaha. Let's dig into the evidence ...

#1 - Thousands of customers are now coming through, and after a full Thursday-to-Sunday week, their 96-gallon trash cart is still less than half full. That means they're sending less trash to the landfill than a family of four 😮. We know, because we're the ones emptying it.

#2 - Empty oat milk cartons get reused as to-go carriers 👀. And to-go cups have no weird plastic or bio-plastic liner, so weird stuff doesn't get mixed into your drink.

#3 - Every w**e bottle gets recycled, including your typical recycled material. We take the material to First Star Recycling and Ripple Glass. Every food scrap gets composted through Soil Dynamics. Including the sugarcane straws.

#4 - Every w**e and tea producer on their list was picked for how they farm and how they treat the land and wildlife around them. The whole menu and every milk option are plant-based. Meaning you get ethical, cruelty-free and low-carbon-intensive options.

#5 - The plants in the yard get no pesticides or fertilizer. Most of the venue lives outdoors, too, so there’s no big building to heat and cool all year.

This means you get a 100-year-old Historic Dundee backyard, a glass of w**e or a pot of tea, live music, a Saturday morning radio show or an author reading, and a basement full of bottles and art books. And without lifting a finger, you’re having one of the lowest-carbon-impact nights out in this city.

Wanna find more places like this? Search for our “Best Eco-Friendly Restaurants in Omaha" guide.

You been? Tell the people how great it is ...

10/12/2026

Florence, you’re in!

Residents can sign up for our residential curbside composting program starting this week on our site.

Curbside Compost Club is Omaha’s new way to keep your food scraps and yard waste out of the landfill year-round. Plus get credits for free finished compost and 20% off an unlimited amount of all soil, compost, and mulch products at Soil Dynamics.

Don't think you have enough material to fill a bin? Most don't. That's just the smallest cart we could get that works with our trucks 😆. Every household matters, as this material will help farmers use less chemicals on nearby crops.

Leave us a comment and we'll share details.

10/12/2026

Omaha has a Mexican restaurant that makes its guac out of asparagus and sends less trash to the landfill than two households a week. We're gonna tell you the things we love about Masa Luna ...

First, we love how punk they are about avocados. As they shared with us, they don’t grow anywhere near Nebraska, and they tend to show up overripe or go bad before they get used. All that carbon sometimes spent for nothing. So Masa Luna makes Gus Guac instead, a creamy, vegan guac made from local asparagus.

Second, we know they do sustainability right, because one of their co-owners used to work here at Hillside and helped build our zero-waste protocols.

Now they run them at their own restaurant:
- Nearly everything is made in-house, with local suppliers and seasonal produce where possible
- Straws, napkins, and silverware are compostable or reusable
- All kitchen prep scraps and uneaten meals get composted with us
- We take all of their cardboard, cans, and plastics to First Star Recycling
- Soft plastics go in Hefty ReNew orange bags
- B**r and liquor bottles get separated for glass recycling, which we take to Ripple Glass

Bonus (and this is one of the most intentional stances we've seen from any Omaha restaurant on what type of packaging they use for take-out): their takeout containers are recyclable on purpose, not compostable. Compostable packaging only works if it's being composted using our Compost Club service. But since more people have access to recycling, it's better to distribute recyclable packaging.

After all that, a whole week of landfill trash fits in two 96-gallon carts. That is about the same amount two households toss in a week.

Masa Luna, WE SEE YOU.

Find them in Little Bohemia, Wednesday through Sunday from 4pm. Search “Hillside Eco Eats” to see our guide on other eco-friendly places to eat in Omaha.

For the folks who have enjoyed their wonderful food, tell the people how great it is ...

10/04/2026

Pickup day on this Dundee block looks like a neighborhood meetup.

Trilety sent us more footage of her Curbside Compost Club routine, and we love how joyous and adorable it is.

She rolls her cart to the curb, and her neighbors are out doing the same.

First she walks us through her kitchen bin. There are coffee grounds and eggshells, then there's leftover chicken, and the feathers from an old, tired down comforter.

In her words: "It feels amazing to not stress about food waste, and to be part of a small closed-loop system."

Trilety, thank you for showing us your wonderful routine and neighbor-bonding.

Want pickup day to look like this on your block?

Search Curbside Compost Club Hillside to see if we pick up in your neighborhood.

10/02/2026

Okay friends, we did the math and had to sit down for a second :))))))

What you're about to see are real fact-checked numbers of the impact of Omaha's new residential composting program. You ready? ...

- Since the launch in April, our Compost Champions have rolled their carts out to the curb 5,342 times
- Each cart averages about 34 pounds
- Which means, 92 TONS of food scraps and yard waste have been kept out of Omaha's landfill !!!!!!!!!

477 households (just like the ones shown here) and counting are participating.

If you're one of them, YOU scraped the dinner plates, saved the coffee grounds and banana peels, raked the leaves in and remembered your pickup day (most weeks… we see you ;))

From there, all of it goes back to feeding the soil.

THANK YOU, Compost Clubber Champions. We are beyond grateful to be a part of this with you

Omaha's first year-round curbside composting service. Weekly pickup of all food scraps (meat, dairy, bones) plus unlimited yard waste. From $25/mo. Check your neighborhood.

10/01/2026

Omaha has a fine-dining restaurant where every cook is a student trying to impress this guy. And you benefit from the delicious results.

If Omaha's restaurant scene were eating together at one big family dinner, this chef would be at the head of the table, handing out bear hugs, pouring something rare and French, and giving a toast so good nobody wants it to end (and probably wouldn't). He's taught hundreds of the chefs cooking around town, and plenty of them now run places of their own.

Meet Chef Brian O'Malley, dean of Metropolitan Community College (Nebraska)'s MCC Institute for the Culinary Arts.

He and his team run Sage Student Bistro, Omaha's only restaurant-as-classroom. Students learn to run a restaurant by actually running one, and it's open to the public. They're cooking for a grade, with their instructors watching over their shoulder. You get to eat the results.

Here's why we're mentioning all this ...

Chef O'Malley, Emma Oblender, James Davis, and Cathy Curtis make sustainability part of how students learn to cook, the same way they learn knife skills. They don't have to. They do it because they believe it matters.

Here's what that looks like in practice:
- Around 2,000 pounds of food scraps come to us every week: classroom waste, catering trim, dinner service, all of it
- We recycle their w**e bottles too
- The Institute for the Culinary Arts building is LEED-certified
- Students learn how Omaha's circular food system works, food-waste reduction strategies, and every quarter we get to come talk with a group of them about it

To Chef and team, thank you for making sure Omaha's next generation of chefs knows where their food scraps go.

To the people who know Brian or have eaten at Sage, let us know below what a gem we have with this bunch.

09/29/2026

If your husband has said, "Yeah, I'll do that composting thing, but only if it's easy," share this with him. We just converted one of them ...

"He told me we could only keep it up if it was easy - and it's so easy," said a Google review we just got.

They just keep a bin on the counter for food scraps and then take it out just like the trash.

She also said the service has "drastically reduced our trash output," and that "let's be honest, it makes me feel good. It's the kind of program you want to see grow in our community."

Full review in the comments.

On the fence? Her words: "Try it out! It's so much easier than you think!"

Get more info here: https://www.hillside.solutions/compostclub/curbside

09/29/2026

Omaha has a 1950s soda fountain for grown-ups where almost everything in your float is made in-house or comes from right here in town. We're gonna give you some more reasons why you'll love Fizzy's Fountain & Liquors even more ...

The soda? They make it themselves, along with every syrup and infusion. The ice cream comes Coneflower Creamery, made down the street. The coffee is from literally across the street via Archetype Coffee, and the beef in that Wagyu burger is raised 20 minutes away at Jon's Naturals. This all cuts down on carbon while making things extra delicious.

And the cherry on top? (It's delicious, duh), but they also compost food scraps and recycle glass bottles with us. So today's Wagyu fat trimmings will feed a local garden next year.

Fizzy's, we appreciate the extra eco-friendly steps you take.

Everyone else, find them in Lil' Bohemia (21+ only).