Featured Buffalo Ex-Pat: Anthony Blatner

No matter where you go in the world, if you're wearing your Buffalo Bills gear you're likely to hear the familiar "Go Bills!" That's why we love featuring Buffalo Ex-Pats and sharing their story about why they left Buffalo and what they miss the most. 

 

Today's featured ex-pat is Anthony Blatner, whose travels have taken him to Austin Texas. If you'd like to be featured in a Buffalo Ex-pat blog, or know someone who would, please email us at hello@buffalo2u.com.

Buffalo2U: What brought you to Austin?

Anthony Blatner: I graduated from college at RIT in Rochester and had a job in Austin

B2U: What are some of the similarities between Buffalo and Austin?

AB: There's a pleasantly surprising number of Bills fans down here! But no one even knows what hockey is. There was this one time I was at a bar in Austin and I asked the bartender if they could put the Sabres game on, and he said "What's a Sabre?"

Other differences are when there's a "freeze warning" the whole city shuts down - literally, most businesses (and the entire University of Texas) close when they see a freeze warning.

B2U: What are some of the foods that you miss most/the first food you get when you're back?

AB: Italian food - Chef's is probably my favorite Buffalo restaurant. Also, Duff's wings and Antoinette's ice cream (don't judge!)...and mom's home cooking, of course!

B2U: If there's one restaurant in Austin that you could bring to Buffalo, what would it be?

AB: Chuy's Tex-Mex, Hippy Queso and Tacos - "ya'll will love it"

B2U: Do you follow the Bills and Sabres still? What are the differences folling the teams from outside of Buffalo?

AB: I've followed the Bills the whole time - less so the Sabres because, again, Texans don't even know what an ice rink is.

What's different - well whenever you see anyone in Bills gear anywhere, you have to say hi, and you'll find out you probably have family friends in common back in Buffalo, and now you've made a new local friend.

B2U: What's your favorite Bills or Sabres memory from growing up?

AB: When I was a kid there was a Sabres event where I got to go on the ice with a couple of other kids, and we had to try shoot as many pucks into the net around a cardboard goalie as we could. I don't remember how I did, but I do remember thinking it was a lot harder than it looked...(hey, the cardboard goalie was big and I was like 7 years old!!)

B2U: What's your favorite time of year to visit Buffalo?

AB: Summertime, when it's beautiful in Buffalo and 100+ degrees in Austin! That's the time to get out of Texas and come back home to visit

B2U: Last question: love, mary kill: Josh Allen, chicken wings, sponge candy:

AB: Love: josh Allen. Marry: sponge candy. Kill: Chicken wings. (my fiance is vegan - if I kill chicken wings can we bring back Big Mood's vegan wings in Buffalo?)