A History of the Bali-Hi Lounge in North Omaha

Every full and active community has a variety of ways residents are entertained. One of the richest entertainment areas in North Omaha was the Near North Side, and this article highlights the story of one of its most popular nightclubs. This is a history of the Bali-Hi Lounge in North Omaha.

Becoming Bali-Hi

The former Bali-Hi Lounge was at 1402 N. 24th St. from 1968 to 1998.

From 1968 through 1998, the Bali-Hi Lounge at N. 24th and Hamilton was an iconic place to hangout and package store for good times. Ronald “Ronnie” Leon Hodges (1934-2021) bought the Bali-Hi Lounge in 1970, about 6 years after it was opened. It was operated by the Hodges family, including siblings, Robert “BeBee” Hodges (1937-2006) and Carolyn Hodges (1944-2023). Other people who worked there included Bonnie Williams, Tina Morris, Myra Meadows and Clarice Owen.

Ron Hodge’s was also the DJ behind “Ronnie’s Prediction Hour,” a show on KOWH, the Black-owned station in Omaha in the 1970s. He was also on the board of directors for the Nebraska Community Bank, a Black-owned bank serving the community.

After running for three decades years, the Bali-Hi Lounge closed in 1998.

Meet Sam Flax

This was the location of the former Bali-Hi Lounge on the northwest corner of N. 24th and Hamilton St. from 1968 to 1998. — This was the location of the former Sam Flax Tavern, later the Bali-Hi Lounge, on the northwest corner of N. 24th and Hamilton St. from 1968 to 1998.

Before Bali-Hi was located there, the address of 1402 North 24th Street had a long history as a bar. In 1899, it was a saloon with a bad problem of “penny holdups” from the “Cuming Street Gang,” young teenagers who would harass saloon customers until they either paid them or bought them beer in the saloon. This only ended after a long summer when a local judge beat up the teens. In 1919, a man named Castleman ran a soft drink parlor there because of Nebraska’s Prohibition. It was raided for gambling that year. Just five years earlier, Joel Bloom accused the Anti-Saloon League at the Calvary Baptist Church of false testimony in front of the Omaha City Council. The Omaha Bee reported, “The saloon has been at 1402 North Twenty-fourth Street for nearly twenty years… and there has been a protest from the Calvary Baptist Church nearly every year.” Calvary was located where present-day Pilgrim Baptist Church is located, almost just across the street from the former location of the bar.

In 1916, a Jewish family’s Bellevue home burned down and they moved to North Omaha. Sam Flax (1876-1960) and his wife Anna Flax opened the Sam Flax Fish Market on the corner of North 24th and Hamilton Streets in 1919. The building had been constructed in the 1870s. Before the earlier saloon was there the location housed a pharmacy and grocery store.

For more than 40 years after 1916, Sam Flax’s business served the neighborhood’s diverse populations of African Americans, Scandinavians and Jews, as well as many others. Beginning with fish sales, Flax was a fisherman himself who caught sunfish, crapple, carp and buffalo from Carter Lake, among other local spots. From his store at 1402 North 24th Street, sold his fish at his store, as well as shipping them to other vendors throughout Nebraska.

By 1935, the location was home to a broader business called the Sam Flax Grocery Store. The family expanded the location, adding a service garage. In 1936, Flax was in a bidding war against a nearby fishmonger who was also trying to buy fish from the Iowa State fish hatchery in Cedar Rapids. The war became violent when one of Flax’s workers got into a fistfight outside of the other business and got sentenced to 15 days in jail. Flax apparently began looking for other business, and despite being turned down for a liquor license in 1937 after accusing police of framing him, in 1939 Flax was operating a “beverage parlor” from the location.

In 1940, Flax got a liquor license, and as the Omaha Star reported in a gossip column that year, “At Sam Flax… it is one of those little places where everything is so intimate, especially the guy at the next table.” The Sam Flax Bar operated unimpeded for several years, enduring the regular bar hi-jinx, along with burglaries and robberies. In the late 1940s, Flax and his wife retired and moved to Los Angeles.

After they retired, the bar was run by Sam Flax’s son-in-law, Dick Fertil. Flax himself died in 1960, and Fertil kept running the joint through 1968. That year it was sold.

In the early 2000s the building was demolished by the City of Omaha. Located on an empty corner of a once-vibrant intersection, there are no signs that the lot will ever be improved aside from a Family Dollar store next to it. Today there is nothing marking the former site that was a part of a lot of peoples’ lives for a long time.

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BONUS

This was a 1973 Omaha World-Herald ad from the Bali-Hi Lounge was at 1402 N. 24th St.

This was a 1970 Omaha Star ad from the Bali-Hi Lounge was at 1402 N. 24th St.

This is a drawing of the former Bali-Hi Lounge at 1402 N. 24th St. by Adam Fletcher Sasse for NorthOmahaHistory.com. All rights reserved.