Fall in love with Rochester: An insider's guide to the 585

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1424702866 — Rochester, NY, just 75 minutes east down the I-90 from Buffalo.

By Matthew Kotula

Raise your hand if you have been meaning to visit your friend in Rochester.

As a former Buffalonian who has now lived in Rochester more than ten years, I love both cities, but I was at a loss for what to do in Rochester when I first moved. Where was my Broadway Market, my Rust Belt Books? Where was Elmwood, Allentown? Where was the action on Friday night? What of brunch?

Love takes time. Over the years I’ve found that Rochester has plenty to offer. When friends come to town, I can’t wait to show them around. We’re friends, right? For 24 hours let’s say we are. Let’s get friendly with The Flour City.

First thing’s first: coffee and a bite at Bookeater. This bookstore and cafe is the perfect spot to start the day. Grab a Brisket Biscuit Breakfast sandwich, sip a latte and peruse two floors of lovingly curated books.

Silver & Salt 2.png — Silver & Salt Studios

On Saturday mornings, the must-stop is the Rochester Public Market. Dozens of vendors hawking crafts, treats, meats, cheeses and every fruit and vegetable known to science, flanked by cafes, restaurants and shops. There, we’re swinging past Silver & Salt Studios, a photography studio run by Nicholas Kundrat and Clay Patrick McBride. Specializing in wet plate collodion photography, Silver & Salt carries on Rochester’s proud tradition of craft in photography in film.

For lunch it’s Swan Market, a German deli where guests are seated at long tables devouring a smorgasbord of wursts, schnitzels, German potato salad and sour-sweet pickled red cabbage. Taxidermy vies for wall space with family photos, decorative steins and scarves of obscure German soccer teams. If we’re lucky, we might catch an old country accordion singalong. This is the sort of place where you enter as a stranger and leave a local.

To walk off lunch, it’s browsing shelves at Record Archive. If you were one of the many saddened by the closing of Buffalo’s Record Theatre in 2017, this one’s for you. They boast a massive selection of new and used records, plus vintage equipment, gifts and an in-house bar and music venue.

Not yet hungry, we opt for drinks at The Vesper, an intimate restaurant and bar downtown specializing in fresh seafood and oysters on the half shell. My grandmother drank a Manhattan every day, so that’s my go-to. But I’ll recommend their signature Vesper Martini, or the floral and fruity Gilroy with elderflower.

Now it’s dinner time. Perhaps you have never heard the words “Middle Eastern-inspired cuisine” and “bowling alley” uttered in the same sentence. Until 2017, no one in Rochester had either. That’s when Radio Social, an upscale entertainment club and restaurant, first opened its doors. We could order house-made hummus, lamb shoulder shawarma and roasted red pepper falafel, or opt for traditional bowling alley fare like Detroit-style pizza slices or burgers and fries. After dinner we can bowl, shoot pool, play ping pong, shuffleboard, shoot darts and Skee-ball or pose for a selfie in front of their radio wall.

It’s been a great day, but it’s time we once again go our separate ways. There’s so much to see and do in Rochester; you can’t hope to do it in a day, but you can always come back. Love, after all, takes time.