"It is accessible to everybody. Anyone can come, grab something to eat and enjoy the sunset," Denise Cotto told WKBW earlier this year, describing the waterfront grill she and her husband Ricky had just opened at Smith Boys Marina. She wasn't wrong about the sunset. She also wasn't describing a finished picture.
Ducky's Waterfront Grill signed a three-year lease with Smith Boys Marine to take over a snack stand at 280 Michigan Street, on the south end of Tonawanda Island, and opened for its first full season this year. Ricky and Denise Cotto run it with a third partner, George Panayiotacopoulos, and none of the three had owned a restaurant before, though all three had spent years working in other people's kitchens and dining rooms. The menu reads like a family reunion: American summer standards like burgers and ice cream sit next to Greek gyros and Puerto Rican pastelillos, a lineup Denise says reflects the backgrounds of everyone behind the counter.
If you've eaten there this summer, you've probably also noticed what's happening across the water. That's the part of the story worth understanding, because the island's new restaurant and the island's construction sites are running on completely different clocks.
A Three-Year Lease on a Snack Stand
Ducky's isn't a from-the-ground-up build. It occupies an existing snack stand structure at the marina, which is part of why it was able to open this year at all. A three-year lease is a short commitment by restaurant standards, and it fits the seasonal rhythm of a place that serves burgers and ice cream to boaters. Smith Boys Marina has been a fixture on the island for years. Ducky's is now attached to it, at least for now.
That's not a knock on the place. It's context. The island's south end already had one proof point that waterfront dining works here: The Shores Waterfront Restaurant has been a popular summer spot on Tonawanda Island for years, drawing boaters and neighbors the same way Ducky's is trying to now. Two restaurants operating a short walk apart, both leaning into the same water view, is a reasonable bet on an island where the customer base still shows up mostly between May and September.
What's Rising at 78 Bridge Street
As WKBW reported, a few hundred yards from that marina, the old Niagara County Fire Training Center at 78 Bridge Street is being torn down and rebuilt as a three-story mixed-use building. Mayor Austin Tylec, whom the report quoted, described it plainly: "Basically, a 30-plus million-dollar mixed-use development, with 80-plus rental units." The developer, VisoneCo Site Development, is financing a $5.6 million infrastructure project alongside it, covering water and sewer upgrades, storm drainage, utilities, sidewalks and roadways, through a public-private partnership the city says won't add new debt or long-term obligations for taxpayers.
The city backed this with a $2.5 million state grant announced in January 2026, and Tylec has been clear that the 78 Bridge Street project is meant as a first domino, not the whole story. Most of the roughly 30-plus acres on the island are privately owned, and the city's bet is that this catalyst project pulls private investment into the parcels around it. Tylec has floated a long-range number for what full buildout could mean: over half a billion dollars in eventual investment, and a population increase of 1,000 or more residents for a city this size.
Construction on the Bridge Street site was expected to begin over the summer, which means if you've walked or driven past it recently, you've likely seen equipment on site already.
Two Timelines, One Island
Here's the part that matters if you live nearby and eat at Ducky's or The Shores this fall: the restaurants and the residential buildings are not operating on the same schedule, and that gap is worth paying attention to.
A three-year lease on a snack stand is a bet that this summer's customer base holds up long enough to make the investment back. An 80-plus-unit apartment building is a bet on decades. When the island's private landowners start responding to the infrastructure the city just financed, the businesses that show up next may look nothing like a marina snack stand serving gyros and pastelillos. They may look like the ground-floor retail space that typically comes with a project this size, leased to businesses with different rents, different hours, and different customers in mind.
Ducky's and The Shores give the island its dining identity today, and the people running them are the ones who made the waterfront a place to spend an evening before any of the new construction started. The building going up at 78 Bridge Street adds a year-round residential presence to the same shoreline, and that will change who is on the island in February as well as in July.
Downtown Is Moving on a Similar Clock
The island isn't the only part of North Tonawanda where this pattern shows up. Downtown, at 110 Sweeney Street, District 37 Kitchen & Taphouse has been open since the summer of 2024, part of a mixed-use building that paired new apartments with a full-service restaurant and its now-familiar 37 taps of craft beer on the ground floor. It sits a short walk from the Riviera Theatre, the 1926 movie palace that finished a $3.5 million lobby expansion in 2024, adding a full bar, new concession space and accessible restrooms to a building that still hosts touring acts and organ concerts on its restored Mighty Wurlitzer.
And, as Step Out Buffalo reported, The IroNTon on Wheatfield Street has been serving apple butter glazed pork chops and other comfort food since opening last August. Owners Jay and Rose Mary Reist are Tonawanda natives who spent 40 years in Virginia before coming home to open their first restaurant. Rose Mary has talked about regulars who live two streets over, and about a family from North Buffalo who drove down just to try the place. Its first year on the neighborhood side of town adds one more independent, owner-run option to the list.
Between the island and downtown, North Tonawanda's dining scene has added meaningfully to itself in over two years without losing what made it recognizable. District 37 didn't replace anything on Sweeney Street. The IroNTon didn't compete with the Riviera's calendar of shows. Ducky's sits beside The Shores as a second waterfront option. Each one gives a different night out its own address.
What This Fall Actually Looks Like
If you're deciding how to spend an evening in the next few weeks, the island is still worth it. Ducky's and The Shores both lean into a season that's winding down rather than starting up, so a dinner on the water now is closer to the last act than the opening one. Downtown gives you a longer runway: District 37's patio still overlooks the canal regardless of season, and the Riviera's calendar runs well into winter.
What's different about this year is that the construction happening at 78 Bridge Street isn't background noise anymore. It's visible, funded, and moving. The island you're eating dinner on this fall is not the island that exists in five years, and that's worth knowing whether you're grabbing a gyro at a marina snack stand or just walking the waterfront to see what's changed.
If you're curious what any of this means for property values or timing on the island or anywhere else in North Tonawanda, Benjamin Domagala tracks these kinds of local shifts closely and is happy to talk through what you're seeing.
