Former Buffalo Restaurants: Last Time Sabres Made the Playoffs
The Buffalo Sabres barely missed the playoffs in 2023. If they had won one more game, they would have replaced the Florida Panthers as the last playoff team, which is ironic since the Panthers made the Stanley Cup Final.
The Sabres are tied with the New York Jets, for the longest playoff drought in the four major North American sports (12 years).
The last time Buffalo made the NHL postseason was April of 2011. They would lose a seven-game series to the Philadelphia Flyers, which had one of the biggest gut-punches in Buffalo sports history (the Ville Leino overtime goal on Easter Sunday).
It doesn't feel like 2011 was that long ago but when you study how Buffalo and Western New York looked back then, it's night and day.
For starters, Canalside wasn't the same as it is now. HarborCenter wasn't even there yet, as Terry and Kim Pegula had just purchased the team two months prior.
Then there's all the establishments that have since closed down. There have been so many retailers, bars and restaurants which have shuttered over the last 12 years. Many of them were mainstays for years in the Buffalo area.
We're not talking things like the Ground Round or Ames, but those places were open in the '90s, when the Bills had their playoff success.
Some of the restaurants which were open the last time the Sabres made the playoffs will jump-start the memory.
Here are 10 restaurants that were around the last time the Sabres made the postseason (2011), but have since closed its doors.
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