For more than 50 years, Saratoga was a thriving little suburb on the northern skirts of Omaha. The busy intersection of 24th and Ames had restaurants, grocery stores, movie theaters and many other amenities that neighborhood residents enjoyed for decades. One of these goodies was short-lived, but lasted decades in another fashion. This is a history of the Borden’s Ice Cream Shoppe in North Omaha.

In 1919, the New York Condensed Milk Company changed its name to Borden Company in honor of its founder Gail Borden (1801-1874). The inventor of a patented process for making condensed milk, Borden founded his company in 1856 and it continued after he died in 1874. By 1930, Borden’s was the nation’s largest distributor of fluid milk.

The original building at 2415 Ames Avenue was built as the North Star Sweet Shop, and was located “off the lobby of the North Star Theater.” Becoming a restaurant soon afterward, in the 1920s the Alpine Cafe was located there, apparently doing a brisk business into the Great Depression. However, during that era customers changed and couldn’t afford to eat out as much as they had. Lower-cost frivolities ruled the day though, and in 1935 a new chain bought the space.

The Borden Company advertised their new stores in the Omaha World-Herald starting in summer 1935, with the Borden Ice Cream Shoppe open in the North Omaha neighborhood called Saratoga, near the intersection of North 24th and Ames Avenue. Opening exclusively in North Omaha, other stores in the community included their first location in the city at North 30th and Cuming and others at 49th and Dodge, 6026 Military Avenue and 2920 North 16th Street.

Announcing “new low service counters and comfortable arm-rest chairs,” the chain bragged “the Most Modern Equipment” with dairy cases and fountains, too. The Art Moderne style used on the exterior and interior of the building was suited for the neighborhood too, where neighboring buildings such as the A&P Super Market, the Ames Avenue Fire Station and Dr. T.V. Pederson’s dentist office at 2523 Ames Avenue.

However, the plan for company stores must not have worked out because within a year, by summer 1936, the businesses in Omaha were renamed Ideal Ice Cream Shoppes, and while they sold Borden’s exclusively, they did not appear to be affixed to the company anymore and had more locations across the city. By 1937 the ice cream business pulled out of the location permanently and a new restaurant called The Frozen North opened in its place selling soups, chili, sandwiches and homemade pie. Operating under that name for two decades, in 1958 the business was renamed the Star Cafe. However, that didn’t last and was closed immediately afterward.

The building stands today. It has been conjoined to the larger structure around it and was a grocery store, a teen club, a nightclub and is now a warehouse. It does not have any historical status and its current condition is unknown.

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