Trifter

Elmwood Avenue has always been spoken of as a hip, fun, and cool place to eat and shop.  When I was in college, I had visited Buffalo a few times and hung out at a few coffee places and bought some Doc Martens in a store somewhere on Elmwood.  It had been years since I had been to that part of Buffalo.  Most of my upstate trips involve going to one of the towns and suburbs surrounding the area and only going to the city to get picked up or dropped off at the train or bus station. 

I had asked one of my friends to meet me for dinner before I hopped back on a bus to NYC and suggested we try somewhere on Elmwood. She suggested JP Bullfeathers. 

From the outside the restaurant looks more like a bar/restaurant and not kid friendly.  However, they do have a children’s menu section and had deals for the upcoming Mother’s Day weekend advertised. We were a party of five consisting of two adults and three children. 

When you first walk in, you are in the main bar area which is a nice looking old wooden bar and tiled flooring.  The decorations are artsy and to my relief, you’re not bombarded with flat screed HD tvs blasting sports at you.  We were sat in the back and noticed that the place is much larger than it seems from the outside. There was a back room that wasn’t opened that looked big enough to rent out for a party and a side room that had a few people seated and eating.

The menu had a nice mix of typical bar food – burgers, fried foods, and general salads.  The children’s menu had Make your Own Pizza as a choice and two of the children with us wanted that and the third child chose chicken fingers and fries.  I tried the penne pesto and it came with a salad. 

The salad was fine, there was nothing spectacular about it but the pasta dish was really good.  It was a light pesto sauce that also had roasted tomatoes. The pasta wasn’t overcooked, the dish was filling but light, and the tomatoes added a nice contrast to the basil/olive oil taste of the pesto. 

The pizzas that the children ordered were good sizes, about the size of a dinner plate.  The children were given mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and the pizza itself already had some sauce on it.  The children enjoyed making their pizzas and arranging their pepperoni into little faces.  Once they had finished their works of art, the waiter took their pizzas and brought back to the kitchen to be placed into the oven. I was told the chicken fingers were good and the fries were crispy and not soggy. The cups that the children’s drinks came in were cute designs and had tops on them so if they tipped over, it wasn’t an immediate disaster. 

The pros of going to JP Bullfeathers or “Featherbees” as my friend calls it are the following:

1. Large restaurant, no wait for seating.
2. Not overly noisy when we went – if you want to eat and not shout, I’d suggest going on a weekday before 9pm.
3. Very affordable children’s menu – their meals were four dollars each.
4. Good choice of dinner entrees.
5. Good service and clean.

I would suggest going here to eat and hang out if you were looking to have dinner as a family and might have picky eaters and doubt they are adventurous enough to try the falafel joints and japanese restaurants that are also on Elmwood. They are open for lunch and dinner and have fancier items on their menu such as filet mignon, and chicken marsala.