The University at Buffalo graduates around six thousand students each May, across a couple of weeks of ceremonies. Nearly every one of those students has family in town, most of them from out of the area, and all of them need dinner on the same handful of days.
If you are the person in the family who booked the restaurant, you already know that this is the highest-stakes reservation of the year. Here is how to not get it wrong.
Book earlier than feels reasonable
Four to eight weeks out. For a party of eight or more near campus on a ceremony day, closer to eight.
This sounds excessive in February. It is not. Restaurants within a few miles of South and North Campus fill their large-party slots months ahead for commencement weekend, and the ones that do private rooms fill them first. By late April, you are choosing from what is left, at times nobody wanted.
If you are reading this in the fall and the ceremony is in May, book now. It costs nothing to hold a table and it removes an entire category of stress.
Your party is bigger than you think
Graduation dinners grow. This happens every single time:
- You book for six — the graduate, parents, a sibling, and grandparents.
- Then the other set of grandparents decides to make the trip.
- Then the graduate's roommate has no family coming and is invited.
- Then an aunt drives up from Rochester.
Book for more than your current count, and ask the restaurant how late you can adjust. A party of twelve is a different reservation from a party of six at most places, and finding out you need the bigger one on the Tuesday before is a bad time to find out.
Every graduation party grows by at least two people. Plan for it and you will look like a genius.
Ceremony timing dictates everything
UB runs multiple ceremonies across several days in May, each for different schools, at different hours. Before you book anything, get the exact date and time of your graduate's ceremony — not the general commencement window.
Then add buffer. Ceremonies run long, parking takes longer than anyone plans for, photographs happen afterward, and somebody always needs to go back to the apartment. A dinner reservation ninety minutes after the ceremony ends is tight. Two hours is comfortable.
Consider going the day before or the day after. A celebration dinner on Friday night for a Saturday ceremony is much easier to book, usually calmer, and just as meaningful.
What to ask when you book
- Is there a private room, and what is the minimum to use it? For parties over about fifteen this is worth the cost — you can hear each other and give a toast without a microphone.
- Will we order off the regular menu or a set menu? Large parties often get a limited menu, which speeds service considerably. Ask to see it.
- How is the check handled? Sort out whether you are splitting before you sit down. Some kitchens will not split a large check.
- Can you handle dietary restrictions? With a group this size and this age range, there will be at least one vegetarian and probably a vegan. Our vegan menu covers the à la carte side, and planning a banquet menu for vegan and non-vegan guests covers the private room.
- Is there parking, or transit? Out-of-town relatives in rental cars during commencement traffic is its own event.
Restaurants along Main Street near campus sit on the Metro Rail line, which means visiting family can leave the rental car at the hotel and take the train. On a weekend when campus parking is a war zone, this is worth more than the price difference between restaurants.
Where we come in
We are on Main Street in University Heights, walking distance from South Campus and the Metro, with a private banquet room that seats twenty to a hundred. Graduation season is one of our busiest stretches and we know how these run: a set menu, a room with a door, and a server who understands that somebody is going to make a speech.
Room details, capacities, and the enquiry form are on the banquets page. If you are planning other family events, the same room does rehearsal dinners and communion luncheons in the spring, and we have written separately about funeral luncheons for the harder occasions.
Book early. The Steer Restaurant & Saloon has been feeding this neighborhood's families for a long time, and May goes fast. For the smaller visits in between — move-in, family weekend — we have a shorter guide to feeding visiting family.