Sunday News: The Nickel Plate draws new food customers to old food terminal
Where to buy real cheesecloth without Amazon, FLX Table thumbs up
When it debuted in 1931, the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal was a model hub for feeding the 13th largest city in the United States. The warehouse complex of cream-colored brick at the confluence of railways, highways, and Clinton and Bailey avenues fed the region. Railcars and tractor-trailers emptied the fields and pastures of America into vast rooms, refrigerators, and freezers.
As it happens, we are not strangers, the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal and I.
In 1984, in my sophomore year at the University at Buffalo, the phone would ring in my office. (Yes, with a door. At that time, UB’s undergraduate student fee supported a student-run weekly feature magazine, Generation. In a basement annex of Harriman Hall, second-in-command, supervising editor, got me an office with a phone.)
On the other end was my father, Rodney Galarneau. “Can you lump?”
When the freelance photography business failed him, the S.M. Flickinger produce warehouse gave him the job he needed to build a house. His workdays were spent driving electric forklifts to load trucks with pallets and boxes of fruit and vegetables.
When a tractor-trailer load of certain produce arrived, the truck driver was responsible for unloading. Often a weary driver would rather put cash money in another hand to see it through. “Lumpers” were backs-for-hire. For $60 I could get there in 15 minutes and work until it was done. Which is how I learned watermelons are packed in ice and sawdust, and slippier after the first 100.
So, I know the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal. Which makes it even more embarrassing that I get lost every time I go. The Sausagemaker, ready to help small or large-scale meat processors with everything they need, is in the complex, Suite 140.
The fellow was kind when I told him I was looking for The Nickel Plate, actually.
A mortifyingly brief drive away, there it was. Keep your head up and you can’t miss it. Or have trouble finding a parking spot. Businesses started reoccupying more parts in 2020, but there’s still room to dock a heavy cruiser.
Tyrel Reynolds and Nick Smith launched The Nickel Plate as a restaurant feeding local tastes to customers alongside a chance to take some of Buffalo’s homegrown groceries, emphatically including craft beer and other adult beverages.
The new breakfast menu joins a lengthy tap list, sandwiches and munchies menu.
A lesser-known local connection is Buffalo Public high school students getting hands-on experience in the kitchen and on the retail side. When Reynolds told me a high school student made my lunch, I told him the jaw-unhinging cheeseburger and stoner-bait totchos were first class. Buffalo Public’s School 42 and the New York State Employment Training and Supports program help make The Nickel Plate work, he said.
Breakfast is a recent addition to its seven-day-a week menu. The robust selection of drinks makes Sunday brunch especially notable.
Anyone interested in being a vendor at The Nickel Plate, including food products in the freezer or on its shelves, can submit an application here.
1500 Clinton St. Unit 174, tnpbuffalo.com, order online here, 716-939-2039
Kitchen hours: breakfast 10 a.m.-noon, rest until 5:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. brunch menu, rest until 6:30 p.m. Saturday, 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
REVIEW: With 75 years in service to Lockportians, 35 under the current family, The Shamus is that restaurant you thought didn’t exist any more. You know, the one where they used to present a bread basket with three kinds of housemade bread and focaccia, and the jazzed up butters with grassy green olive oil. For free, glad you came to dinner. Remember that? At 98 West Ave., that’s the Shamus standard. (Later today, for patrons.)
ASK THE CRITIC
Q: Have you been to FLX Table in Geneva? Heard good things, but we’re not crazy about the idea of driving out to the Finger Lakes for dinner.
Sacha, Amherst
A: Heck, yes.
We went recently on a Sunday night, the low ebb of the restaurant week.
After a delicious meal, handcrafted in all the ways that matter, we left determined to return.
My full review of FLX Table is scheduled for publication on April 13, two weeks from today. It’s $8 a month or $50 a year to read my weekly reviews, recipes, and other fancy stuff.
ASK THE CRITIC II ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
Over the last 18 months, several readers have inquired after cheesemaking supplies they could buy locally, as they sought to support their local business community.
Which totally fell off my radar, until last week. Because I was at Sheridan and Military, in Tonawanda, with rolls of cheesecloth in my hand. Niagara Tradition, run by Bert Dyster, is open to the public five days a week if you’ve decided to chill on ordering everything from Amazon.
Dyster’s gotchu for all your beer, wine, cheese, vinegar, kombucha, and meadmaking needs.
Yard squares of real cheesemaking cloth, strong enough to twist rather rudely into whey-extracting forms, go for a princely $4.29. If you’re thinking of making your own cheese, another hard-to-find-locally ingredient, calcium chloride, is here for $2.49. Just a half-tablespoon in your milk helps form sliceable curd.
1296 Sheridan Drive, Tonawanda, nthomebrew.com, 716-877-8767
Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday, Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday, Monday.
More reading from Michael Chelus:
Mr. Galarneau wrote about the delicious Brooklyn-style pies to be found at Extra Extra Pizza [Four Bites]
More coverage of the story behind Extra Extra Pizza [Buffalo Rising]
Here's the story behind and the recipe for the Market Haul cocktail from Black Iron Bystro's Cassidy Star [Buffalo Spree]
Jeff told us the back story of Bistro Avera in Lewiston [Buffalo Spree]
Tipico Coffee and Shea's Performing Arts Center have collaborated on a new coffee blend [Buffalo Rising]
You can now buy Conchas - the sweet Mexican brioche-like rolls - at pop-up bakery, Colibrí Panadería [Buffalo News]
The Edible Book Festival will take place at the WNY Book Arts Center on 4/5 [Buffalo News]
Andrew gave us the recipe for Toum, the Lebanese garlic sauce [Four Bites]
42 North collaborated with Watson's Chocolates to give us Velvet Dreams [Buffalo Rising]
Jessica wrote about the fish fry at McPartland's Corner [Step Out Buffalo]
Brett told us that Falls Brewery on Military Road in Niagara offers much more than beer [Step Out Buffalo]
From two of the three original owners of Mister Sizzles, Augie’s opens this week in Hamburg [Buffalo Rising]
#30#
Potatoes of any sort are a blessing, but tochos are manna from heaven.
"Totchos done right - each nug so crispy you can hear the crunch- is a blessing, amen."
I went to the terminal once, about 15 years ago to service a 40-year old life insurance policy. The place was a brokerage, with corded phones, metal desks and 1950s ambiance. The people who ran the place still smoked indoors. I don't remember doing business but I remember someone trying to hustle cases of mangos by the case. If terroir in wine can apply to a place the terminal had it -- I susepcted just enough commerce going on to be sustainable as a vintage place and not enough to make the small businesses attractive for buyout. Regaring Bert, he lives around the corner from us and can often be seen walking his dog with his daughter in the neighborhood.