New Chef-Led Restaurant to Honor New Buffalo’s History | Features

NEW BUFFALO — The chef of a popular Benton Harbor restaurant recently teamed up with a new restaurateur to embark on a new project in New Buffalo.

Houndstooth owner James Galbraith and Ben Holland plan to open PostBoy this summer. The chef-driven restaurant will be located at 207 N. Whittaker St. New Buffalo.

“PostBoy will be a beautiful destination restaurant in a key corner of New Buffalo,” Holland said. “It’s a long-time dream of mine that this exists, especially in this area.”

While Galbraith has lived in southwest Michigan his entire life, Holland said he remembers spending his summers in New Buffalo as a child. He said he would host charity events, exposing his friends in southwest Michigan.

“I always said to myself that I would like to have a place where I could continue to do these events to continue to show people a good time,” Holland said. “It made me dream of trying to find a restaurant.”

In 2008, Holland said he tried to rent the parking lot of the building he owns today with the intention of selling food and drinks out of a tent. Although that deal didn’t go through, he jumped at the chance to buy the building when it came up for sale two years ago.

However, PostBoy’s history goes back much further than 2008.

In 1834, Captain Wessel Whittaker sailed his ship – named Post Boy – from his hometown of Buffalo, New York, to Chicago. But after a storm wrecked his schooner short of its destination, Whittaker found and purchased the land he named New Buffalo.

The restaurant’s name isn’t the only homage to the city’s history.

Galbraith said they will also display a 1949 Ford mail truck on the patio as a tribute to the schooner — which is rumored to be an old mail ship.

In addition to the mail truck, PostBoy will also have a 6,000-square-foot patio, a stage for live music and an indoor and outdoor bar.

“It will be a family-friendly outdoor space,” Holland said. “There aren’t many in New Buffalo right now.”

Holland and Galbraith said they hope to attract customers from across the Midwest.

“This is new American cuisine prepared by chefs and with flavors from around the world. We take the food seriously, but it’s not pretentious,” Galbraith said. “We hope to bring something really special to the area that people and the community will love.” »