Buffalo is one of the few cities in the country where bars can legally serve until 4am, and this city takes that seriously. It is also a city of diners, which open early. Somewhere between those two facts is a person standing in a parking lot at 2:15am wondering what to do with themselves. This post is for that person.
The gap, explained
Our sister restaurant, the saloon that pours until 2am, is directly across the parking lot from our door. Thursday through Saturday it closes at two. We open at seven. That is a five-hour gap in the same parking lot, and it is the most-asked question on Main Street after "what's loganberry."
Their side of the block wrote up what's open late in Buffalo for the first part of the gap. We handle the end of it.
What to do at 7am after a late night
We are not doctors. We are a diner, and a diner's advice is older and mostly correct.
- Water first. A full glass before the coffee. We will keep refilling it without being asked.
- Then salt, fat, and potatoes. This is where the country corned beef hash earns its reputation: corned beef we roast and shred ourselves, with potatoes, peppers, onions, and two eggs. Or the Blizzard Breakfast, if you need volume. Or a fried egg sandwich with peameal, if you need it in one hand.
- Fresh orange juice. Ours is squeezed every morning. It is the closest thing to medicine we sell.
- A milkshake, honestly. Cold, sweet, dairy. A chocolate malt at 7:30am after a long night has fixed more people than we can count. Nobody at this counter will say a word.
- Coffee last, or at least not first. Our Blizzard Blend is strong, and it works better on a full stomach.
Water first. Then salt, fat, and potatoes. The coffee can wait ten minutes.
The diner as a public service
A diner that opens at seven is doing a job the city needs: it catches the night-shift nurses coming off at the hospital, the cooks and bartenders who closed a bar at four, the students who did not sleep, and the early people who did. All of them at one counter, in a stainless steel dining car built in 1952, drinking the same coffee. That mix is the best thing about the morning shift and the reason nobody here judges what you look like at 7:05.
Doing the full loop
Some people, on a Friday, do the whole thing on purpose: fish fry here at lunch, dinner and the bar across the lot until close, a few hours of sleep, and breakfast back here on Saturday morning. We call it the loop. It is entirely possible without ever moving your car, and we have written the hours out side by side so you can plan it.
The only warning: on Sundays, The Steer is closed, so the loop starts and ends at the diner. On a Bills Sunday, that is not the worst place to start.