999 Broadway, Buffalo, NY
Web: Broadway Market
Phone: 716.893.0705
See More Restaurant Reviews For:
Buffalo Desserts Italian Markets Polish Soul Food
"What really caught our eyes was a sign at Melanie's Sweets Unlimited, touting a past Taste of Buffalo 'best dessert' win for its cannoli - a sure-fire way to tempt us as cannoli fans."
The Broadway Market ain't what it used to be. After 120 years of occupying the same city block on Broadway in Buffalo - a parcel which has seen both major demographic and surrounding infrastructure changes since then - this 90,000-square foot market area was, on a Saturday morning when we visited, significantly less crowded with either patrons or vendors than Cheektowaga's flea market Super Flea. And despite their similarly rough appearances, the variety of items on offer at the Broadway Market was less impressive - much less impressive. It goes without saying that Wegmans doesn't have much to worry about.
But even as time appears to have substantially passed it by - at least in its current form - the Broadway Market has remained the focus of civic attention: it has been rebuilt, refurbished, and turned over to different management companies in an attempt to preserve what is believed to be one of the nation's oldest public marketplaces. And as demonstrated by a messy dispute between the Market's most recent operators and the City of Buffalo, settled last week to prevent a substantial liquidation of its assets, it is obvious that revitalization is still on the agenda of City leaders.
Today, the Market is known mostly for three things. Around Easter, it is one of several well-known places to go for butter lambs, pieces of butter that have been sculpted into lambs for Polish Catholic Easter meals. During the rest of the year, it hosts a small collection of Polish-themed meat, pastry, and dumpling vendors. And it also now includes African-American businesses such as a clothing and knick-knack stand called Everything's Very African, and McKenzie's Soul Food Shack - which notes on a sign that it does catering, "big time." There are a couple of other small restaurants on-site, too.
It was hard to be impressed by what we saw during our visit, though it's equally possible that we went during the wrong time of the year, or that the Market really doesn't have much going on any more. The E.M. Chrusciki Polish Bakery shown at the top of this page had the most vibrant-looking stand at the place, though little traffic by comparison with the several fish (Broadway Seafood), meat (Lupus Meats, Camellia Meats), and produce stands we saw around, each of which had a handful or two of people looking at their offerings, sometimes buying.
The meat shops were loaded with an amazing array of sausages, as well as beef and pork parts that could generously be described as niche - beautiful balls of tripe, hard-looking hocks of pork. Between those and the display case selling $1.50 bottles of blood - seriously - it's obvious that the Market is heavily catering to the tastes of Polish and African-American communities at this point, rather than attempting to broadly appeal to everyone a la Seattle's Pike Place Market. Pike Place, of course, has plenty of niche ethnic offerings, but its energy comes from offering so many small and large items that it appeals in some way to everybody.
Having visited a number of successful public marketplaces, including some really nice farmers' markets, we found it easy to put a finger on what was wrong with the Broadway Market, yet hard to propose practical solutions. Such places are rarely helped by a sense of insulation from the outside world - they thrive when their vendors and wares mingle with fresh air - yet this area's climate isn't conducive to a truly open-air shopping environment. They need both offerings and ambience that appeal to everyone, not just one or two population groups in a given area, but it's obvious that the current vendors are still there either because their customers are there or because they used to be. For these reasons, truly fixing the Broadway Market won't just require reducing the number of apparently homeless visitors; it will necessitate enticing a much broader cross-section of the community to visit a more attractive and open space. Many people would argue that it's not worth the effort to do so in this part of Buffalo - that creating a new, better marketplace elsewhere would be a more obvious use of public funds. Perhaps that's the best reason the City should redouble its efforts here, instead.
What will save the Market, if anything, is a visually interesting, safe environment with standout foods. Of all the stands at the Broadway Market, the one that really caught our eyes was the dessert shop Melanie's Sweets Unlimited, thanks to a sign touting a past Taste of Buffalo "best dessert" win for its cannolis - a sure-fire way to tempt the cannoli fans here at Buffalo Chow. Once we were at the place, we discovered a display case with the biggest pastry hearts we've ever seen, and contemplated adding one to our order for a cannoli cone sold either with or without chocolate chips. As the cannoli was being freshly assembled by friendly employees, always a good sign, we noticed three live bugs crawling around in the pastry display case, and one dead one laying there as well.
Needless to say, we didn't pick up a pastry heart, but we did take the cannoli, anyway. Its shell was a bit too crunchy, but its cream was delicious and smooth, apparently quite fresh and a wonderful contrast with the miniature chocolate chips. Thus, we'll say this: between the meats and pastries, there are in fact still good foods to be had at the Broadway Market; you just have to look past the place's obvious current issues in order to find them.
