While Mattie's restaurant has long been a fixture on Fillmore Avenue for breakfast and lunch, it is also enjoying success at its location at Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Mattie's is going on four decades old, larger than when it opened and larger than when it had the first African-American-owned hot dog cart in Buffalo.
Hot dogs are important in the history of the Holt's restaurants since that is the best-selling food inside the airport, with the small facility right by Southwest's waiting area.
Owner and partner George "Butch" Holt says the family will settle for a percentage of the airport food business.
"It's definitely competition, but when you look at the numbers of people that come through the airport, what we depend on is that percentage, that small percentage that's going to come to Mattie's. And Southwest Airlines is the number one carrier in the airport, so our business is right up facing where the people sit," Holt told WBFO.
Holt says the food scene inside the airport was changed by 9/11.
"When 9/11 unfortunately that affected this country, but when 9/11 came it changed architectural plans in the airport and when the plans were changed, it gave us an opportunity to sit at the table to talk about an expansion and the expansion came when Southwest Airlines came," said Holt.
Holt says he and wife Mattie would like to expand again but that's up to their partnership with Delaware North and how the airport is doing. He says running a restaurant isn't easy and requires hours and hours of hard work and the intention to pass Mattie's along to their children.
