The Magic of Rochester

This week, I had two close friends of mine from school visit my home, which is a suburban town named Rush outside of Rochester, New York. Both friends, Francis and Phil, live in Florida, and were unable to trek back home for Thanksgiving Break, which is why I extended an invitation for them to join us for Thanksgiving and the days after. Since neither of them had ever been to Rochester, we had a blast touring around and finding the sights that make Rochester unique from other Upstate cities such as Syracuse.

Wegmans: This is an obvious stop. Wegmans is an essential part of life in Upstate New York, especially in its birthplace, Rochester. We journeyed to the original Wegmans in Pittsford Plaza, which is incredibly over-the-top. The area with the hot food itself is impressive, with Indian, Asian, Italian, wing, and salad bars, a burrito station, pizza, sushi, soup, subs, and the list goes on. And then when you go upstairs (yes upstairs!) there is a massive dining area, where it is honestly quite normal to us. Wegmans is an experience. To fully emphasize how much a part of the community Wegmans is, I told my friends that I have had review sessions in Wegmans, which is absolutely true and something no one thought twice about. It is as much of a restaurant and social spot as it is a grocery store. After the trip, I think Phil and Francis understood why everyone is so crazy about it!

Simply Crepes / Erie Canal: Simply Crepes is a wonderful restaurant that is specific to the Rochester area. It was founded by the French-Canadian Héroux family, who wanted to expose the area to crepes and their versatility. The menu offers lavish savory and sweet crepes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert! The quality, atmosphere and presentation is always fantastic, which is why I wanted to bring my friends here. We all ordered dessert crepes, which is what we usually do when we go there. The options range from a pumpkin to ice cream sundae crepes, and we agreed that what we had ordered was delicious and extremely filling. Simply Crepes is also located right along where the Erie Canal runs through the Town of Pittsford, so my friend Anna and I showed them The Erie Canal. The Erie Canal is the reason that Upstate New York is called the “Burned-OverDistrict,” because ideas and movements traveled along The Erie Canal and ended up in Upstate N.Y. This is why we had reformers such as Susan B. Anthony and Fredrick Douglass live in the Rochester area. The Erie Canal in and of itself was an important connection to other places for economic and trade reasons, but it was cool to share this piece of history with them!

West Side Story at The Kodak Center for Performing Arts: One of the coolest things about Rochester is the huge presence of the arts. We have one of the best music schools in the country, Eastman School of Music, the Auditorium Theatre, which brings high-quality touring shows and master classes, The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, which is incredible, and several other theatres, dance troupes, choirs, and more. A great aspect of this is that not only people who do music professionally participate or view the arts here; it is community-wide. The Rochester Association for Performing Arts teamed up with the Rochester Latino Theatre Company, Inc. to do a community performance of the classic musical West Side Story. The performers ranged from high school students to college graduates to middle aged adults and the quality of the performance was spectacular. I think it really emphasized not only the arts culture we have in Rochester but also was a celebration of the Latino culture here.

To wrap up, I had a wonderful time showing my friends around my hometown! This visit really made me notice and appreciate the things that make Rochester special from other cities and I was overjoyed to share this with others! J

The Erie Canal

Pittsford Wegmans