A nice, quiet weekend shift on Saturday gave me plenty of time to check in on what’s going on around Central Nebraska. Here’s a few items I found noteworthy — I wrote this on Saturday, and I must have been hungry. (An explanation of Nebraska Notes is here.)

Albion (and Ord)
— The Albion News reports that city sales tax receipts are on pace to beat the numbers from 2008, with $492,294 collected through June, compared with $485,597 last year. Ord is also ahead of its 2008 sales tax numbers, according to Valley County Economic Development Executive Director Caleb Pollard. That’s a solid economic indicator that the proverbial corner may have been turned in two north-central Nebraska towns.

Loup City
— Loup City’s new Subway held its grand opening Saturday. I visited earlier this month on the restaurant’s first day, and the excitement was palpable. This is the town’s first fast-food restaurant in recent memory, and it’s a pretty nice-looking place, at that. It had its own living-room-style seating area, complete with mock fireplace. Very impressive. The Independent‘s photographers are Subway addicts on the road, so I’m sure that won’t be my last visit.

— Also, per the Sherman County Times, the 35-page booklet by Dennis Welty about the history of the 1934 Loup City riot is now available for $10 at King’s Variety and the Sherman County Historical Society. I wrote a bit about Dennis’ work and the riot here.

Aurora
— I missed this one from the Aurora News-Register a couple of weeks ago: The China Garden restaurant, which was closed in February when part of the downtown Temple Craft building collapsed, has reopened in the former Chuck’s Drive-In along Highway 34 in Aurora. When I visited in July, they were concerned about having to revamp their renovations after some of them got a thumbs-down from the fire marshal, but it’s good to see them back open, and their place looks sharp. I wrote about their journey since the collapse here.