Melanie's Sweets Unlimited

Location: 999 Broadway St, Buffalo, NY 14212

Phone: 716 895-1959

Hours: Monday- Saturday: 8:00 am- 5:00 pm

Sunday: Closed

Owner(s): Melanie Krygier-LaMastra

Payment Method: Cash, Credit Card, and Benefits Card

Prices: $5 - $20

'''Melanie's Sweets Unlimited''' is a local ice cream shop and bakery that has recently downsized to one location, back to her roots, in the Broadway Market. Melanie Krygier-Lamastra came from a long line of bakers. Her father owned a bakery that was a Buffalo staple back in the mid 1900's. She faced a lot of diversity being a woman trying to make a name for herself in the 1970's and 1980's, but she had a desire to be a great baker in the Queen City. Melanie has been in business for 35 years, and has fulfilled her dreams.

While working for her father, Melanie opened Broadway Quality Bakery in the Broadway Market in 1978. At her first bakery she only made and sold baked goods.  She then decided it was time to expand, so she opened Melanie's Sweets Unlimited. In the front of the Broadway Market, Melanie began selling a variety of sweets such as candies, chocolates, ice cream, and her homemade- hand decorated cakes. After being there for three years, Melanie decided it was time to find a new location to again expand her business.

In 1981, she opened shop in the outskirts of the city, on Harlem road in Cheektowaga. Her shop was located right next door to the Polish Villa on the corner of Harlem road and Clinton road. This location was mainly an ice cream shop, and she used this location in conjunction with her Broadway Market location to bake all of her homemade, made from scratch, cakes. She mainly served Charlap's ice cream and John Becks custard. Eventually she switched over to Perry's Ice Cream and Upstate Farms custard for her sundaes and shakes. Even though business was steady, Melanie decided it was time to close up shop on Harlem Road in 2005.

In 1987, Melanie opened shop downtown, in the Theatre District, right next door to Shea's Performing Arts Center. This location was one of Melanie’s most popular shops in Buffalo. Here she served ice cream, sandwiches, soups, and her Buffalo famous treats. She kept her cake case filled with all different cakes. Her award winning red velvet, and other traditional cakes such as German chocolate, carrot cake, dark forest, and triple chocolate cake. She catered to the theatergoers and the performers from the theaters in the area. She was open all year to serve hot soups and sandwiches to the workers, and performers at Shea’s for lunch and dinner. Also, it was a great place for night goers to visit for a late night snack before heading to the bars and clubs. Melanie unfortunately lost her lease in 2011 and was not able to re-sign due to expansion of offices in the building.

Aside from her everyday treats and sweets, Melanie is known for her special occasion cakes. She has been making wedding cakes from scratch and hand decorating them since she started 35 years ago. She makes all of the butter cream roses by hand, she pipes details with precision, and she creates a traditional wedding cake with butter cream frosting and decorations. She has a collage of pictures of cakes that she has decorated outside of her stand in the Broadway market. Most cakes she makes are hand frosted, without fondant. She uses traditional decorating techniques and that’s what separates her from the new bakeries setting up shop in the area.

Melanie's Sweets Unlimited is also a popular vendor for a lot of summer festivals in the Buffalo area. She started doing various little festivals. Melanie then stepped into the bigger festivals such as the Polish festival, the Wing festival, and most importantly The Taste of Buffalo. Melanie participated in the Taste of Buffalo from 1989 until 2006, and she recently made a brief come back in 2011. She won Buffalo's Best Cannoli in 1989 and all other years until 2005. Melanie hangs her award proudly in her stand at the Broadway Market.  She has also won the best Red Velvet cake at the Polish Festival in Cheektowaga, New York. Melanie has also been recognized in the Buffalo News for being a spokesperson for the Market. She has been on all of the local news stations in Buffalo for her special cakes around the holiday season. Her hummingbird cake has even been featured in an article in the Buffalo News for how different and tasty it is.

Like previously mentioned, Melanie sells a variety of sweets.  A lot of products carried at Melanie’s Sweets Unlimited are from other local companies. She has Alethea's Chocolates , Crystal Beach products, and Costanzo's rolls. Melanie sells a lot of Alethea’s sponge candy and sugar free chocolates at her stand, but her most popular items aside from her cakes are the Crystal beach products. Many people in Buffalo used to go up to crystal beach for a little getaway, and no one left without getting a famous Crystal Beach sucker. Since Crystal Beach is no longer in operation, the closest you can get to it is through its suckers, sugar waffles, and Loganberry syrup.  Melanie gets these products delivered fresh every week and a lot of her customers come in just to buy the taste of nostalgia.

Another time to come in to the Market for some nostalgic moments would be around Easter and Christmas. Most people in Buffalo grew up visiting The Market at these times if the year. At Easter, her wonderfully decorated lamb, chicken, egg, and rabbit shaped cakes are a top seller.  Not many people know this, but Melanie follows a lot of Polish tradition, and is well known in the Polish community in Buffalo. She carries special polish baked goods for all different polish celebrations. At Easter time she makes placek, chalka, babka and the traditional lamb cakes as previously mentioned. To start off her Easter season she bakes fresh paczki for Fat Tuesday.