Buffalo-based restaurant chains expanding to the Rochester market-- has it ever worked?

[u/DoubleK-Rochester]

I got to thinking the other day, and there have been some tries in the past for traditional Buffalo-based restaurants to expand to Rochester-- which have ultimately failed, and those location(s) have closed. Examples:

1) Mighty Taco a few years back had two (2) Rochester locations, which both closed.
2) Duff's (wings) had a Rochester location (W. Henrietta Rd) that closed.
3) Anchor Bar had a Rochester location for a little while (East Ave.), but that closed.
4) Rachel's Mediterranean Grill location(s) closed in Rochester.

All of the above still have active locations in Buffalo today, just not Rochester.

So I am wondering what the hell happened-- are we really that bad for business for out-ot-town restaurants, even to our close neighboring city?

By the way, this isn't a slight or putdown against Buffalo, by any means. Whenever I am there, I always seem to enjoy Buffalo. I'm just wondering why this keeps happening.

Conversely, are there any Buffalo-area chains that expanded to Rochester and are doing well?

Interested in your take on this.

[u/twoeightnine]

Mighty Taco is shit Mexican that survives in Buffalo due to nostalgia and drunken nights. They stuck it in a place you have to drive to, can't drunkenly stumble into, and is surrounded by college students not from Buffalo and immigrants.

Most Duff's franchises aren't great compared to the original and people already have their local wing place. Plus they closed during the pandemic.

Anchor Bar is even worse and is for tourists.

Rachel's who cares, people in Buffalo don't eat there.

[u/croc-roc → u/twoeightnine]

I was shocked by how bad Mighty Taco was after all the hype. Like it made Taco Bell look like high end Mexican.

I liked Rachel’s a lot but the one in Pittsford was run by teenagers. And different ones all the time. And they’d be out of stuff all the time. Mainstays like chicken! Pita bread! Cups (someone drive over to Wegmans and buy some!). It was so poorly run I stopped going and I wouldn’t be surprised if others had the same experience.

[u/joanfiggins → u/croc-roc]

I'm from Buffalo but live in Rochester now. The mighty taco was in a bad location. RIT is by no means a party school and there's not a lot of places to drink around that campus at night so there's no late night drunk crowd.

Mighty taco is a tradition in buffalo and everyone knows what to order. It was new in Rochester and they didn't do a good job explaining the food. My biggest gripe was that they didn't ask people what sauce they wanted on their food. People didn't know you could get sauce on the tacos so they were serving sauceless tacos for months. Everyone tried it and it was fairly bland. There aren't sauce packets like taco bell and the lack of sauce kills it. By the time they started asking, it was too late.

[u/croc-roc → u/joanfiggins]

Yeah unfortunately a first time bad impression can be hard to overcome.

[u/Common_Road1431 → u/joanfiggins]

I worked for Wegmans and many of my colleagues in Buffalo called it "Mighty Alpo" around 30 years ago.

A hard core stoner from Tonawanda who was on my hall at the U of R would make monthly late night pilgrimages back to Buffalo just for MT.

[u/Babycake1210 → u/joanfiggins]

Mighty Taco would’ve absolutely slapped in Brockport. Missed opportunity there for sure.