Take a drive up Shawnee Road to Rustic Buffalo Home Décor, Accents & Artisan Market for something for everyone under the North Tonawanda sun. Seriously, go right after you finish this episode!
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Hey, Father's Day is coming up this weekend. What are you doing to celebrate the dad in your life, the granddad in your life? Hey, maybe even that great granddad in your life. And we're taking our travels to North Tonawanda as I visited Rustic Buffalo Home Decor Accents and Artesian Market on Shawnee Road.
The episode 12 of the Buffalo Brews podcast starts right now. Welcome, everyone. It's Tuesday, it's Brews Day, and you know what that means.
I am Jason Enninger, and thank you for listening as we come to you with the fun, the interesting, the tasty, and the inviting all going on all over western New York. Hey, if you're listening right now and you can hear my euphorious voice, you're doing so on one of many podcast platforms that the Buffalo Brews podcast is available on. Whether it's Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, we're excited to be available on so many platforms.
So tell your family, tell your friends, co-workers about us, and have them simply search Buffalo Brews. All right, folks, on to this week's episode. So I'm recording this opening on Saturday, and today being Saturday is National Rose Day.
With the current physical training that I'm in right now, I try to keep this meh bikini dad bod, so I really can't go full rosé as I like to on a day like today. But I like to, typically with a Woodbridge from Robert Mondavi or from Toast Winery. However, what I was introduced to was Boda Box Breeze Dry Rosé, low on the calories and carbs and a good sipper.
And what I am looking forward to as we get into the summer months is getting back to what I like to call rosé and sleigh, which is rosé wine and horror movies. That's horror movies. Horror movies.
We're gonna make sure we enunciate that properly, folks. I have some Woodbridge that's ready to chill right now and head into the blender with ice and then voila. As far as this silly training is going, or maybe not so silly training, I'm certainly a glutton for punishment as about 18 months ago I decided, well I didn't decide, it kind of happened for me that I was going to trash my knee running in what was going to be my one and only half marathon.
But I did it and I was able to check that off the list. It's done. So now you got 2018 where I had run, trained for over a year.
What would be a little running career to be able to check off my bucket list? And it came with plenty of personal triumphs. I came to fall in love with two specific races in Buffalo. The first being the Veterans 5k, which is run usually on the first Saturday in November down at the Erie Basin Marina and the starting point is at Templeton Landing.
This year it will take place on Saturday, November the 6th, and is a race that preserves, protects, and honors all of those men and women who served in the past and are serving currently in our military. And this year is going to be the 10th anniversary of the race and it's going to be my fourth appearance in the race. I really enjoy the course.
It's fairly flat, runs by the Naval Park, it goes all the way out to Erie Basin Marina Point, and I love all the people who participate in this. You have veterans, you have active duty, military, police, and supporters from every walk of life and I always look forward to running in it. And you can as well.
All you have to do is head over to DestinationRaces.com slash veterans dash race to register. Let me know if you do and we'll be in this together to honor our veterans. So a second race that I really enjoy is the race I actually made my racing debut in 2018, and that's the Tunnel to Towers 5k which will take place on Saturday, September 11th, which will also be the 20th anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington.
Now that race, which is going into its fifth year, supports the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation. The foundation honors the legacy of New York City firefighter Stephen Siller who, back on September 11th of 2001, had just got off of work at Brooklyn Squad One and was heading to play golf with his brothers when the attack on the World Trade Center occurred. Responding to the call, Stephen called his wife Sally and asked her to tell his brothers that he would catch up with them later.
Little did he know the devastation that had gone on at the World Trade Center. So back to work, he retrieved his gear and he headed for the towers in his pickup truck, but he only made it as far as the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, which had been closed already due to the attack. So determined to carry out his duty, he strapped on the 60 pounds of gear onto his back and he raced on foot nearly three miles through the tunnel and up Manhattan to the Twin Towers where he gave up his life trying to save others.
Stephen left behind a wife, five children, and a very large and extended family, including many many friends, to do so in service for his city. The Foundation helps pay the mortgages for families that are impacted by 9-11 illness deaths and they also build mortgage-free smart homes for veterans and first responders who have suffered catastrophic injuries that affect their mobility. It's a truly admirable organization and the race this year, as it always does, takes place at the Bellevue Fire Hall on Como Park Boulevard in Chicago.
That will go as an up and back race that goes up through Como Lake Park up to the football fields and back. So imagine being in a race with a large cheering section for each and every finisher and that's going to be my third appearance as last year's race was canceled due to COVID and I do have some folks that are going to be coming on board as new runners and I have a bunch of friends with Team RWB and the world around who are going to be joining me at that race as well. So yeah, I'm 48 years old, I'm still running thus the glutton for punishment comment.
Put that on top of all the hiking, biking, and binge-watching of season six of Gilmore's and well, here I am. So Father's Day is coming up this Sunday and the weather currently is projected sunny and 75. I guess you couldn't ask for anything more perfect in Buffalo, right? Now since there is no such thing as Father's Day brunch, enter dramatic pause here, there are a million opportunities to do great things this weekend from firing up the grill to family get-togethers or how about a place to check out where you can shop for some great buffalo-themed vendors and items for yourself or for your father.
Buffalo Brewfab, which is located at 1565 Kenmore Avenue in Buffalo, is going to be hosting their Summer Open House this Saturday. That's going to be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Now listen to this, think about custom metal work, home goods, vintage clothing, artwork, jewelry, and then there's going to be food by Pork Belly's BBQ, which I have had before and is quite delicious, and craft beer tastings that are provided by One-Eyed Cat Brewing. Now you think to yourself, One-Eyed Cat Brewing, I've never heard of that one, because you might not have.
One-Eyed Cat has been working to get their first facility up and running but they were kind of hindered because of COVID. So you can actually do a search on, especially on Facebook, and you can find a link to their fundraising and be able to go check out One-Eyed Cat Brewing for everything that they offer. They're going to be on site this Saturday.
Buffalo Brewfab is Buffalo's custom metal fabrication shop and they can literally bring any vision to life. Bar decor and furniture, signage, fire pits, home decor, draft towers, keg work, home decor. They also do CNC plasma cutting as well as welding.
They've done some custom work for the aforementioned One-Eyed Cat Brewing, 12 Gates Brewing, Froth Brewing, Lily Bead Meads, Armor Tap Room, as well as Horsehead Brewing. So make sure that you come out on Saturday. Again, that's their location 1565 Kenmore Avenue in Buffalo from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and look, shop, add something great to your home, your man cave, your garage.
So happy Father's Day this weekend to all the dads, the granddads, and the great granddads out there. I'm not going to bring this part of the podcast down because, you know, things happen and life goes on. But I lost my father back in 2013 suddenly, and I get the opportunity now and again to visit my parents' resting site, which is located in Mina, New York.
And this past, or actually two weekends ago, I went out to Ohio to visit some cousins for a birthday party out there. And I got a little early start and met my sister and my brother-in-law out there to, you know, do some spring tidying up and, you know, kind of get things cleaned up and looking good around my parents' resting site. And it's the weekend after Memorial Day weekend at that point, so there are so many flags and stakes that are placed at various stones that are around the cemetery indicating, you know, members who had passed away who were members of our armed forces.
So after we were done cleaning up the site and my brother-in-law suffered, you know, one of his many allergy attacks while he was there from all the flowers, we walked around the cemetery for a little while and we were looking at the different stones and, you know, you place pennies to, you know, acknowledge that they were, you know, fellow members of the armed forces. I myself, I was a U.S. Air Force veteran. My brother-in-law served in the Marines and we took some time to walk around and look at some of the resting sites for other veterans of foreign wars.
We found some from Vietnam, Korea, Grenada. We also found some going back as far as World War II, World War I, the Civil War, and a few that we actually found in that cemetery from the Revolutionary War. And while we were going through, we came across one specific headstone and did not know that it was considered one of the main points of interest for the cemetery.
This gentleman was a Medal of Honor winner back in 1865, a gentleman by the name of Ebenezer Skelly, who was born in Mina back on August 16th of 1842. He died in 1898, but he received the Medal of Honor in 1865 for his years of service. So he only served three years as part of the U.S. Army in the 112th New York Infantry.
But during the American Civil War, he served in the Siege of Suffolk, the Second Battle of Charleston Harbor, the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, the Battle of Cold Harbor, the Siege of Petersburg, the Second Battle of Petersburg, the Battle of the Crater, and the Battle of Chiffin's Farm. And for all the work that he did in all these battles, he received the Medal of Honor. Now you can go on to Wikipedia and really get a full write-up on all of his history and accomplishments, but one part that I actually wanted to read from was his Medal of Honor citation.
He was recognized for his service to the nation when the federal government presented him with the Medal of Honor on April the 6th of 1865, and according to the Military Times, his citation contained the following information, Corporal Skelly took the colors of his regiment, the color bearer having fallen, and carried them through the first charge. Also in the second charge, after the color guards had been killed or wounded, he carried the colors up the enemy works where he fell wounded. His date of action, September 29, 1864, awarded on April 6, 1865, in the service to the U.S. Army, rank of corporal, company delta, for the 112th New York Infantry.
So there is a placard that is outside of the cemetery in honor of Corporal Skelly, and going back to his site, we notice that all around the area is his entire family, to which my sister had brought to my attention that there were members of the Skelly family that we went to school with in Sherman, and it's got me thinking about those connections. We live in a small world as it is. I mean, even that day after we visited the cemetery, we went to breakfast before I went out to Ohio to visit family, and even while we were there as we left, there was a woman who shouted our last name, Ettinger, and as we turned around, it was a woman who lived next door to us when we grew up, and I hadn't seen her since her graduated from high school in 1991.
So now you know how much time has passed and what a small world we live in. So I know that doesn't really connect Father's Day, but it's, you know, visiting my father's resting place and then taking in time to kind of mix Memorial Day weekend in and, you know, those folks who died in action or, you know, even in the case of the final resting place for a lot of our veterans. I know that doesn't apply to Memorial Day because those were those who were killed in action, but it's just, you know, it's humbling to know how many folks are out there and seeing resting sites for those that are in the, even back to the American Revolutionary War, who are still acknowledged with the placard, with a flag, and they're remembered on Memorial Day for their service to the country.
If you have been listening on the radio or on television since spring sprung in western New York, you have heard the name John Perrone, and you've heard the voice that comes along with John's work of art. John Perrone is the face that runs the place. He is energy personified, and he's one of the owners of Rustic Buffalo Home Decor, Accents, and Artisan Market.
This is an interview that I conducted with John a few weeks before Memorial Day, and you'll hear about how the business came to be, their struggles through COVID, and where they're headed as 2021 progresses. Since this interview, I made a visit back to Rustic Buffalo, basically to see it in full swing on the weekend while they were holding their outdoor Artisan Market, and you would not be disappointed. You have to take a visit out to Rustic Buffalo to see everything that they have to offer.
There literally is something for everybody, young and old, family center, something to eat, something to do, and so many things to look at, shop, buy, take in, and enjoy an afternoon with friends and family. This is my interview with John Perrone of the Rustic Buffalo Home Decor, Accents, and Artisan Market. So researching Rustic Buffalo Home Decor, Accents, and Artisan Market.
Yeah, yes. And so we're on the property at 6610 Shawnee Road in North Tonawanda. North Tonawanda, yes.
And this is the property for the, what would have been the former antique co-op. Yeah. And the old white linen tea room.
Yes, the linen tea house. And then honestly, the old antique co-op is the big barn in front. It's still active.
Okay. Still alive and active. They're still selling.
So they have the big barn, separate companies from us. Okay. But we have the middle barn and the rest of the property.
All right. And so I'm going to read the description as I had it laid out, because you have so much to offer and even walking through the store to get up here. Yeah, yeah.
Such an incredible selection that I saw already. So you have it listed as farmhouse decor, rustic decor and accents, vintage decor, antiques and jewelry, repurposed home furniture and decor, candles, clothing, metal arts, textiles, glass art, ceramic art. Yeah.
And photography prints, Buffalo themed decor, which everybody around here just loves and homemade items for basically every taste. Yeah. And how many artisans do you feature here on site? So 110 artisans are here between our barn and our new Victorian house, which is the old tea house.
So there's 110 artisans. Now they are not necessarily on site. They actually make their goods, leave their goods.
They stock their goods in the middle of the night. And then of course, we sell their goods for them on a daily basis. So we're open seven days a week, including Saturdays, Sundays, even on Saturdays and Sundays, we have an additional 25 artisans out back of our barn, which is our outdoor artisan market.
So that runs from May 1st to October 31st. Wonderful. And so to talk about you as the owner, so it's you and I have listed also as a D. Scott.
D. Scott DeMott is one of my business partners. Yes. And how did the Rustic Buffalo come to be? Yes.
I'll tell you the pandemic. The pandemic was the nucleus to Rustic Buffalo. So we had quite a few, um, artist friends of different, um, like different painters.
And, uh, we had sculpture people in our lives that were out of business. They couldn't sell their wares. They Allentown art festival was canceled, um, different festivals around on Western New York, Niagara County, Erie County were canceled.
Everything was canceled. And this is what they survived on. Um, and this is how they made their money.
This is how they made their money for their family, uh, for themselves, whatever it might be. And what didn't make sense to us is that you could go to a store and shop. You could go with a target.
You could go to Walgreens wherever and shop, but you couldn't, you couldn't shop for artistic things. And that didn't make sense to us. So what we decided to do was open up, um, Rustic Buffalo artisan market.
And, um, yes, we are home decor and we have all different types of artisans in here. When we first did this, we thought, eh, we'll probably have 30 artisans. But when we actually put a press release out, I could not believe the number of artisans that were in need of a place, a home, a brick and mortar.
And initially we received over 350 applications to be part just in this building, not even thinking we were going to take over other pieces of the campus of the Rustic Buffalo campus. Um, and it's been completely overwhelming. So our grand opening was November 14th of last year.
Crazy time pandemic. We have holidays coming. November 20th was one week, or I'm sorry, November 14th was one week, uh, away from Thanksgiving.
Essentially no more than 10 at the table, right? No more than 10 at the table, you know, six feet away. And here's two guys trying to open up a business to help support what they thought were their friends, but also now other community members. And it was the most beautiful thing ever.
Let me tell you, the community came out and supported us that we had excellent media press, um, and attention. And as the need furthered and as the pandemic got worse, as we all know, God forbid it got worse. Um, I started to receive more and more applications and applications and letters of, you know, how good of a job we've done with just the barn at, you know, 6610 Shawnee.
And what else could we do? Like what else? I mean, was there something more we could do to help relieve that stress of other artisans? Um, so we thought a little out of the box and we're like, well, you know, there's a vacant house on the same property. It's literally on the within a hundred feet of the barn. And, and there's a small little, what they used to call the chicken coop of the farm, very small building.
It's about 500 square feet in the very front of the building. We thought, which were empty, both were empty at the time. And we thought, well, we could convert those to artisan areas.
And that's exactly what we did. So we have three buildings on the campus that are filled with nothing but artisan work. And when I say artisans, it doesn't mean that they are, are making a sculpture necessarily or crafting this or crafting that we also have food artisans on the campus.
So there is such a thing. And we created a food, basically a gourmet kitchen surrounded by local food artisans. Um, so they make barbecue sauces and sweet glaze and honey butter and garlic butter and all these types of different things that you would probably never think of.
And we have a art artisan that focuses on doing nothing but bake shops, like bake shops, like cookies and cakes and cookie platters and things like that. That's true artist. Um, and we took that into consideration.
So when we opened the second building, we wanted it to be more of, this is not a shopping experience any longer. This is now a destination. This is a destination for our artisans.
This is a destination for the community. We thought out of the box and created, um, the second, the second and third buildings and created the bake shop and the gourmet kitchen and what comes along with gourmet kitchen and the bake shop our families. And we thought this is perfect.
It's perfect for the Wheatfield community. It's perfect for NT. It's perfect for all of Western New York.
I am, I'm surprised, but not surprised at the, the people walking through the doors. People are coming from Pennsylvania and Jamestown and Fredonia and Rochester and Seneca Falls, which is like on Seneca Lake to come to here because it's not a shopping experience. It's a destination.
So they can bring their families. We have, um, uh, a family game zone. So we, we thought about including families and we created a family game zone in which, you know, if you're not into the shopping thing, or maybe you're tired or maybe you're exhausted from doing all this shopping, you can sit, have a Danish, have a cup of coffee, have a hot cocoa or whatever it might be and sit out in our big backyard, our porch.
We have a beautiful front porch. We have a beautiful back deck and just relax. You can play games such as corn hole, outdoor Yahtzee, tic-tac-toe out in the yard.
Uh, there's just so many things you can do, which is fun. I love it. You've covered such a large gambit.
I know I don't stop talking. That's okay. That's okay.
You have a, an amazing campus, like you said, a destination. And on top of that, you're being embraced by what the Western New York community and beyond really is. I mean, uh, there are a few businesses that could boast that they become this destination and that they are, are really just taken in by the community, whether it's the support from the surrounding area and your location itself is amazing.
I mean, you know, you drive out of North Tonawanda, anybody who lives in NT knows what NT is, but they don't know that NT really extends beyond Niagara Falls Boulevard. And then, you know, you know, that's how, this is how we get to Medina or how we're going to Liveport. We're going to go this way.
Right. Right. They don't know that all these great places are out here.
Right. And so you mentioned that, um, you mentioned that you had the, the bake shop and cafe. So, one of the things that I had noted was the, you know, you can get scones, you can get cookies, you know, sort of a, sort of a sweet treat shop and get a coffee, whether you want to sit here and enjoy it.
Like you said, I don't want to patios or get it to go. And one of the things that really intrigued me that you don't get a lot of places when it comes to getting something to eat and enjoy is what you call a growler box. Yes.
A growler box. That's kind of fun. And, you know, I've experienced, you know, I did not come up with the name growler box.
It is a Canadian thing that honestly, that has taken off and it has made it to the States and our artisan of the bake shop thought, well, let's, let's, let's take that show on the road a little bit and create a growler box for our residents and our community members. And, you know, the people that are coming in and, and wanting to eat. So are they able to grab a sandwich? Yes.
They are able to grab a sandwich. They're able to grab fresh fruits, whatever they want, whatever they're, whatever they find, um, works for them. But these growler boxes are unbelievable.
And what I like to refer to them, they are a potpourri of, of nothing but wonderful things. We have the simplest things of crackers and, and, um, olives and we have black olives and green olives and hummus and hot peppers and pepperoni with pepper. And, um, it reminds me of items that would be spread out over a charcuterie board, but really are in this beautiful growler box, cheeses, all different types of aged cheeses, fresh mozzarella, and, and, um, and a whole bunch of just wonderful things that you can just nibble on and eat out in the yard or just dunk in.
And I, last weekend, it was funny because I saw somebody, a family, a family of four, there wasn't any room on the deck. They sat, they laid out their blanket and laid out the growler box. And they all just sat there with, you know, being safe.
Nobody was around them. It was just their family. No one bothered them.
And they all just nibbled on the growler box. Some had the hummus and some had the olives and, you know, there's some stuff in there for, for kids as well. And, um, it was just, it was just exactly what we were created for.
Like why we, why we came up with rustic Buffalo artists and market. And it was because of the family piece. And when I, I just took a step back and watched that, I thought, God, you know, our dreams are really coming true in front of us.
Like families are coming because we are a destination and that's what we wanted to provide. Um, yes, we have shopping, but honestly, to me, that's secondary. That is secondary.
It's about a community coming together. It's about a community, um, and a business coming together to be successful. This community needed something, especially during the pandemic.
And, you know, we're, we're proud to say that we're an NT, but we're also proud to say that we're in wheat field too, because, you know, there's this wheat field NT struggle going on, to be honest with you for years, right? It's been like that for years. And, you know, I'm, I'm team NT, I'm team wheat field. I'm both, but during the pandemic, you know, we created, um, an area for our, for the community where they could get thermometers and pulse locks, pulse oximeters and band-aids and first aid kits and things that, um, essential means that they could utilize to take care of their families during the pandemic.
We were thinking about them during those times, because at that time, that's, that's what we thought that they needed, you know? Um, and even like we had some walkers here in case you needed a walker to purchase a walker or leg lifters or whatever it might be. It was almost like we had a mini pharmacy because we had to transform a portion of the business into what the community needed at that time. So, um, I mean, it, it vastly went away because they didn't need it based on the need.
Yeah. Based on the need, you know, we had quite a few, we ran out of pulse oxes, we ran out of thermometers. And at that point there was nowhere else to get them.
You know, thank goodness we had, we S we stocked up on thousands of gloves and masks and people would come in and we're buying baggies of gloves and masks. And we were able to give those out not knowing where the future was going to lead us with this pandemic. Um, and of course we've converted that now into a special food area, but, um, you know, we're very, very COVID minded.
And I think it's because we were created during the pandemic. We take it very serious. We continue to take it very serious.
We, I mean, you and I are sitting here today and we are still six feet away. We are taking precautions, the necessary precautions. And, you know,
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