West Side Bazaar had long needed more space to grow. For years, the small-business incubator housed about a dozen restaurants and retail shops in a 3,200-square-foot former Blockbuster Video on Grant Street in Buffalo, New York. With just a 47-seat capacity, the market accommodated 90,000 visits a year.

A week or so before Christmas, The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass reopened its doors to the public, offering visitors entering the new marquee entrance a gleaming new reception desk and facilities for the museum's popular Make Your Own Glass activities. A bank of brand-new sandblasting machines were arranged beside tall crafting tables, where visitors could apply various resists to create a custom design. Assisted glassblowing activities have been expanded thanks to the new modular areas where benches are set up, available to museumgoers or professionals depending on the time of year.

You can go around the world in faster than 80 days, at least culinarily, by visiting the West Side Bazaar.

It was 2019 when WEDI (the Westminster Economic Development Initiative) picked a site on Niagara Street for another West Side Bazaar location. In the meantime, the organization had to deal with a global pandemic and a devastating fire to the original West Side Bazaar.