W.S. beer gardens: What's old is new again

By Lauren Coppola and Samantha Wulff
Bengal News West Reporters

The year was 1946 when Lottie Gall  took a boat from her hometown in Michigan to Buffalo.

“I just came to visit my Aunt Sally, she lived on Roswell,” Gall said. “She introduced me to Ellen Jensen, she took me to the bars – the beer gardens they called them a long time ago.” 

            Gall had never been to a bar or beer garden before coming to the Queen City, but they, along with the people inside them, convinced her to stay. Gall has seen Buffalo beer gardens in their heyday, seen them fall apart, and, with the opening of Resurgence Beer Company and beer garden at 1250 Niagara St. come April, is now witnessing their rebirth.

Gall and her future husband both relocated to Riverside in July 1946. Stanley, a Polish accordion player, soon became the apple of Gall's eye. She recalls them dancing and drinking at Peggy's.  What made Peggy’s more than just a bar was that it had a spot to play shuffleboard. Such games are quite common in beer gardens, for they allow patrons to bide their time while having a pint or so. 

Dave Mik, Buffalo beer historian,  said that places like Peggy's were formed in response to prohibition being lifted. The typical German beer gardens were suddenly a thing of the past.

“Once prohibition took effect in 1919, the beer gardens closed, along with most of the breweries in the city,” Mik said. “Once prohibition ended in 1933, neighborhood taverns and saloons were opened, taking the place of the large German beer gardens.”

Gall, now 90, often passes by the old bars in the town where she used to live.

“The bars look so broken down,” she said.

Although Gall said she is past the age of going to such places, a new look to Niagara Street would give her hope for a beer garden similar to what she experienced in her youth. Jeff Ware,  owner of Resurgence Beer Co., hopes his brewery and beer garden will foster a family-friendly environment to the West Side.

“We really like the West Side,” Ware said of him and his wife. “Elmwood is our neighborhood so we feel the West Side is just an extension of our neighborhood.”

Ware met his future wife when he was working at the Boston Brewing Company in New York City. He soon became enamored by the large beer gardens in the area.

“They had these big beer gardens down there, they're these really great places,” he said. “They're probably like 20,000 square foot places that are really a community style.”

He thought: “Wouldn't it be even cooler if these places made their own beer on site?”

That thought turned into an inspiration for his own business. Originally from Orchard Park,  Ware came back to Western New York to take a risk on a new beer garden. Such waters are basically uncharted.

“I don't think it's a huge risk,” Ware said. “I think that people are going to appreciate it...I think people will take the opportunity to go outside and get a pint.”

Ware will have the traditional back yard game, bocce, available for patrons to play outside. He wants his establishment to be the type of place where somebody can sit next to a complete stranger or bring their children down in strollers, have a pint it the garden, and feel comfortable doing so. Resurgence will not be open late, nor will it have a party-atmosphere such as Chippewa Street.  It will be community and family based. 

“I think the idea of opening a new beer garden on Niagara Street is very interesting,” Mik said, “and if done properly, could be very successful.”