culture

Neon lights shine through the window, catching the attention of bar hoppers walking the streets. Inside, bright colors line every wall. Bartenders stand behind the bar, hard at work crafting special drinks for their customers.

Ollie’s Sake Bar is a bar in Lincoln that specializes in sake drinks, a traditional Japanese alcoholic beverage. They opened in May 2024, becoming the first sake bar in town.

“We’re all about creating a safe space for people to hang out and enjoy some good drinks, good vibes,” Taylor Madsen, co-owner of Ollie’s Sake Bar, said. “We also like to be a place for artists to show their work. It’s an artsy, cool spot to hang out.»

Sake is a traditional Japanese alcoholic beverage brewed from fermented rice, water, yeast and koji mold. It can be described as “rice wine,” but it’s actually a grain-fermented beverage like beer. Sake tastes similar to wine, isn’t carbonated and most sake is gluten-free.

Most sake ranges around 15% alcohol, higher proof than most other fermented drinks, but lower than most distilled spirits. Sake tends to have fruity flavors like apple, banana, melon and more.

“I always describe it as it’s a very rice-forward flavor, but it’s kind of like beer in the sense that there’s a lot of different types and there’s a lot of niches within it,” Roland said. “If you’re a Moscato drinker, I’ll usually push a little bit more of a sweeter, less alcohol, forward-flavored sake, but if you’re more of a cocktail drinker, I’ll usually push something a little bit more traditional.”

Madsen owns Ollie’s Sake Bar alongside her husband, Skyler Roland. Madsen and Roland had talked about having a business in the service industry for a while. May 2024 seemed like a good time for them to start something due to their finances.

The owners found an open space and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to open a sake bar. It was in their budget and something different to bring to the community, so they went for it. They even named the bar after their pug Boston terrier mix Ollie, according to their Instagram.

“We pulled the trigger on it and started building out a bar and figuring out what we want to do with it and the vibe that we want to give off,” Roland said.

The concept of Ollie’s Sake Bar combines Madsen’s and Roland’s love for sake and cocktails while having a great time with friends. They crafted the bar to be very colorful, artsy, eclectic and cozy, similar to a living room.

“We really focused on creating a little bit more of a colorful space that’s a bit more inviting for a broader range of people,” Roland said. “We take a lot of pride (in) making a space that people come to town and they see it on, whether it be Google or Yelp or wherever, and seeing something that’s a little bit more colorful, a little bit more lively than a lot of the bars in town.»

Ollie’s Sake Bar has a wide range of sakes on their menu. They have everything from sparkling, carbonated sakes to drier, more traditional flavors to fermented flavors with a more acquired taste to sweeter tasting sake.

If you’re nervous about trying sake, they also have cocktails, mocktails, beer, shots and wine. Every four months, their cocktail menu changes to try out new recipes.

“We’ve gotten pretty good reviews on all the cocktails that we have,” Roland said. “It’s a rotating cocktail menu, so it changes every four months, too, like trying different recipes and kind of weird stuff that you don’t really see a whole lot of around town.”

Outside of drinks, Ollie’s Sake Bar also hosts various events, including participating in First Friday. They’ve had pop-ups with other local businesses as well as yoga in the bar.

For First Friday, they have an artist come in and display their work on a big wall inside the bar. The artist also hangs out for the day, meeting people and selling their art. The artist’s work remains in the bar for an entire month.

“We’ve met a lot of really cool people,” Madsen said. “We have a lot of really cool regulars that we’ve gotten to know really well and made a lot of friends that way. And it’s just really fun.”

Ollie’s Sake Bar is open Tuesday through Thursday, 4-11 p.m. and Friday through Saturday, 4 p.m. to midnight. The bar is located at 325 S 11th St.

culture@dailynebraskan.com