Hofbrauhaus Buffalo

We have been working for almost three years to get this fantastic site ready to open.  It's a former dairy plant right in Downtown Buffalo, closed since 2003.  A 60,000 square-foot building, it actually sets up pretty well for our restaurant, kitchen and brewery layout!  We're using half the building now, but may add wedding space and a boutique German-styled Gasthaus (Guest House) down the road.  I can picture a wedding party reserving our 30 rooms for the weekend, our Mezzanine for the rehearsal dinner, and our banquet hall for the grand event!

Voted Ugliest Building 

Not the prettiest site, we were able to convert loading docks to arched windows, and the main dock became a covered, heated patio seating 150 people!  Where trucks pulled in and out with deliveries, we'll have a 3,000 square foot Beer Garden with outside bar.  What was a huge refrigerated storage area is now a 250,000 cubic foot Beerhall, with bars on two levels, and seating for 800 people.  The brand new kitchen is centered around a conveyor belt for German-styled efficiency and speed of service.

How Far Have We Gotten?

We've been working hard for almost three years getting this project done.  We replaced all the utilities: electricity, water, natural gas, steam.  We purchased and erected a beautiful brewery shipped in from Austria, and commissioned by German, Austrian and Russian engineers.  The malt and hops were shipped in from Germany, ready now to brew the first batch, using 400+ year-old recipes from the Hofbrau Brewery in Munich!  We still need to finish the façade work, install signage, build the fence and welcome arch around the Beer Garden, install kitchen ventilation, and finish up electrical and plumbing work.

Buffalo Can't Wait for us to Open

We're a five minute walk from the Buffalo Sabres games, Buffalo Bandits lacrosse games, college hockey games at HarborCenter, amateur hockey tournaments, Children's Museum, even the Buffalo Creek Casino!  75 Buffalo people invested $50,000 in the project. 500 Buffalo people invested $199 in Stein Club memberships already!  The phone rings off the hook asking if we are open yet.  And lots of these calls are from our nearby neighbors in Toronto, Hamilton, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and New York City.

Other Hofbrauhaus Operations

The original Hofbrauhaus, in Munich, is one of the world's most-recognized brands in the beer and restaurant industries.  Spinoffs from the company are all over the world.  In the USA, franchise operations have been opening since Las Vegas in 2005.  Now there are six others, mostly in strong ethnic towns such as Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, and Newport, Kentucky (across the river from Cincinnati).  When you plop a German restaurant in a German town (Buffalo boasts 27% of its population have primary German heritage), you had better get it right!  Recipes from Munich are strictly followed. Homemade recipes include Schnitzel, Sauerbraten, Bratenteller and Spatzle.  And the sausages!  Local 100-year-old Wardynski's has gone through rigorous hoops to get approval direct from Munich to use the original recipes and imported spices for their sausages, including Weisswurste, Nurnberger Bratwurst,  Chicken Sausages, Krainer Currywurst, and loaves of Leberkase.    We're very serious about our food!

We're Serious About Our Beer, Too!

Most of today's craft beer resurgence has been ales, as opposed to lagers.  Founder Kevin Townsell also founded Buffalo Brewpub in 1986, now the oldest brewpub in New York State, and still in the Townsell family.  Lagers are aged longer, and more subtly flavored.  No chocolate or oatmeal or caraway seeds in our beer!  We brew according to Germany's Reinheitsgebot Purity Laws of Munich dating back to 1516, requiring no more than four ingredients in the brewing process: malted barley (or wheat); hops; yeast; and water.  In our case, only the water is sourced from outside of Bavaria, but it turns out that Buffalo's Lake Erie water, once filtered, sets up very similarly to Bavarian's water.  We will follow Hofbrau recipes to the letter, rotating through as many as twenty-one seasonal varieties, on top of stapes including Helles (Lager), Dunkel (Dark Lager) and Weisse (Wheat Beer).