NEW BUFFALO, MI — Tourist season is long over in Southwest Michigan beach towns, but waitlists for one of its newest restaurants can still reach hundreds of names.
PostBoy, at 207 N. Whittaker St. in New Buffalo, opened Nov. 1. It’s filling a niche that wasn’t available to year-round residents before, said Chef and Restaurateur James Galbraith.
So far, it’s been a hit, he said.
This is Galbraith’s third restaurant in Southwest Michigan, after Houndstooth and Anemal in Benton Harbor. He calls PostBoy his most ambitious.
“You could go there for an anniversary or a birthday or a special event, but I didn’t want to open a restaurant that was a special occasion restaurant,” Galbraith said. “I wanted it to be a fun place (where) you could go three times a week.”
PostBoy offers an upscale yet approachable atmosphere, Galbraith said. The menu has everything from doughnut holes and $18 burgers to a raw fish dish called hamachi crudo and a $36 bavette steak. Click here for the full menu.
PostBoy’s menu is meant to be fun and accessible, Galbraith said, combining global flavors with familiar favorites.Gabrielle Sukich
Its a combination of creative global flavors with a sense of familiarity and nostalgia that makes the menu fun and accessible, Galbraith said.
“You can get a really good meal that has some locally sourced ingredients and is ‘chefed up,’ but it’s not ‘fancy,‘” Galbraith said. “You can just come in there with T-shirt and blue jeans and you can get one of the best meals you’ve had.”
The 10,000-square-foot restaurant features a patio with fire pits as well as an expansive indoor dining room and bar.
In addition to offering a unique flavor pallet, the restaurant is elevating an underutilized corner in downtown New Buffalo, said entrepreneur Ben Holland, a partner on the project. It’s about a block away from the harbor.
Entrepreneur Ben Holland, left, and chef/restaurateur James Galbraith, right, partnered to bring PostBoy to New Buffalo.Gabrielle Sukich
“It used to be half a Subway, half a Keller Williams with a dumpy parking lot on the key corner of town,” Holland said. “It always bothered me that that was the case and I wanted to make it an activated beautiful corner (where) community could gather.”
Inside, the space has a coastal feel, Holland said. It’s meant to reflect the colors of a sunset, as well as local history.
Inside, the restaurant has a coastal vibe, Holland said.Gabrielle Sukich
The PostBoy name pays homage to the lakeshore city’s founder, Captain Wessel D. Whittaker.
It’s named after a United States Post Office schooner called Post Boy that was wrecked on a beach near New Buffalo in an 1834 storm.
The captain was struck by the area’s beauty, returning the following spring to settle the area, according to the city’s website.
“New Buffalo means so much to me as a place where I grew up spending so much time,” Holland said. “To have a name of a restaurant that ties to the origins of the town was really fun and an interesting little piece of history that not many people knew about.”
It’s a gathering place not only for the New Buffalo community, but for talented staff and chefs across the nation.
This winter, PostBoy will host a guest chef series that will bring top talent to Southwest Michigan.
The series kicked off in November with Chicago Chef Zach Engel of Michelin-starred establishment Galit, according to a press release.
In less than a month since opening, PostBoy has also hosted several interns in the kitchen, Galbraith said.
Having started as a dishwasher himself, Galbraith knows the value of an internship and the opportunity to make industry connections.
“A lot of the stuff that we do at the restaurant is things that I’ve just learned by being around really great chefs,” Galbraith said. “We try to offer a space, both front and back of the house, for people to grow.”
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