Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - While talk since the COVID-19 pandemic has surrounded the downfall of businesses in Downtown Buffalo, there are still a number of businesses that continue to find ways to thrive and succeed in that part of the city, even with a lack of people in-and-around the area.
Friday saw the owner of Osteria 166 on Franklin Street, Nick Pitillo, announce a shift of operations due to a lack of traffic and population in Downtown Buffalo.
"You can see signs of recovery, the Ingram Micro group coming in, event base, there's a lot of activity. But non-event-based stuff, you can certainly see there's much less traffic downtown," said Pitillo in an interview with WBEN. "I've heard 20,000-to-30,000 people a day are not in their offices. I know there's efforts to bring that back, and that's why we're doing what we're doing, to try and make sure we can weather this storm, find out if there's different revenue streams available to us downtown, and keep our employees working. That's a very important part for us as well."
While Pitillo admits this shift in business model has been going on since before the COVID pandemic, businesses since 2020 have had to pivot different ways in order to try and survive.
"Since the pandemic hit, it's been very difficult, really, everywhere, but downtown's been a difficult challenge. At this point, we didn't want to put her to bed, we wanted to give her another chance at some viability," Pitillo said. "À la carte dining has certainly been a challenge downtown over the last few years."
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A number of other local business owners in Downtown Buffalo can understand where Pitillo is coming from, trying to shift operations in order to try and succeed in a part of the city that still has not recovered since the pandemic.
"It obviously hasn't recovered to the extent we would like it to recover since COVID. 20,000 less employees working downtown certainly isn't helping the situation as it is," said Jay Manno from Soho Buffalo and Frankie Primo's along W Chippewa Street. "Soho Buffalo is not open for lunch; we are open for Sunday brunch, but we're not open for lunch any day of the week, and we literally have three-and-a-half days of business. Now, Frankie Primos +39, which is kitty corner, thankfully, due to publications like Buffalo Spree and Business First, is still holding strong at lunch and doing a good lunch business. And frankly, the weekday dinner business is pretty solid too with the business travelers."
Where Manno feels both businesses may be lacking or down is weekend business, especially in the summertime.
"Without any events, without any Shea's shows, without any real interest in people going to the [Buffalo] Sabres games, the weekend nights aren't any better than weeknights, which is kind of weird in the restaurant business," Manno said with WBEN.
Co-owner of the Banshee Irish Pub, Conor Hawkins, was also among the local business owners caught off guard by Osteria 166's announcement on Friday.
"Osteria has been around for a long time, and I love it. I love the people there, it's fantastic food. But I do understand that there's not that much foot traffic downtown," Hawkins said with WBEN. "Slowly, but surely, people are coming back to work, but there's not that many people out there for lunch business or happy hour business. It's a shame for Osteria."
The Banshee Irish Pub is a soccer-orientated bar, showing plenty of soccer matches from the English Premier League and other European football leagues during the week and into the weekends. Hawkins admits he is a bit concerned over business once the season comes to an end in a few weeks, as the next soccer season won't get back underway until August.
One reason Hawkins believes business at Banshee's continues to succeed is the fact they stick to their brand, while also providing a great atmosphere for patrons of the pub.
"I think just having good people, good staff, a good product, a good selection of beer and Irish music. I mean, we're very much a themed bar. Our theme is Irish culture and stuff like that, so people kind of know what they want before they even get there. They come in for a nice pint, be it a Guinness or a Magners, so we just try and stay true to our brand. That's the easiest thing, I think we just got to stick to it," Hawkins said. "A lot of other places downtown, there's just so many Italian restaurants or so many pizzerias, there's not many Irish bars, so I think we're very lucky in that sense."
While Manno admits they're not doing anything particularly better than anybody else, both businesses he helps operate have been around long enough to establish themselves to locals and out-of-towners.
"We're lucky enough to have that patio and outdoor dining, so we stayed open a good course of the time when it was outdoor dining normally during COVID. So we just basically tried to maintain, and that part of it has worked," Manno said. "As I said, tough on the weekends, but we're fighting. I sat down with the management team at Shea's to try and figure out some more stuff going on on the weekends. While Shea's is really good for us for business, a lot of those shows are times of year where a snowstorm, anything like that could cancel a show or postpone a show. Why don't we start doing more things when it's park-and-walk and nice weather? I mean, our summers in Western New York are as good as any summer in the United States, as far as I'm concerned, so let's take advantage of that. Electric City that opened up is doing some decent shows, now 710 Main Street, that theater is getting those shows that used to be in UB. So I'm optimistic, but I'd like it to get it fast-tracked a little bit."
Where Manno feels the city dropped the ball to attract more people to downtown is not capitalizing on bringing the new Highmark Stadium to the city. He feels bringing more attractions to Downtown Buffalo can be part of the solution for more prosperity to the region.
"I'm excited to know that we have March Madness next year in Buffalo again, so that will certainly help downtown. And then hopefully we get the NFL Draft in 2028, I know they're pushing for that, and that should help," Manno said. "At this point, at least, there's no real hotel space in Orchard Park, so they're gonna have to stay downtown and go out to the stadium."
The one factor both Manno and Hawkins feel will be a key contributor to further success for businesses downtown is getting people back to work on site, rather than working remotely.
"I know places like M&T Bank is pushing everybody to go back to work and get off the remote work situation," Manno said. "They understand that if nobody's working downtown, then nobody's buying cars and nobody's buying tires, and nobody's buying gas and nobody's buying suits and nobody's buying windshield wipers, and then obviously nobody's going to lunches and things like that. So collectively, the banks, Corporate America needs to push people to come back to work."
"We need to get people working downtown, and we need a more safer downtown. We need better public transportation downtown, to consider how all the other big cities in the U.S. are," Hawkins added. "Buffalo is probably thriving [with] every business up on Transit Road, and it's not Downtown Buffalo, it's all of the suburbs. Getting people downtown would definitely help it. Sports, more events at Shea's, more events down at the arena, that will all help."