Restaurant Week Welcomes Fall With New Specials & Prix Fixe Menus

Explore the diverse tastes debuting for the fall edition of Restaurant Week, from Oct. 23 to 29. Specials and prix fixe menus will feature classic foods of the season like squash and Oktoberfest’s sauerbraten along with dishes with international roots like carne asada and chicken curry that help highlight the region’s global food scene.

The fall edition of Buffalo Restaurant Week, from Oct. 23-29, with participating restaurants listed here, is coordinated by Visit Buffalo Niagara in collaboration with the New York State Restaurant Association’s Western New York chapter. It is an invitation for visitors, local diners, and Canadian neighbors to spend the week trying new lunch and dinner offerings from local restaurants, taverns, bistros, diners and cafes.

“I think it’s really exciting to participate in Restaurant Week this year. Especially for the Downtown Bazaar because it gives people an opportunity to come in and try and explore the world: They can pick two meals from two different restaurants when they come in for dinner,” said Carolynn Welch, executive director of the Westminster Economic Development Initiative and the Downtown Bazaar, which has five international restaurateurs and a bar in the Theater District on Main Street. “It’s a really great opportunity for people to try a couple of things and get a short course on Bazaar food.”

“This is a great opportunity to expose and celebrate the restaurant scene of Buffalo and its diversity,” said Patrick Kaler, president and CEO of Visit Buffalo Niagara. “It goes back to the ‘City of Good Neighbors.’ We are a welcoming city … We are a melting pot and that melting pot also includes the food scene.”

As Visit Buffalo Niagara continues to coordinate Restaurant Week, which it helped to relaunch after a pandemic-era hiatus, the community’s embrace of the experience has been gratifying, he said.

“That has been an exciting thing for us to see,” said Kaler. “Last year, it actually shut down our website for a while because there was so much interest in people going to that page.”

Interest in Restaurant Week remains high. Ads promoting the event on social media are getting Visit Buffalo Niagara’s highest click through rates of the year.

“My staff loves Restaurant Week because they get to do something different. For us it’s a fun way to introduce people to our restaurant,” said Ellie Grenauer, owner Glen Park Tavern, and New York State Restaurant Association board member. “Slowly our business has just grown and grown and over the years … Restaurant Week has really been part of that.”