Sunday News: The Nickel Plate draws new food customers to old food terminal

When it debuted in 1931, the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal was a model hub for feeding the 13th largest city in the United States. The warehouse complex of cream-colored brick at the confluence of railways, highways, and Clinton and Bailey avenues fed the region. Railcars and tractor-trailers emptied the fields and pastures of America into vast rooms, refrigerators, and freezers.

As it happens, we are not strangers, the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal and I.

In 1984, in my sophomore year at the University at Buffalo, the phone would ring in my office. (Yes, with a door. At that time, UB’s undergraduate student fee supported a student-run weekly feature magazine, Generation. In a basement annex of Harriman Hall, second-in-command, supervising editor, got me an office with a phone.)

On the other end was my father, Rodney Galarneau. “Can you lump?”

When the freelance photography business failed him, the S.M. Flickinger produce warehouse gave him the job he needed to build a house. His workdays were spent driving electric forklifts to load trucks with pallets and boxes of fruit and vegetables.

When a tractor-trailer load of certain produce arrived, the truck driver was responsible for unloading. Often a weary driver would rather put cash money in another hand to see it through. “Lumpers” were backs-for-hire. For $60 I could get there in 15 minutes and work until it was done. Which is how I learned watermelons are packed in ice and sawdust, and slippier after the first 100.

The entrance is around the corner to the right. Yes, there’s a ramp.

So, I know the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal. Which makes it even more embarrassing that I get lost every time I go. The Sausagemaker, ready to help small or large-scale meat processors with everything they need, is in the complex, Suite 140.

The fellow was kind when I told him I was looking for The Nickel Plate, actually.

A mortifyingly brief drive away, there it was. Keep your head up and you can’t miss it. Or have trouble finding a parking spot. Businesses started reoccupying more parts in 2020, but there’s still room to dock a heavy cruiser.

Dawn Niecpiel, manager, tends to customers.

Tyrel Reynolds and Nick Smith launched The Nickel Plate as a restaurant feeding local tastes to customers alongside a chance to take some of Buffalo’s homegrown groceries, emphatically including craft beer and other adult beverages.

The new breakfast menu joins a lengthy tap list, sandwiches and munchies menu.

Totchos done right – each nug so crispy you can hear the crunch- is a blessing, amen.

A lesser-known local connection is Buffalo Public high school students getting hands-on experience in the kitchen and on the retail side. When Reynolds told me a high school student made my lunch, I told him the jaw-unhinging cheeseburger and stoner-bait totchos were first class. Buffalo Public’s School 42 and the New York State Employment Training and Supports program help make The Nickel Plate work, he said.

Breakfast is a recent addition to its seven-day-a week menu. The robust selection of drinks makes Sunday brunch especially notable.

Anyone interested in being a vendor at The Nickel Plate, including food products in the freezer or on its shelves, can submit an application here.

The Nickel Plate

1500 Clinton St. Unit 174, tnpbuffalo.com, order online here, 716-939-2039

Kitchen hours: breakfast 10 a.m.-noon, rest until 5:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. brunch menu, rest until 6:30 p.m. Saturday, 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

REVIEW: With 75 years in service to Lockportians, 35 under the current family, The Shamus is that restaurant you thought didn’t exist any more. You know, the one where they used to present a bread basket with three kinds of housemade bread and focaccia, and the jazzed up butters with grassy green olive oil. For free, glad you came to dinner. Remember that? At 98 West Ave., that’s the Shamus standard. (Later today, for patrons.)

ASK THE CRITIC

Q: Have you been to FLX Table in Geneva? Heard good things, but we’re not crazy about the idea of driving out to the Finger Lakes for dinner.

Sacha, Amherst

A: Heck, yes.

We went recently on a Sunday night, the low ebb of the restaurant week.

After a delicious meal, handcrafted in all the ways that matter, we left determined to return.

My full review of FLX Table is scheduled for publication on April 13, two weeks from today. It’s $8 a month or $50 a year to read my weekly reviews, recipes, and other fancy stuff.

Post-meal s’moreish sticks are part of the FLX Table wrapawround suite of satisfactions.

ASK THE CRITIC II ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

Over the last 18 months, several readers have inquired after cheesemaking supplies they could buy locally, as they sought to support their local business community.

Which totally fell off my radar, until last week. Because I was at Sheridan and Military, in Tonawanda, with rolls of cheesecloth in my hand. Niagara Tradition, run by Bert Dyster, is open to the public five days a week if you’ve decided to chill on ordering everything from Amazon.

Dyster’s gotchu for all your beer, wine, cheese, vinegar, kombucha, and meadmaking needs.

Yard squares of real cheesemaking cloth, strong enough to twist rather rudely into whey-extracting forms, go for a princely $4.29. If you’re thinking of making your own cheese, another hard-to-find-locally ingredient, calcium chloride, is here for $2.49. Just a half-tablespoon in your milk helps form sliceable curd.

Niagara Tradition

1296 Sheridan Drive, Tonawanda, nthomebrew.com, 716-877-8767

Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday, Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday, Monday.

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