In 1850 Lazar Shames founded a packing house and meat market in Riga (then in the Livonian Governorate of the Russian Empire, today in Latvia).

[1] In 1898 his son J.J. and his family fled religious persecution in Latvia and came to the United States as part of the third wave of Jewish immigration to the country.

[2][3] They passed through Ellis Island, chose Simon as their American name, and eventually arrived in Omaha, which was experiencing a population surge due in part to the development of the meat packing industry.

[4] The previous occupant in that space had been a carpentry shop called "Table Supply Co." and the Simons changed the name to Table Supply Meat Co.[4][5] In 1924 the Simons moved the business to a new location in what is now Omaha's Old Market neighborhood and began selling their cuts of beef to local supermarkets and national chain grocery stores, hotel restaurants, and institutional customers.

[2] In the 1940s Lester brokered a deal with the Union Pacific Railroad to begin serving Omaha Steaks in the dining cars of their transcontinental trains.

[5] Lester selected the meat for the passenger trains that traveled between Omaha and Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.

[4][5] The mail-order business began in 1952, as orders packed in dry ice and cardboard cartons lined with wax paper were shipped via train.

[6][7] Catalogs were mailed to customers for the first time in 1963,[4] and gradually expanded to include not only steaks, but poultry, pork, seafood, side dishes, and desserts.

[24][25] The company was an early pioneer in direct-to-consumer sales,[10] and continues to employ an omnichannel approach to marketing that reflects its roots in teleservices and direct mailing.

[27][7] In 2014, an Oregon man brought a class-action suit against Omaha Steaks for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 after receiving unwanted robocalls from the company.

[34][37] Organizations supported by the company and family have included Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts,[38] Film Streams,[39] Santa Fe Opera.