"This property has hosted a restaurant, bar and live entertainment actively since 1958. So we're not asking to introduce an unfamiliar use into the neighborhood."
Ryan Kanowski said that to the East Aurora Village Board on September 21. He owns 206 Main Street, the building most people still call Mister's. His point covers more than his own building. This fall, three large spaces on Main Street are between uses at the same time: a bar and bowling alley since 1958, a 1920s bank building and a former Rite Aid. None of them is a new building. Each is an old room being given a new job, and most of the planning has happened in public, through permit applications, hearing notices and board agendas posted by the village.
So if you want to know what Main Street will look like by winter, the Village Board agenda will tell you more than the storefronts will.
206 Main Gets a New Bar With the Same Basic Job
Mister's Bar and Lanes closed after seven years in business. It announced the news on a Wednesday in August and held a closing party that Saturday at 7 p.m. WIVB reported the announcement on August 12, which puts the last night on August 15.
The building changed hands before the bar closed. Kanowski, a local developer, bought the property in January, and he and Dylan Smith ran Mister's after that. As Kanowski told WIVB, "Mister's was never for sale, so the business that's in this building was never for sale, just the real estate was."
The next tenant is West End Social, run by Smith and Paige Lingenfelter, who both worked at Mister's. They have leased the front of the building. Smith calls it "an upscale dive bar." Lingenfelter has described a menu of "Buffalo dive bar favorites" alongside "some nicer plates that are more middle of the road," and added, "That's what East Aurora is missing." Smith also mentioned live music and private events such as wedding showers. In August he gave mid-October as the target opening.
The bowling lanes aren't part of that lease. In August, Kanowski said he had no direction yet for the roughly 6,000 square feet in back and invited people to send ideas.
The September 21 Hearing Showed What Is Still Undecided
The application filed with the village spells out the request. It asks for hours from noon to 2 a.m. every day, 20 employees, 206 indoor seats counting tables and bar, and 16 seats on the existing front patio. The site plan adds a 12-by-10-foot glass overhead door and a 36-inch glass entry door on the Hamlin Avenue side, plus new trim, lighting and facade work. The entry door leads to a second-floor stairway. Kanowski said the garage door nods to the building's past as a private carriage garage and later an auto repair shop.
The board held two public hearings that night and took no action. Mayor Luke Wochensky said at the start that there would be no vote on the special use permit. According to the East Aurora Advertiser, several residents spoke against the proposal and raised noise, parking and safety complaints about past owners over the years. Some asked for stricter limits on what the business can do. Deputy Mayor Chelsea Root and Trustee Tim Bojanowski were absent.
The permit is listed for approval on the agenda for the October 5 Village Board meeting. Any conditions the board attaches, whether on hours, seating or the patio, will shape the bar more than its menu will. Because the vote falls in the same weeks as the mid-October target, that target is a goal, not a date.
At 649 Main, The Bank Plans a Restaurant for Nights Without Events
The second room is about half a mile of Main Street away and very different in feel. The Bank at EA occupies the historic Main Street Bank building, which already hosts banquets and has overnight rooms. The plan is to run a public restaurant in the event hall on nights it isn't booked.
Carner Development Group applied for the restaurant use, with East Aurora Holdings LLC listed as owner. The special use permit was on the July 20 Village Board agenda as an item to approve. The proposed launch hours are Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Thursday 4 to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 4 to 10 p.m. The application allows up to 230 indoor and 120 outdoor seats, which makes it larger on paper than West End Social.
Dan Garvey, who spent more than 30 years running services at The Roycroft, is leading the project. In an August column in the Advertiser, he described a kitchen that buys from local farms and makes its own elixirs, mixers and cocktail cherries, with a 1920s style that matches the building. The restaurant would open only a few days a week at first. Weddings, which mostly fall on weekends, will continue. The large round banquet tables will be swapped for smaller ones that expand to seat up to eight, so one room can handle both uses.
Garvey named Ricks on Main and The Roycroft as the high-end restaurants The Bank will join. "Competition is healthy," he said. "If my neighbor needs a cup of sugar, they've got a cup of sugar." He also said the timeline could change and that the project would likely pick up in the fall or winter. No restaurant name or opening date has been announced.
Both projects work the same way. Neither adds a building. Each takes a room with a long history in the village and changes how it is used, at West End Social with a new door and layout, and at The Bank with a new table plan and weeknight hours.
190 Main Fills the Old Rite Aid
The third space is retail. BFLO Store, the Buffalo-themed apparel and gift shop, is opening its fifth location at 190 Main Street in the former Rite Aid. A Buffalo Business First preview in June described plans for a mezzanine, a café and holiday experiences.
The timing is still loose. The company's East Aurora page, updated September 11, says it looks forward to opening its doors "this fall." The same page lists the scheduled opening as "Winter 2026" and says an official date will be shared later. A former pharmacy is built as one large open sales floor, which explains how a mezzanine and a café can fit inside.
The Dates Already on the Calendar
The other way to track Main Street this fall is to put the board meetings and the community events in the same list. Here is everything with a firm date, in order:
- October 4, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Roycroft Campus Corporation's Fall Festival ends today, with more than 70 artists, antique vendors and community groups on the campus.
- October 5. West End Social's special use permit is on the Village Board agenda for approval. The board meets at Village Hall, 585 Oakwood Avenue.
- October 10, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The East Aurora Fire Department holds an open house with tours and demonstrations at the Fire Hall, 33 Center Street.
- Mid-October. This is West End Social's target opening, set in August and dependent on the permit.
- October 24, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The East Aurora Chamber of Commerce runs its second annual Candy Crawl at participating businesses along Main Street from Olean Road to the Circle, and on Elm/Riley, Pine and Grove streets.
- Fall or winter. The Bank's restaurant service is expected to begin, according to Garvey's August estimate.
- Winter 2026. This is BFLO Store's posted opening window for 190 Main.
The Candy Crawl route covers the same stretch of Main Street that holds all three projects. When it runs on October 24, the former Mister's may or may not have its new bar open, the Rite Aid will probably still be under construction, and The Bank's event hall will still be waiting on a fall or winter start.
Changes like these at 206, 649 and 190 Main shape what homes along the corridor are worth, and they come up in every conversation we have with East Aurora homeowners. If you're wondering how new uses in old village buildings might affect your property or your plans, Karen Baker follows these Village Board decisions closely and is glad to talk them through with you. Schedule a free consultation.
