Ted’s Hot Dogs is set to return to the City of Buffalo with an opening of their new store at 124 West Chippewa Street on Monday, November 23rd. 

We sat down with Ted’s a few months ago, and CEO Joe Drust’s excitement about coming back inside the city limits was palpable. Sure, he’s in the business of increasing sales, and putting a store smack in the middle of an entertainment district by night, business district by day should make some real financial sense, but like many Western New Yorkers, Drust is proud of downtown Buffalo’s progress and it certainly means something to him and the rest of the company to be a part of the region’s new-found appreciation of downtown.

The patio with a capacity for 50 people will be open in warmer months. 

For the Liaros family, several of whom play instrumental roles in the company, it’s particularly meaningful. Thecly Liaros Ortolani was beaming at the prospects of returning to Buffalo, as if she was restoring a piece of her family’s history in the process. “After 17 years away, our return to the city is well over-due,” Peter Liaros said in a press release. Liaros’s father—Ted, a Greek immigrant—founded the hot dog empire with a stand at the base of the Peace Bridge in 1927.

The Ted’s experience has changed quite a bit since 1927. When the new store’s customers line up beginning at 10:30am on Monday, they’ll be greeted by flat-screen menu boards and a tablet-based ordering system, the first of its kind in the Ted’s system. Ted’s also expects to have an online ordering system up and running by the end of the year to make grab-and-go a quicker option for customers.

Even with the new approach and design, Ted’s remains one of Western New York’s essential comfort meals—the kind of experience that we all might take for granted but one ex-pats love to relive when they visit home, and now recreating that experience will be that much easier when folks venture downtown.