Tipico Coffee's new food menu is Elmwood Village

BY ANDREW Z. GALARNEAU

Aug. 30, 2023

Egg, cheese, chorizo, and sweet potato fill empanadas as part of Kevin Thurston's new menu at Tipico Coffee & Cafe, 1084 Elmwood Ave.

New Tipico menu heads south by southwest

Former Café Godot chef Kevin Thurston has started offering Elmwood Village noshers another culinary nook to explore by introducing a menu of diverse plates at Tipico Coffee & Cafe.

Tipico roasts fair-trade beans for award-winning coffee. At 1084 Elmwood Ave. since 2020, the food lineup was predictably bagel-centric. Now the coffee connoisseurship of owners Pete Herman and Jesse Crouse has food to match, with a menu of bespoke cuisine that stands out from the coffee shop crowd with offerings that land Southwest and even toward the equator, to South America.

Thurston built his Tipico menu on vegan and gluten-free basics, making it simple to serve those constituencies, adding meat and cheese for other folks. Thus the pork empanadas (2/$8) come with vegan chipotle mayonnaise or fermented chimichurri.

Tofu tinga empanadas (2/$8) are filled with seasoned soy that passes the I-can’t-believe-it’s-tofu test. Chai peanut noodles and Southwestern lentil salad (both $6) are healthy ways to round out a meal.

Dopest Dough bagels ($7) come with choice of flavored cream cheeses in strawberry jam and cracked black pepper, and honey-chipotle. Or add a seasoned egg patty and cheddar cheese for a breakfast sandwich, with bacon as an optional add-on ($10.75-$12.75).

Besides Tipico coffee in various forms, there’s drink specials like this week’s Purple Chai ($6.75-$7.25) with housemade blueberry syrup.

Hours: 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. See tipicocoffee.com for the menu or to order online. Phone: 716-464-3449.

OPENINGS & CLOSINGS

New Porter pizza: The last kitchen Kevin Thurston occupied, at 388 Porter Ave., is becoming Bflo Pizza Bistro.

Just what Buffalo needs, another pizza shop? Put your eye-rolling on pause and check out the bflo_pizzachef (that’s an underscore after bflo) account on Instagram.

Chris Flynn, a Kenmore West High School Class of 2003 graduate, has been honing his pizza game and is determined to offer Buffalo pizza fanciers a distinct style of pie, adjacent to Detroit and Sicilian models, baked in huge cast-iron skillets.

A line cook for a decade at places like Wellington Pub, Flynn and his wife and business partner Samantha Flynn will be running the place.

Bflo Pizza Bistro will open after a ribbon-cutting around noon on Sept. 8, until 8 p.m. or sold out, then 1 to 8 p.m. Saturday. After that, hours are 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 1 to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Read more

Next-gen Lee’s BBQ: The Buffalonians who remember Lee’s BBQ, the East Side spare rib destination, should know that Lee Smith’s nephew Ken Houston Jr. has opened Nephew’s BBQ, 1125 Tonawanda St., across from Riverside Park.

Houston is using recipes developed by his uncle, who died in 2021. Grilled spare ribs with Lee’s custom sauce are available as rib sandwiches ($13.50), half slabs (15 pieces) $18.50, full slabs ($37.50).

Hours: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. 716-322-1800. Read more

Edgy Vegy, a new vegetarian food truck, offers a mushroom cheesesteak based on Flat 12 mushrooms.

Edgy Vegy debut: All-vegetarian food truck Edgy Vegy introduced its mushroom cheesesteak and watermelon salad to North Tonawanda fairgoers last week.

Crispy tofu in honeyed Buffalo sauce, Cajun-crusted cauliflower, and Flat 12 mushrooms anchor sandwich selections ($15). Besides the watermelon and cucumber salad in chili-lime vinaigrette, sides ($6) include Old Bay fried potatoes and panzanella salad.

Sisters Sara and Jaime Secor’s mobile kitchen is dedicated to their grandmother, who left them money to make the enterprise possible.

Check the schedule on edgyvegybflo.com for the menu and serving locations. Upcoming stops include a one-off Thursday at Alchemy Wine & Beer, Hamburg. Regular stops currently include Mondays as part of Roswell Lunch (99 High St.) and Friday lunches at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus Pocket Park (589 Ellicott St.).

Buffets are back: Two cherished all-you-can-eat opportunities have reappeared recently.

Indian buffets, once plentiful, have become rare. India Gate’s North Buffalo location (1264 Hertel Ave.) has brought its dinner buffet back. It has dozens of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, plus an inexhaustible supply of buttered fresh naan. It’s from 4 to 10 p.m. Thursdays.

Friday buffet lunch returns to Ilio DiPaolo’s (3785 South Park Ave., Blasdell) with three soups, assorted salads and two entrees ($16.99).

MORE RESTAURANT INTEL

Sourced dinner: French chef Lionel Heydel will draw on the work of a dozen local agricultural concerns to present a farm-to-table dinner Sept. 17 at Sourced Market & Eatery (12195 Maple Road, Medina). Heydel’s menu will be paired with Arrowhead Spring Vineyards vintages. Seats are $95 including tax and tip. Read more

WNY Empanadas uses Niagara County fruit in season. This peach-blueberry galette, in buttery pastry, has a layer of almond underneath the fruit.

Empanada alert: The height of empanada season is upon us.

WNY Empanadas, the Mexican-rooted pastry business run by Otto Garcia and David Brown, uses Niagara County fruit for a mezcal-flambeed peach tart with queso fresco and pepitas, pumpkinseeds. At $6.94 a throw, it’s a steal.

Pre-order through empanadaswny.square.site, perhaps considering the Cubano, chicken tinga and blueberry turkey empanadas, the blueberry-peach-raspberry galette and red mole chicken tamale. Pick up at WNY Empanada’s stand at the North Tonawanda Farmers Market (310 Robinson St.).

Send restaurant tips, heartfelt recipes and questions to [email protected] or One News Plaza, P.O. Box 100, Buffalo, NY 14240.

Send restaurant tips to [email protected] and follow @BuffaloFood on Instagram and Twitter.

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