Ulrich's 1868 Tavern — Restaurant in Buffalo

Ate here 7/28 a little concerned after reading about greasy food. However! We learned that the bar is under new management and that they will be celebrating their reopening in the near future. As we walked in, we had our choice of seating as there were minimal patrons inside. My mother ordered the beef on wek with a side order of hot German potato salad and I ordered the rouladins. The beef on wek came with homemade potato chips, an jus, the freshest horseradish I have ever seen and a large sandwich. The bun was amazingly soft and was sprinkled with salt. The roast beef was as if they sliced the beef in the kitchen and cooked it in house as the center was very rare and slightly warm. As I am a lover of all meats rare it was a delightful treat, where my mother was unhappy at how rare it was. The chips were very thin, however, it was as if the chips were not heated long enough or the oil was not hot enough as they were crispy on the sides and hard on the center. The rouladin plate came out extremely beautiful with slices of rouladin on top of hot German potato salad and sauerkraut finished off with sprigs of rosemary and thyme(?). The rouladins were a little different as when my family makes them, the bacon goes on the inside and is wrapped with thinly sliced beef. These were thin sliced beef wrapped with bacon and cut into 1/4" pieces. The end cut was a bit to salty as it was mostly bacon. The menu stated that there was pickles on the inside and I was only able to taste one cut with any pickle. Both my mother and I were intrigued by the taste of the hot German potato salad, as we grew up with ours having tons of vinegar and less sweet. The potatoes were chunked and had an inconsistent taste throughout due to the different sizes, but adding in a little rosemary and thyme that were used as garnishes we nice. The sauerkraut is definitely homemade! And was a delight. Not stringy and chewy like canned sauerkraut. Enough about the food, let's talk service... The bar is obviously the first thing you see as you walk in the door and the woman that was bartending was very hospitable. The gentleman that sat us was our waiter and was extremely helpful and very knowledgeable about the restaurant and told us he worked both this one and the other one that the owner has. Since they just changed management, I was surprised he was able to answer every historical and food question we had about the place. He was very attentive to each patron as there were a couple more that came in. All in all, for the people that have not been there in a while I suggest you try again since the new owner is trying to make a change. For the people who have not tried it, a newer American twist on old German recipes might be something that will make you come...

I had seriously high hopes for Ulrich's when I first came here. I've been hearing about this place for years from friends and co-workers, especially about the food quality. I had family in from out of town and decided to try Ulrich's out, especially since some of those family members reminisced about how they used to frequent this place.

Unfortunately, reminiscing was the best thing about the night. We had a party of 9 on a Good Friday, but on entering the restaurant there was only one table seated during prime-time hours. We were seated while we waited for the last three people to arrive (approx 5 min later). It took the waitress over 10 minutes to take their drink order, after serving the first 6 to arrive. It was another 10 minutes before she came around again to take food orders.

Despite being Good Friday there was only one bartender, and one hostess/waitress on shift. The appetizers came out first and were 50/50 when it came to quality. The french onion soup was heavily over-salted and had almost no broth - just a large heap of overcooked onion and cheese indicating it had been made and sitting for days being re-heated repeatedly. The wings came out hot, crispy, and tasting exactly how these out-of-town folk had been craving.

The problems were with the main course. Absolutely abysmal cannot describe the experience. The cooks had no concept of pacing when it comes to cooking, plating, and serving. It took a full 15 minutes from when the first plate came out, until the last plate came out. One order had a side of fries that had completely cooled by the time the plate arrived - to the point where you could taste the cold oil oxidizing. The fish fry was small, undercooked, and flooded with oil(the last plate to come out), the 1868 Oktoberfest was burnt and dried out(although the kraut was slamming), and the cooks forgot the salmon part of the Caesar salad with salmon requiring it to be cooked after the plate arrived(and promptly overcooked).

Many of us sat with empty glasses until we went to the bar to get refills ourselves. Even upon leaving there were only 3 other tables seated - on Good Friday at 8pm. I don't entirely blame the wait staff for the problems of this night, every part of the experience screamed management problems. It's strongly apparent after one evening that there is a lack of management ability, or a complete apathy when it comes to running this business. Ulrich's is some place I have to strongly recommend staying out of; unless owners or management change for the better this is another Buffalo landmark that will be closed...

I was very disappointed by the professionalism of one of their employees and the restaurant's service today. I have heard wonderful reviews about this place, so our office decided to order lunch from here. When we looked at the website, there was (and still is) a giant link to GRUBHUB for online ordering and delivery. The first red flag should have been that the Grubhub menu differed slightly from the menu listed on Ulrich's website, but luckily the items we wanted to order were available on both. We placed our order at 11:08am (they seemingly open at 11 or 11:30), we paid for it, and we had it scheduled and confirmed for delivery at 12:45pm today. At 12:24pm, we received an email that our order was canceled and the credit card used to pay for the order would be refunded in 3-5 business days (again, large order for an office, so it was a fairly large amount of money). I called the restaurant and asked if this was a grubhub issue or an issue with the restaurant itself, and the female who answered the phone said "ummmm I don't think we do grubhub anymore.....". I then asked if I could place an order for take out and come pick it up myself, and she said "ummmm yeahhh..... I think so, hold on", then came back and asked me for my name and order. When I told her the first item we wanted to order, she said "ummmmm I don't think we do that one anymore...". Again, this was one of the items on both the website and grubhub (mac and cheese with pulled pork, shown below). At that point I told her never mind and I withdrew the order. My hope is that this was a new employee who was not familiar with the menu or who was not well trained yet, but at this point the restaurant is still listed as open for delivery on doordash, seamless, and grubhub, with very large GRUBHUB links all over their website, yet they do not accept online orders for delivery. I am very disappointed, and I am hoping this review will prompt them to update and fix their website and decide whether or not they accept...