It looks as if Elmwood Avenue’s Burger King is getting an ETS makeover. The Lucchino family, owners of Buffalo’s wildly successful Elmwood Taco and Subs, are making a move into the former fast-food chain’s longstanding home. What does that mean for Elmwood? It means that ETS will become bigger and better, especially since the taco and sub joint will be able to incorporate a drive-thru and front patio seating to their restaurant offerings. “We always wanted a drive-thru,” Barb Lucchino told me. “And we never wanted to leave the city to get one. We are a family owned and operated business that has remained true to our roots.”
This move is not the first one that the business has made in its 33-year existence. Longstanding ETS fans might remember their original location back in ’75. It’s in the same spot that their current location is in. They did make a move down the street at another point in time, only to revisit their original location a number of years later. It took a few business-savvy features to lure the family a few doors down where they purchased the Burger King. “We’re meeting with architects now,” said Mike Lucchino. “It’s going to be modern and chic. Jackie (Mike’s sister) and I are going to take ETS to the next level… though I know that both Barb and Ron (parents) will always have a hand in it. This new design concept will hopefully be one that we can duplicate… we may look at franchising down the road.”
Though the location is changing, the recipe for success will remain the same. A couple of new additions to the menu might make appearances upon opening the new location. One of those additions is reportedly homemade nachos. “Every once in a while we add something new to the menu,” Mike reflected. “We added fries a couple years back and we sell a ton of them. So we thought that homemade nachos would make sense.”
It’s nice to see another generation of the ETS family add to the growth of an already successful establishment. It will be interesting to see what the Lucchinos have in store for the bland box of a building. I asked Barb what the family had planned for their current corner location and she said, “I can’t tell you that yet, but I will say that we do have a tenant and it’s not food.”
Oh well, there goes my donut theory again.
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