Friday Fish Fry
Beer-battered haddock, served on Fridays with fries, coleslaw and often macaroni or potato salad. It's a Lent tradition that locals keep going all year.
🏆 Where to get the best friday fish fry
- 1 Gadawski's Restaurant A family-run Polish restaurant on East Falls Street, known for its Friday fish fry, fresh pierogi, golabki and Polish sausage.
- 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 Taylor's Tap & Grill Wheatfield's made-from-scratch neighborhood bar and grill, home of giant homemade "Pizza Trunks" (pizza logs), famous chicken tenders, an outstanding Friday fish fry, and a patio. A snowmobile trail leads right to the door.
Also serving it
📜 A little history
In Western New York, Friday means fish fry. Taverns, VFW posts, church halls and restaurants serve it all year, and especially during Lent. The habit has Catholic roots. Until rule changes in the mid-1960s, Catholics went without meat every Friday, and Buffalo's large Catholic immigrant communities turned to fish from the nearby lakes.
Local historian Steve Cichon says Buffalo's first famous fish-fry spot was Richie Roth's shack beside the Erie Canal, which opened around 1900. Until about 1960 the local favorite was Lake Erie blue pike. When that fish disappeared, Buffalonians switched to haddock. The classic plate today is a huge beer-battered haddock fillet with fries, tartar sauce and lemon, plus coleslaw, potato or macaroni salad, and ideally a slice of seeded rye.
Did you know? The Lake Erie blue pike that fed Buffalo's early fish fries was overfished and was generally considered extinct by the 1970s.