Beef on Weck
Thin-sliced rare roast beef piled on a kummelweck roll, a hard roll crusted with coarse salt and caraway seeds, with sharp horseradish.
🏆 Where to get the best beef on weck
- 1 Mister M's House of Food & Drink One of the best restaurants in Niagara Falls. A Hyde Park Blvd favorite for pizza, wings, subs, fish fry, big burgers and famous chicken parm dinners, plus the #1 beef on weck around.
- 2 The Griffon Gastropub, Military Road A locally owned gastropub famous for its hand-made, hand-dipped chicken fingers. People drive in from all over Buffalo for them. The Friday fish fry is a must too.
- 3 Kelly's Korner A classic neighborhood bar and grill on Cayuga Drive, known around town for its beef on weck, plus wings, pizza and a Friday fish fry.
- 4 Judi's Lounge A Town of Niagara favorite since 1980, famous for its chicken wings. Cozy, relaxed and great for watching the game.
📜 A little history
The kummelweck roll is a hard roll crusted with coarse salt and caraway seeds ("kümmel" is German for caraway), and the sandwich reflects Buffalo's deep German roots.
No one knows for sure who served it first. A 2022 historic marker in West Seneca says only that it was "believed first served in late 1800s." The most common story says a German baker brought the roll to Buffalo, and that tavern keeper Joe Gohn made beef on weck a house specialty around the time of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. For generations it was a tavern staple, carved to order from a big roast behind the bar. It's still one of the region's most loved sandwiches.
Did you know? A Buffalo History Museum spokesman told Fox News that in any other city beef on weck "would be billed as that city's top feed."