Behind the Business: Buffalo Café

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — “It’s the home-style, this is about as close to ma’s cooking as you can get.”

On the west side of Shoshone street – in old town twin falls, sits one of areas most beloved, and longest lasting restaurants, the Buffalo Café.

Tucked between old warehouses and half-empty storefronts, this small slice of Americana has been pumping out home-style food since 1981.

“It’s been here for over 40 years, there is something to say about that,” said Logan – Cook.

“You have to be kind of lost to find the place, but we’re kind of a destination is what it amounts to,” said Owner – Stan Thomas.

Where the Buffalo resides was once the main center of commerce for the agriculture industry in Twin Falls. Sadly, those days are over…  But for the Buffalo Café, it’s been business as usual for over 40 years.

“This used to be the center for all that stuff. A lot of them have moved to the industrial side on the south side of town. But the people still come here,” said Thomas.

Owner Stan Thomas says his restaurant gives many in the community - that feeling of a home-style American diner - which is becoming a rare thing in today’s age.

“People still like to go to a place that is kind of unique and sticks to the old-style recipes. We’ve had the same clientele for pretty much over 40 years,” added Thomas.

But it’s not just the familiar atmosphere that keeps these customers coming back.

No restaurant can survive for over 40 years - unless their food is out-of-this-world.

“We make a lot of stuff from scratch. We have two different types of gravy from starch, we make our chorizo from starch, our pork Verde from starch, two types of salsas from scratch… we even make our jams from scratch,” said Logan.

Timothy Lee Jones has been a customer of the Buffalo for over 30 years – he says the café offers something that he feels Twin Falls is constantly losing.

“You can’t go to a big city and find a place like this. The fact that this place is still here, still operating the in the same way it did 40 years ago… I think as the world progresses with this monitorization we lose that,” said long-time customer – Timothy Lee Jones.

If you’d like to check out everything the Buffalo Cafe has to offer, they are located at 218 4th Avenue West - in old-town Twin.

They are open 6 days a week, closed on Mondays, serving breakfast and lunch from 7 in the morning to 3 p.m.

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