Waxlight Bar à Vin will close at the start of 2027. The Buffalo restaurant, nominated three years running against top restaurants from across the country for the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Wine and Beverage Program award, has set New Year’s Eve as its final night of service, and its four owners are asking guests to use this last stretch to come back one more time.
Waxlight Bar á Vin opened its doors in November 2019, just four months before the world shut down. No one plans for a pandemic, and Waxlight was younger than most of its peers when COVID-19 arrived. The team spent the next year or so figuring out how to keep a 42-seat sit-down restaurant alive while dining itself was under scrutiny. They pivoted in myriad ways, turning to takeout cocktail kits and bottle sales, building new menus around food that could travel well, and holding on through a stretch that closed many restaurants across the nation.
At Waxlight, nothing is standard. Everything is bespoke. Including the business model.
Today, the restaurant’s owners are sommelier Jessica Forster, chef Joseph Fenush III, mixologist Tony Rials, and Lauren Romanillos. When it opened, accomplished chef Edward Forster and longtime front-of-house veteran Jeff Yannuzzi rounded out the original ownership group before both moved on; Yannuzzi left for a teaching job, and Romanillos was invited to the table in his place…