Norris, Joseph S. "Big Joe"

Sep 27, 1920 - Jul 4, 2016

World War II Army Veteran, Owner of Big Joe's Drive-In, Dairy Way and Pizza Oven To South Omaha, he was “Big Joe.” Norris was a 6-foot-4 man with a booming voice. Keenan, a teacher who works part time as a World-Herald copy editor, said Norris was a true larger-than-life character, one whom people could mistake for a politician running for office with the way he knew how to work a room. Norris died Monday. He was 95. Independence Day was a fitting day for him to pass, she said. Keenan said fireworks represented his personality well. “He went out with a bang,” she joked. Norris, who lived in Omaha his whole life, was born Sept. 27, 1920. He played football at Technical High School and joined the Army after graduation, serving during World War II. Norris opened Big Joe’s — Omaha’s first self-serve restaurant — in 1957. He cooked soups from scratch, fish sandwiches and double-decker burgers for 27 years before the building was bulldozed in 1984 as part of the John F. Kennedy Freeway extension. It was a community staple that catered to South Omaha residents and blue-collar workers. It was a place future spouses met as workers. “The people who came in were not his customers,” Keenan said. “They were his friends.” Bob Vesiak was one of those regulars. “I’ve come here for breakfast seven days a week, 52 weeks a year for 20 years,” Vesiak said in an August 1984 World-Herald story about the restaurant’s closing. Norris retired after the closing but did work part time for the Knights of Columbus and the funeral home of Heafey-Hoffmann-Dworak & Cutler. Outside the kitchen, Norris was a devout Catholic from a Polish and Czechoslovakian background. “As far as I know, his family was Catholic as far back as probably Jesus Christ,” Keenan joked. He volunteered with the Knights of Columbus and was a member of St. Mary’s church in Bellevue and its Perpetual Adoration Society. Each Thursday at 3 a.m. for 50 years, Big Joe prayed in the front pew for one hour. He stopped his routine about seven years ago when he could no longer drive. Norris was preceded in death by his wife, Mary B. Norris, and survived by his daughters Keenan, Elizabeth Vacanti and Mary Maguire; his son, Joe Norris Jr.; and his 13 grandchildren. Services will be held at the Bellevue Memorial Chapel of Heafey-Hoffmann-Dworak & Cutler at 2202 Hancock St. Visitation begins at 5 p.m. Friday with a wake service at 7 p.m. A funeral Mass will be Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at St. Mary’s of Bellevue with interment in the Bellevue Cemetery.