11-Worth Cafe

The 11-worth Cafe opened in 1979 and served a standard American breakfast of bacon, omelets, eggs, and hash browns. The 11-worth Cafe’s name comes from the street it is located on which is named after a war general who battled Native Americans in the 1800s. Even though the 11-worth Café served a standard American breakfast it was owned by an Immigrant family with a long history in the restaurant business in Omaha spanning decades. The 11-worth Cafe was open for 44 years until it closed permanently in July 2020 due to Black Lives Matter protest over the controversial menu item at the cafe called the Robert E. Lee.

The 11-worth cafe had a wide range of clientele from doctors and nurses to seniors and even politicians looking to interact with their constituents. The 11-worth cafe was part of the Omaha culture, customers had traditions of going there. The cafe was very family oriented; you would see large families there with children and grandparents eating together. The 11-worth café was owned by Tony Caniglia Jr. and his family, the Caniglia family are long time Omaha residents and own several restaurants in the Omaha area. From an interview by the Douglas County Historical Society of Rosario Caniglia we learn that the family immigrated to the United States from Carlentini, Sicily. Some of the other restaurants owned by the Caniglia family in Omaha that were also staples are now closed are: Caniglia’s Pizzeria and Steakhouse, Mister C’s, and Eli Caniglia’s Venice Inn. Another Caniglia restaurant still open is Caniglia’s a Mano. The Caniglia family have owned many restaurants in the Omaha area at one point or another but most of them are now closed.

The Immigration of the Caniglia family to the US came at a time when Americans were starting to become more accepting of foreign food items. As Donna R. Gabaccia states in We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans “As the United States rejected isolationism and rose to global power, it also accepted a peculiarly American, and fundamentally commercial, culinary cosmopolitanism” (Gabaccia,148). During this time there was massive immigration from Italy because of poor economic and social conditions. For example, only one sixth of the people that worked the land owned the land and the poor in Italy paid most of the taxes. Between 1900 and 1910, 800 Italians immigrated to Omaha, these immigrants settled in an area that became known as Little Italy. Little Italy is boarded by South 10^th street on the West and the Missouri River on the East. The 11-Worth Café is not located inside Little Italy, but it is not far from the area.  

The protest at the 11-worth cafe began on June 13, 2020, the protest resulted in people needing to be escorted out of the restaurant by police. The protesters were outside of the restaurant shouting “Black lives Matter” and “shut it down”. The racial debate that stated with George Floyd cast attention to a menu item of the 11-worth café called the Robert E. Lee. As Robert E. Lee was the leader of the Confederate army during the Civil War. To make matters worse, there was also an insensitive social media post by the owner’s son which read, “Get rid of the rubber bullets and it’s time to go lethal” and “I promise you that when that first body hits the ground, reality will set in for 95% of the rioters and you can use the other 5% as target practice”. These comments were referring to the protest across the country over the death of George Floyd. This drew attention to the menu item which combined with the post sparked protests at the cafe which then resulted in the closure of the 11-worth cafe.

Gabaccia, Donna. We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Univ. Press, 2000. 

Reiner, Kim. Lost Restaurants of Omaha. Charleston, South Carolina: American Palate, 2017. 

Rosario Caniglia, Interview by Dennis Mihelich, August 1, 1988, interview 42, Douglas County Historical Society.

Searcey, Dionne. “The Battle over Biscuits and Gravy at the 11-Worth Cafe.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 5, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/us/politics/omaha-cafe-confederate-protests.html. 

Trudell, Tim. “Bringing a Taste of Their Homeland: Immigrants Diversify Omaha Food Scene.” Omaha Magazine, May 5, 2022. https://www.omahamagazine.com/2020/05/29/309066/bringing-a-taste-of-their-homeland-immigrants-diversify-omaha-food-scene. 

VENDITTE, PATRICK LOUIS. “THE AMERICANIZATION OF THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS IN OMAHA, NEBRASKA”. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1983.