When Thomas Rekasis and his family moved from Los Angeles to Hickman, Nebraska twelve years ago, they didn’t expect that a little patch of the Midwest would eventually become the foundation of their biggest adventure yet. At the time, Thomas was jetting across the globe consulting for restaurants, hotels, and bars, while his wife, her sister, and her mother built and ran a local bakery called Sugar Bee. Nebraska was supposed to mean stability, but the consulting life kept Thomas in airports more often than at home.
So he made a life-changing decision: he sold his company, joined Sysco Foods in Lincoln, and spent nearly a decade learning the industry from a different angle — one that gave him a front-row seat to what local restaurants needed, what customers loved, and what Lincoln was missing. That insight became the spark for Saltys Lodge.
He searched patiently for the right location, passing on several spots until he found the one — across the street from Capitol Beach, once a salt-raking lake in the 1860s and a quirky piece of Nebraska history that helped Lincoln earn its name. Saltys Lodge pays homage to that past, blending the legacy of Salt Creek with a nostalgic 70s-style lodge design that makes the space feel both new and rooted in something familiar.
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