On a Saturday in Snyder – population 242 – Main Street fills with parked pickups and neighbors pausing to talk. Across from the post office, a brick building with weathered shingles carries a fresh sign: The 664. Inside, burgers sizzle, ’80s music hums, and behind the bar, Shayla Risch braces for the lunch rush.

The stained-glass windows still read Adie’s Bar. Regulars know what that means.

The name The 664 nods to Snyder’s ZIP code, 68664, and roots the place squarely where it’s always been. Since 1956, the bar and grill has served as a gathering spot where meals and local news traveled together. In 2023, that legacy passed to Shayla, a mother of eight from nearby Wisner who left a 25-year nursing career in long-term care after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I mentioned it to him, and he thought it was a joke at first,” she said of Rick Marsoun, whose family ran Adie’s for decades.

It wasn’t a joke. Shayla and her husband, Dustin, bought the restaurant, closed briefly to freshen the space, reopened with a new name and added a few menu touches of their own. One thing didn’t change.

The macaroni salad stayed.

That zesty, mayo-based side dish – still made by Rick himself – remains the star. The recipe, created by his mother, Marion, has never been written down. “People try to mimic it, but it’s just not the same,” Shayla said.

Made in five-gallon batches, the smooth orange dressing coats ditalini pasta and arrives with a simple Club cracker. Tangy, faintly sweet and instantly familiar, it’s the kind of food people remember long after they leave town.

Speculation about the secret ingredient runs high. Some suspect a famous Nebraska dressing. Rick isn’t saying.

What’s certain is how far it travels. “People from Florida, Kansas, everywhere,  stop in just to pick some up,” Shayla said. Gallon tubs leave the bar headed for family tables well beyond northeast Nebraska.

The 664 serves more than mac salad. Prime rib dinners anchor weekends. Lunch specials draw regulars. Shayla’s crab salad has found a following at the bar, where Jell-O and Oreo fluff round out the menu.

She relies on a small, steady staff, especially longtime waitress Pat Svehla. “She’s the go-to girl when you want to know something,” Shayla said. “She keeps things running.”

The shift from nursing to restaurant ownership was steep, Shayla said, but not unfamiliar. “Cooking, cleaning, helping with homework, bedtime, and doing it all again – that prepared me,” she said.

In the center of Snyder, The 664 continues its role as a place to gather. Neighbors catch up. Travelers detour. And somewhere between the burger basket and the cracker-topped scoop of macaroni salad, a small-town institution keeps doing what it always has.