Dixie Quicks has always been about two things: a staff that makes diners feel like family, and good cooking.

It's a place where servers call you "darlin'," "honey" and "sweetheart," ask how you're doing and really mean it.

It draws a brunch crowd so devoted to grits and pancakes and Benedicts that it returns every week.

It exudes Southern hospitality, Omaha style.

So what happens now that owners Rob Gilmer and Rene Orduna took their quirky restaurant, doubled its size, hired new servers and moved the restaurant to Council Bluffs?

Regulars — this one included — were skeptical. But the new space is fantastic, on a busy sliver of Broadway downtown. During three recent visits, the food was as good as ever. In the end, I was convinced: This will work out fine.

The most recent incarnation of Dixie Quicks is by far the fanciest and the hippest. The building used to be part of a car lot, and Gilmer and Orduna have divided the industrial space in half: one side restaurant, the other side RNG art gallery.

The new location is the third for Dixie Quicks. Gilmer and his spouse, Orduna (the couple married this fall in Iowa), opened Dixie Quicks Luncheonette in 1995 near the corner of 15th and Dodge Streets. The city razed that building to make room for the new Union Pacific Headquarters. The couple opened Dixie Quicks Magnolia Room at 20th and Leavenworth Streets in 2001. Eventually Gilmer and Orduna broke through the walls of adjacent bays to make that restaurant larger and so Gilmer could open the RNG Gallery. Dixie Quicks Public House, the third version, opened this fall.

In the new building, huge windows spill light into the space and give a glimpse of the street outside, a strip that looks and feels like a small town, with lots of storefronts (some admittedly shuttered) and moderate foot traffic.

A huge square bar and a bustling, open kitchen anchor the restaurant. Raw concrete walls and floors are pockmarked and sprayed with graffiti. Vintage brick arches at the back divide the L-shaped room into main and private dining spaces.

It's different, but it's unmistakably Dixie Quicks. Colored antique doors hang from the ceiling, suspended from all four corners with wire and positioned perpendicular to the floor. Gilmer's large black-and-white photographs decorate the walls. Tiny plastic dinosaurs peek out from hiding places around the restaurant, and Gilmer's collection of kitschy black souvenir plates featuring state maps hang prominently around the kitchen doors. The menu is still handwritten every day in colored chalk on a blackboard.

Three huge globe lights — orange, green and gold, rescued years ago from the old St. Joseph Hospital in Omaha — hang over tables at the front of the dining room. They've been in all three locations.

"When we hung the globe lights," Gilmer said in an interview, "I knew we were home."

Each time I went — Tuesday and Wednesday nights and a Sunday morning — the place was packed. The hum of the kitchen and the chatter of customers mingled with a wide range of music from Gilmer's custom-built second-floor DJ booth (a dream fulfilled, he said).

The new Dixie Quicks is the first location to have a liquor license. It also has an extensive wine list and beer that includes Dixie Lager, Dixie Voodoo Lager and Dixie Amber, all made in a New Orleans-based brewery. On New Year's Eve, the restaurant will unveil its list of signature cocktails.

The first night my dining partner and I went with two Dixie Quicks standbys: chicken fried steak and blackened salmon.

My two filets of blackened salmon, spiced with Orduna's complex rub that includes Cajun seasoning, pickling spice, chili mix, sage, salt, pepper, garlic, chili flakes and cumin, came cooked to tender perfection and served with the signature tangy tomato butter, a mix of melted butter, tomato juice and parsley that is frothed in the restaurant's cappuccino machine.

Diners get one or two sides with dinner, and this night I chose chunky, buttery mashed potatoes, which had bits of dark skin mixed in, and slightly crisp seasonal brussels sprouts that were cooked a bit softer than I liked but still tasty.

The chicken fried steak looks upscale, resting diagonally across a mound of mashed potatoes with a swath of gravy artfully ladled over the top. But it tastes decidedly downhome, my dining partner said, and the steak and potatoes mesh perfectly. The meat's breading isn't too thick and is well-seasoned, and though the inside of his steak was slightly tough, it wasn't a deal-breaker.

That night, the crowd was varied, a Dixie Quicks hallmark. Toddlers sat at tables next to 80-year-olds. A man dined alone reading his newspaper next to a table of 10 who jovially uncorked two bottles of wine. Gilmer and Orduna — who before stayed in the kitchen — worked the room, stopping at each table to talk to old friends and Dixie newbies. Men in business suits sat next to women in loungewear, who mingled near hipster teens. A dozen regulars greeted each other with smiles and waves. Everybody got up from their tables to look at the chalkboard menu.

For my second dinner, I chose a dish I'd never had there: spinach gorgonzola ravioli. The five large green ravioli were filled with a light-tasting gorgonzola cheese and a sauce with hunks of stewed tomato, green and yellow pepper and onion shreds. The tomato sauce was light and herby. I ordered the zucchini and cheese as a side, and though it could have been a touch hotter, it was still good: sliced zucchini floats in a mild cheese sauce with just a hint of pepper.

My dining partner said his chargrilled pork tenderloin was "perfect." A serving of applesauce next to the tender, juicy meat adds a hint of sweet, and the savory gravy adds depth without overpowering the delicate flavor of the pork. His sides: spicy, meaty red beans and rice and homemade coleslaw that "tastes like grandma made it," he said.

Each meal comes with a basket of hot, chewy, crusty homemade cornbread, which we traditionally save for dessert, slathered with butter and honey. On the second visit, though, I decided to go for a real dessert: an extra-large chocolate mousse-filled chocolate cupcake that the bakery across the street, Sweet Stop, created especially for Dixie Quicks. There's a heap of buttercream frosting on top of the crumbly cake and the chocolatey center is a modern take on the Hostess classic. Our server said it was good, and, boy, was he right.

Brunch is the thing to do at Dixie Quicks. If there's a time to "see and be seen," it's on Sunday morning over hot coffee and a big plate of food. Each item on the menu has its own distinct take: French toast, for example, isn't just French toast. One version is called "Sexual Chocolate" and is a mountain of thick French bread covered with chocolate syrup, strawberries and whipped cream.

Benedict comes in the classic incarnation and also as eggs Blackstone, with bacon and tomatoes instead of ham. Oatmeal and ice cream — a crowd favorite — is Orduna's take on what his mom served him one childhood morning when she ran out of sugar.

I had one of my favorite Sunday brunch items: the Soyiso Scramble. What seems strange has slowly worked its way into my heart: a pile of scrambled eggs mixed with spicy soy sausage, chilies, onions, cheese and tomatoes that you mix with savory, smoky black beans, douse with creamy green tomatillo sauce and scoop up with a hot, soft tortilla. I've never had anything else like it.

My dining partner had another speciality — chilequilas, a traditional Mexican dish made with chopped corn tortillas, salsa and, at Dixie Quicks, sausage. He had two over-medium eggs with the spicy chilequilas, and those eggs were necessary: The runny yellow yolks worked as a sauce and cooled the heat. It's not for the faint of heart, he decided, but it is the perfect breakfast for the adventurous eater who likes it spicy.

The atmosphere at the new place takes some getting used to. During our last visit, longtime Dixie Quicks server Bruce Bufkin (known as "Buffy") stopped at our table. Buffy has a huge collection of quirky T-shirts, and that day the shirt had a dominating image: SpongeBob SquarePants.

"Isn't this weird?" he said, looking around. "But it's also great, right?"

It is both weird and great. It's somehow industrial and cozy at once.

Gilmer says this new space is what he and Orduna always wanted.

"We're just here doing what we always do," Gilmer said. "Doing what we love."

By the time I dug into my Sunday brunch, surrounded by familiar faces and plied with a cup of coffee, I, too, felt something familiar. I was at Dixie Quicks. I felt like family.