A new bar and restaurant is taking over the Laughlin’s location at W. Tupper and Franklin streets. “Blood and Sand” will be owned and run and partly owned by Jon Karel and will be modeled after The Revelry in Rochester’s Neighborhood of the Arts that opened last year (interior photo below). The spirits, wine and beer at The Revelry are from artisanal, high-quality producers and the food is described as “honest American cuisine that honors the Lowcountry of the South.”
Andrew Galarneau had the scoop on the restaurant before the site was publicly known:
Josh Miles, an owner of The Revelry in Rochester, said the Revelry crew is opening a new restaurant this summer in Buffalo’s Theater District. It’ll be called Blood and Sand, after a classic cocktail.
It should open mid-summer, Miles said, declining to give the address. It’ll be 20-30 bar seats and 50 dining seats. “We are a cocktail bar with a focus on ways of the past, blended with the new,” he said. The dining menu is going to be “retold classics,” he said, “some of the things we’ve come to love in Western New York as retold by our chef.”
Karel will be one of the owners, and run the drinks operation, he said. Karel, a progenitor of Buffalo’s craft cocktail movement at Vera Pizzeria, left last year to be The Revelry’s bar manager.
Laughlin’s and the building are owned by brothers Scott and Mark Croce. Blood and Sand will be leasing the space. Closing the restaurant after a 12 year run will allow each to focus on other work and projects: Mark on property development and Scott on his chiropractic business and possibly additional development after his successful completion of the Twain Tower project at Delaware and Virginia Street.
“It is the right time for us at this point to move on,” says Mark. “They came to us with a proposal and we took it.”
“They will be making capital improvements to the property to give it a whole new look,” he says. “Blood and Sand will complement what is happening down the street at Dinosaur Bar-b-Que and other development in the area. They are targeting an upscale clientele and it’s the perfect spot for them with high visibility at the crossroads of Allentown, the Medical Campus, and the Theater District.”
Blood and Sand is planning to open by July 1, pending approval of a liquor license.