I remember, as a kid, sitting in the passenger seat of my grandpa Lannie’s red Jeep Grand Cherokee as we approached an unremarkable intersection in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. His car came to a halt and he leaned over his dash, pointing across the six-lane intersection toward a strip mall kitty-corner from us. “You see that building?” he said through a smirk.

Wrapped in blue-gray stucco, glass curtain wall, and metal panels, the strip mall seemed not particularly interesting from a distance. But as I continued studying it, waiting for the light to turn, I started to take in the building’s whirlwind shape, its appendages sticking out every which way, cantilevering toward the street, toward the sky. One projected toward us and other travelers, above a sign that proudly read, “Wingstop.” I sat quietly, dumbfounded, in awe.

As we passed the uncanny structure and drove through the intersection, my grandfather, a lifelong contractor, giggled. “That building leaks like a sieve!”

I think about this moment more often than I’m usually open to admitting. It’s one of two from my childhood that drew me to architecture, and probably the first time I engaged in architectural criticism. The other was my first time inside Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum, in a building addition designed by Norman Foster. I remember the astonishment I felt as I walked out from under the low ceiling of its entry vestibule into a four-story glass atrium, and my view shot up to the sawtoothed glass ceiling.

The Joslyn Art Museum and the strip mall my grandfather pointed out portray two different but not antithetical versions of Omaha: one, the glittery, nationally recognized architecture of museums, concert halls, and towers, and the other, the backdrop of local structures such as strip malls, bars, churches, and warehouses. These are the city’s respective architectural A-sides and B-sides.

Architect and noted B-side enthusiast Andrew Kovacs has defined architectural B-sides similarly to their musical counterparts: as buildings that sit on the sidelines of architecture, that are likely difficult to immediately classify and unlikely to become commercially successful.

“It is precisely this peripheral positioning that affords the architectural B-side the ability to re-examine, redigest, rethink, and ultimately redefine the limits of the discipline,” Kovacs has written. “To inspect works that have not typically been included under the designation of architecture culture, and to consider them under that designation, might be our most disciplinary task.” In other words, the built environment of a given place—be it a city, a town, or a home—isn’t only about its greatest hits. Every detail contributes to making it what it is.

Omaha’s B-sides can be anarchic, reaching out to passersby like delightful architectural jump-scares. Navigating Omaha requires spending a healthy amount of time in a car—from which, if you’re paying attention, a museum-worthy display of roadside signage can be taken in.

Neon abounds: Look at the city’s oldest operating pizzeria, La Casa, its original 1957 sign a cutout of its portly, guitar-carrying mascot, Peppi, who sports a coiffed mustache and was declared an Omaha Landmark in 2002. Damaged and lovingly restored after a car accident the year prior, Peppi presides over the restaurant—the former home of its Sicilian immigrant owners, who opened the place in 1953.

At the classic (now-shuttered) steakhouse Piccolo Pete’s, a well-dressed musician dances on its billboard, setting the vibe: Gussied-up clients, including Warren Buffett, sought out its superlative fare for more than eight decades. Over at Bronco’s Hamburgers, a lassoing cowboy marquee reads, “Serv urself and Save,” a nod toward the ingenious interactivity of Omaha’s first locally owned and operated fast food joint, which opened in 1959 and has since expanded to another location and aspires to open others.

Taken together, the neons reveal a truth: Omahans respect the legacy of those capable of making a good meal. They also recall Omaha’s bygone cruising era that spanned the second half of the 20th century, where, on the weekends, high school students would drive up and down Dodge Street, the main thoroughfare, hanging out, getting food, and causing trouble. Those days are gone, thanks in part to a city ordinance that punished cruisers, but their legacy lives on through these remaining roadside attractions, illuminating a local pastime.

Other Omaha B-sides are anything but odd, at least at first glance. Like that of many other cities, the backdrop of Omaha is littered with big-box stores of all shapes and varieties. Though it’s easy to write these B-sides off as bland or soulless, a cultlike obsession exists for certain outlets.

Locals love the Nebraska Furniture Mart, for instance: Founded in 1937 by Russian-born immigrant Rose Blumkin using a $500 investment from her brother, the home furnishings and appliances store began in a storefront basement; its main space today (there are now locations in other cities) exists as a 450,000-square-foot compound that’s the length of about nine football fields and sits on 78 acres near the city center.

From the outside, the Mart is just a big building with a ’90s green sign. But those who wander its sprawling complex know the curious disorientation one feels as carpet kiosks blend into dining-room sets, seasonal accessories, and furniture galore. That’s a familiar condition here, as the Mart spreads out in true Omaha fashion: Land tends to be flat and cheap, so buildings tend to extend out rather than up. Being flat and cheap also makes Omaha accessible, earning it regular appearances on lists of the most affordable cities to live in. Getting good deals on furniture is icing on the cake.

Perhaps the most abundant variety of Omahaian B-sides are its churches. At the turn of the 20th century, as the city grew westward along Dodge Street, churches transformed from small, traditional buildings into some of the area’s most enormous, modern, and distinct structures.

St. Thomas More, completed in 1958 and anchored downtown, is one such religious oddity. Its swooping, shingled roof, meant to evoke the bow of Noah’s Ark (but also managing to conjure up the top of the 1950s chapel Notre Dame-du-Haut, or Ronchamp, which Le Corbusier designed in eastern France), hangs into the interior of the chapel like the undersides of two boats, creating a low, curving wood ceiling above pews that Danish architect Jørn Utzon might appreciate. That the parish’s bizarre form endures speaks to how embedded religious life is in Omaha. It’s in the nuances between houses of worship big and small, traditional and unorthodox, that Omahans find community.

Or consider St. Mary Magdalene, which, if you really look at it, expands in a downward slope, hugging the perimeter of the hill on which it has stood for more than a century. In the 1950s, the hill, known then as Capitol Hill, complicated the city’s desire to expand westward: building on such a steep incline would be nearly impossible. City officials ultimately regraded the earth, and St. Mary Magdalene, built in 1868, was reconfigured: its original front door became stained-glass windows that now stand some 30 feet above street level; sections of the main floor became a balcony. Services continued all the while. The regrading paved the way for Omaha to become the city—Nebraska’s largest—that it is today.

These days, whenever I visit Omaha, I try to drive slowly, to take in buildings I haven’t paid attention to before, and to see what’s changed. Viewed from a car, B-side architecture is as ephemeral as it is pervasive. I’d driven by that Wingstop plenty of times before finally noticing it, hiding in plain sight among the otherwise unextraordinary backdrop of nearby buildings. If a building as strange as that one once evaded me, what other revelatory oddities will I find if I look carefully enough?