The closest thing to Buffalo

By Joe Brown

Sunday, Sept. 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It’s easy to see why cities like Paris, Venice and New York receive Las Vegas-style imitation-homages.

But Buffalo?

The much maligned western New York snow capital, whose unofficial slogan is “We’re Talkin’ Plowed” (another is “City of No Illusions”), has its own sort of simulacra in the Vegas area. The headquarters of Nevada’s Buffalonians in exile is Johnny Mac’s, which draws expat Bills fans to its way-off-the-Strip strip mall location in Henderson solely by word-of-mouth.

They gather there for a chance to connect with their roots, and in that impulse, they are far from alone. Most current residents of Las Vegas came from elsewhere, and as is true with transplanted humans everywhere, the first generation identifies strongly with the old town or beloved country.

By virtue of its rocketing growth and transient population, Las Vegas is home to many emigres and expats who gather regularly to connect with their former lives. This can be a lonely town, but there are bars and restaurants that cater to coteries of Clevelanders and Pittsburghers, Minnesotans and Indianapolisites.

The Buffalo crowd stands out because of the stark differences between that rusting industrial snow-belt town and this young, exploding desert city. Remembering Buffalo — eating, drinking, hearing, cheering Buffalo — is more than mere nostalgia. It’s a way to keep your bearings in this most alien of landscapes. It’s life-sustaining.

Like many ex-Buffalonians, native John McGinty moved to Henderson 25 years ago, a refugee from the wintry weather and the decline of a once-great city.

And like Noah with his ark, McGinty built his own private Buffalo from the ground up, in a strip mall in the desert.

Over the years McGinty’s fondly remembered hometown has reassembled itself around him, minus the lake-effect snowstorms.

Buffalonians — which include Tonawandans, Cheektowagans and Lackawannans — come to Johnny Mac’s to faithfully root for their Bills and Sabres on the 15 big TVs mounted around the bar and grill, which looks like the ideal brick and wood-paneled rec room.

They come for the perfect replication of the unbeatable junk food and for the Canadian beers.

And they come for the nasal accents and rambling stories and sheer Midwestern niceness of their beloved but sneered-at hometown.

It’s only one of several spots in Vegas — Santora’s Sunset Bar & Grill, Stake Out Bar & Grill are others — that offers a home away from homeland for former residents of that beaten-down town. But Johnny Mac’s is the one that feels closest to the real thing.

Perhaps more than most cities, Buffalo life revolves around sports and neighborhoods and most of all food, and McGinty is careful to serve the authentic cuisine of his ethnic, predominantly Catholic city. There’s the all-day Friday fish fry and beef on weck (roast beef on a kummelweck roll, with rock salt and caraway seeds, and ground horseradish sauce).

But it’s all about the pizza and Buffalo’s eternal claim to fame, chicken wings.

And beer. Mostly Canadian labels, like Labatt’s Blue and Molson Ale. And Genesee Cream Ale (Genny Cream) from New York, which is revered mostly for its significance to generations of adolescents.

It’s a Sunday morning, the day of the first regular season game, and McGinty is ready with a buffet: mountains of hot, crispy wings, chunky blue cheese dip, thin-crust pizza, a bucket of chili and saltine crackers. It’s $10, which is slightly controversial among the old-timers, as it’s been free until this year. But hey, it includes a drink, so no biggie.

Every seat is filled and all eyes are on the screens. The noisy room erupts in cheers and hoots as the Bills take the lead over the Seattle Seahawks.

In their bright red Bills T-shirts, Rich Puff and Jan Feher clearly feel at home here — they’ve liberated a pair of high stools from the bar and have set themselves up with a pile of wings right in front of one of the corner TVs, as if they were in their own living room.

Behind them, a dozen retirees — many from the same old Cheektowaga neighborhood — reunite around a long table, retelling tales of blizzards and Bills triumphs and tragedies.

McGinty says he’s raising four boys — Bills fans first and foremost — near Vegas. He nods to a side booth, where three generations of Bills fans are squeezed together — grandfather, dad and grandsons — wearing Bills caps and construction helmets and drinking Labatt’s Blue and Cokes. When the Bills win — the final score a decisive 34-10 — it’s like New Year’s Eve on this September afternoon.

It’s a good day to be from Buffalo, among friends, at home in Henderson.