Hosting Loved Ones: A look at my favorite Buffalo activities

By: Kaitlin O’Meara, Asst. Copy Editor

With spring having officially arrived – even though the weather doesn’t always reflect it – it’s the perfect time to host family and friends up here in Buffalo. When it’s not miserably cold outside, Buffalo honestly has a lot going on, and it’s fun to show off what our little city has to offer. This past weekend, I hosted my sister and cousins up here, and I wanted to write a little recommendation list based on what we did and enjoyed. It’s always nice to have some ideas in your back pocket of things to do in Buffalo!

Wegmans: This may only be my family, but we all seem to love Wegmans, and we always try to make time to eat at Wegmans while they’re in Buffalo. One of my cousins had never been past Rochester before, so her sister requested that we have dinner there on the first night so that she could learn all about it. I will say, my family is from the Albany area, so for those of you from Western New York, this is probably not a very notable experience. 

Yoga: We went to hot yoga this past weekend, but I cannot in good conscience recommend it to others. Room temperature yoga is excellent and probably far more enjoyable. Going to hot yoga was my sister and cousin’s one and only ask of the weekend, so obviously I wasn’t going to say no, but maybe I wish I had. Because we didn’t really read over the description of the class, we ended up booking the hottest and most difficult class the studio offers, and we left that class the sweatiest we had ever been in our entire lives – and I’m not even exaggerating. When we left, my cousin was literally steaming from how hot she was compared to the cool air outside. We were originally planning on going to brunch afterwards but had to come back to my house and shower because we couldn’t be out in society that sweaty. Normally, I enjoy yoga when it is more room temperature, so I would recommend that far before I would recommend hot yoga. If that’s your vibe, you go girl – but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Elmwood: I think that this was my sister and cousins’ highlight of the trip. We started off with a little brunch at Spot Coffee (post-showers) and then walked around through some of the shops. Elmwood is one of those places that I love showing off to people, because there’s something for everyone among their variety of stores. The two favorite stores among my little group were Queen City Vintage and Sunshine and Bluebirds. Since my cousins haven’t spent a ton of time in Buffalo before, the sheer amount of Bills/Buffalo merch in all of the stores was a bit of a shock for them, but something they really enjoyed once they realized (nearly) every store was like that. I think everyone walked away with at least a little something, which was very exciting for them, as they love shopping.

Local Restaurants: I’m grouping two of our activities together here, but I’m also going to speak more generally about hosting people rather than my own experience this past weekend. I think two of the highlights for us were when we went out to eat at unique restaurants in Buffalo. I showed off one of my favorite places here in Buffalo – Aguacates – and then we went and discovered a new cafe together, which was The Bean on Hertel. For those of you who love Aguacates and were sad when it closed for renovations, it’s back open and better than ever! They changed up the menu a bit, but it was an excellent dining experience. Mexican restaurants in general are my family’s go-to kinds of restaurants, so I wanted to make sure I showed off one of my favorites here in Buffalo. The morning that the girls left, we tried out The Bean on Hertel – a cafe on, you guessed it, Hertel – and it was PHENOMENAL. Originally, they wanted to go to the Tim Horton’s on campus for a quick bite before getting on the road, but I was not going to let that happen.

Hosting your family is a great way to show off what you love about the place where you (at least in my case) spend the majority of the year. For us, this trip has almost been two years in the making, so it was so much fun to finally get to host my cousins and sister and show them Buffalo. My advice: show off the places that you love to go to and the people you love to see, and you’re guaranteed to have a great time. (Just don’t have a carbon monoxide scare in the middle of the afternoon and evacuate everyone until the fire department clears the house – trust me). Though if that does happen, I’ll also recommend Lake Effect Ice Cream as a great treat for everyone for dealing with it all! Your hosting experience will be what you make of it, so just remember to have fun.