In the history of the Artvoice Best of Buffalo poll—now nearly a decade old—there are certain winners that have held steady throughout. While our readers have been fairly changeable in their top restaurant picks, when asked about the Best Reason to Live in Buffalo a top answer has invariably been “the food.” Year after year the Food & Drink section has been the one that gets the biggest response out of all the categories. It is also the largest in number, and counting the ballots is no small task. It is particularly daunting due to the sheer amount of different places that are offered as potential “bests.” With a few notable exceptions—the bus station for Best Breakfast?—all the candidates are worthy.
In terms of national image, Buffalo is hardly known for “foodiness,” a questionable word that smacks of pretension, a quality the majority of Buffalonians seem to detest. The term “foodiness” implies a certain amount of frivolity that neither the people nor the restaurants in this city have embraced—despite one of the Best New Restaurant nominees being named La Tee Da. (Don’t let the name fool you, the food is carefully prepared, ambitious and quite delicious.) Nowhere in Buffalo can you find bacon-and-egg ice cream, or spinach-date fritters fried in beer batter and dusted with confectioner’s sugar, both of which were dishes described in last Sunday’s New York Times food column. What one can find is an abundance of gimmick-free fare served in all manner of styles and settings. Restaurants with an ethnic bent are terrifically popular, perhaps because the city’s “melting pot” population lends authenticity to many culinary ventures and dislodges Buffalo’s blue-collar, meat-and-potatoes reputation. Still, steakhouses and traditional bar food are just as popular, and diners’ loyalties to their choices for Best Steak and Best Burger have remained pretty consistent through the years.
Illustrating this point, notable nominees this year in Best Steak include Fiamma and Prime 490, both brand new and both nominated for Best New Restaurant as well. The other three nominees in Best Steak are long-standing Buffalo establishments that seem to pop up on the list just about every time. (Much like the previously glorious but now defunct steakhouse Lord Chumley’s, R.I.P.)
Not surprisingly, Best Sushi got loads of votes for the bygone Kuni’s Sushi Bar. We kept it as a nominee partly out of respect for Kuni’s tremendous 10-year run, but also due to the whispers of a Kuni’s take-out joint happening on Lexington—as well as the now confirmed sale of his former business on Elmwood. If this means there will be two good places to get sushi within the city limits, it might make up for the suffering undergone by sushi-deprived city-dwellers. (Had enough of the guilt trip yet, Kuni?)
Some categories necessitated an expansion of our five-nominee limit. You may notice that Best Bakery is a huge list with eight possible winners. Best Deli has nine nominees, and Best Italian and Best Patio both have seven. While this may seem extreme, having so many nominees in the food categories is bound to benefit those who attend Monday’s free Best of Buffalo Party, since all the nominees have been asked to donate “tastes” of their specialties.
Now that ought to get people there, considering just how many of you voted for the food as the best thing about our city.
Pano's Restaurant at 1081 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, New York.
After nearly thirty years, Pano's Restaurant at 1081 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, New York will end a tradition of being open 24 hours a day, seven days a week by ending its overnight food service.

The tradition for Buffalonians, who are able to enjoy drinks at the bars and clubs until 4:00 a.m. will end sometime at the end of August or September, according to overnight manager Wendi Dittmar and restaurant accountant Roseanne Jones.

"We will be starting the closure of the overnight shift sometime in the next 2 weeks to a month," said Dittmar in an exclusive interview with Wikinews.

Jones told Wikinews that owner Pano Georgiadis is "just fed up" with the "destruction, the walk-outs of bills and fights that the 'drunk' people cause" in his restaurant.

Pano's opened in 1977 on the day of the blizzard of '77' and has "remained open for 24 hours since then", only closing for an hour at a time on the weekends to clean up and prepare the restaurant for breakfast, said Georgiadis.

''Artvoice'', which holds the "Best of Buffalo" competition every year where readers vote for their favorite Buffalo place, has listed Pano's as the Best of Buffalo for best brunch, best Greek restaurant, best patio and best super-cheap breakfasts for 2006. 

Dittmar also says that Georgiadis is expected to make several "public service announcements" within the next few weeks to "thank customers for their patronage."

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