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Out 2 Eat: Fall features in Kenmore & the Old First Ward

Where to go in WNY if you're craving cozy cafes and familiar flavors of autumn

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Out 2 Eat's quest to celebrate all things fall started at a cozy cafe and market where they not only make pumpkin spice lattes, they make the pumpkin syrup that they put in the pumpkin spice lattes. 

"We make all the syrups from scratch, so it's not like a list of ingredients that you're not going to know what they are," Mojo Market Co-Owner Joey Orlando said. "It's real pumpkin in there, and we slow cook all the spices with brown sugar." 

That's just how they do things at Mojo Market, which has been open a little over a year on Delaware Avenue in the Village of Kenmore.  

"Everything that we sell here we make here, we don't have anything that we buy," Orlando explained.  

The sourdough bread for sandwiches? Baked fresh every morning. Soups, sausages for breakfast wraps, and baked goods? Every ingredient is prepared from scratch, in their sun-soaked kitchen with windows facing the street. 

"It's not only for me and our workers to be able to look out and sort of people watch and give a wave to people coming by, but it's also for the people out on the street to look in and see what we're up to," Orlando said. 

Fall specials at Mojo Market include the pumpkin spice lattes, hot chai apple cider, apple cider muffins, maple candied bacon avocado toast, autumn minestrone soup, and the most popular soup of the season: roasted cauliflower and butternut squash with homemade croutons, which Orlando says he has to make almost daily to keep up with demand.  

"Usually the cauliflower and the squash that I'm roasting for that is picked the same morning that I'm making the soup, so it's super fresh. It's delicious." 

Mojo Market is open Tuesday - Saturday from 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. 

Another fall must have in Kenmore is a gooey creation Jay's Artisan Pizzeria that's part dinner, part dessert. The apple crisp square is a square pie, baked in the oven with a cheese blend and topped with local apples, caramel drizzle, cripsy strudel, and whipped cream.  

"People eat it for dinner or dessert, whatever they're kind of feeling, that's what people usually do," Owner Joe Powers said. This is the second year for the special, which was a hit last fall. 

"It's peak apple season here in Buffalo so we use them when they're really good and in season," Powers said. 

Jay's Artisan Pizzeria is open Tuesday - Saturday from 4 p.m. - 8 p.m. 

To round out this edition of Out 2 Eat, we made a stop in the Old First Ward, and the coffee shop that used to be a funeral home.   

"We really thought it was important to pay respects to what the building used to be so initally we just named it Undergrounds," Co-Owner Sara Heidinger said of their early days in business. 

Six years later, and the team has really leaned into the theme, with a milk bar called the "creamation station," coffee beans that come in little body bags, and every sandwich on the menu named in honor of someone who used to be alive. The fall special is the Johnny Appleseed. 

"Then we have a custom blend of coffee that we call our White Light Series, like go towards the light, and that's named after all notable females that have passed away."

With the number of death puns and skeleton decor, Sara says they get asked all the time if Undergrounds is haunted. 

"I always say though if you were a ghost, would you hang out where you were waked? Like you'd probably go somewhere else. Somewhere more fun." 

Undergrounds Coffee House and Roastery's fall hours begin Monday, October 10th, when they'll be open every day from 6 a.m. - 2 p.m., and check out their new location inside Seneca One! 

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