The Hollow Bistro & Brew

We were out and about in Clarence and needed a place for dinner. Unilocal for the win again! Exterior and interior looks like any other pub, but the menu didn’t match… Asian Fusion?!
Great local beer selection. The unexpected dinner menu threw us off a bit… Everything sounded great, but nothing jumped out at us, so my wife and I shared a couple appetizers and an entrée.
We went with the calamari (way too salty, but the sweet sauce helped), the thai curry mussels (great dish, just the right amount of heat), and the chicken lo mein. The lo mein was the most fusion-​y dish with roasted chicken in a traditional noodle dish.
Stop on by if looking for a bite in Clarence!

Great food and good service EXCEPT FOR BRENDA!
Customers beware: this woman is terribly judgemental and stuck-​up. She lied to us about 3 tables that were apparently booked then after we asked to be seated until the parties arrived, she rudely brushed us off. The bartender was so sweet and seated us; Brenda, disappeared. Suddenly, after watching what we ordered, she started coming around again and let us know that «the limo was late in arriving» for the 1 party and we could «take our time».
Needless to say, none of the tables filled up and Brenda obviously came out looking like the terrible fool that she is. Bad for business and bad for making customers feel welcome and appreciated.

Had a great girls dinner here tonight! The menu here is somewhat pricey but on Tuesday nights they have $ 10 Tuesday specials. I got a BEAUTIFUL piece of grilled salmon belly over veggies and Jasmine rice, and I added a house salad for $ 3. The meal was so delicious and even healthy! Such a great dinner.
They also put out fresh hot baguette bread with flavored whipped butter. The butter flavor tonight was some sort of pecan and sea salt. As if the heavenly scent of this butter wasn’t enough, the taste of it on the hot crispy baguette was just overwhelmingly delicious! The sassy waitress we had said they will be selling these flavored butters at some point. Remember this– you will want this butter in your life.
Another thing I loved was the tunes they were playing– Mraz, Mayer to name 2 of my faves that I heard tonight. Not sure if it was a Sirius Radio channel but I dug it. Great selection for a great meal with a great waitress at a really great restaurant! Definitely a fan!

I took out from this wonderful restaurant tonight. I am staying in town alone on a road trip on my way back home with 2 small energetic dogs. In looking for options for carry out, this restaurant was within walking distance. The waitresses were very kind (my dogs were supervised outside while I was picking up my order inside.) The portions were generous with good vegetarian options. I had their fried rice with spicy fries and bread with flavored butter… Yum! I only wished I could have stayed to enjoy the ambience and have a cold drink… maybe next time.

I went to The Hollow last night and it was freaking awesome! My boyfriend had the French Onion Soup, and he loved it. He also had a chicken Ceaser Salad, which had homemade croutons that were very good. I had the Truffle Mushroom Ravioli and I can say, hands down, that these Ravioli were the best I have ever had! My entrée included a salad, which was some sort of hearty greens, tomatoes, onions, blue cheese crumbles with balsamic dressing. It also included bread which came with this wonderful home made flavored butter. Our waitress informed us that’s he butter was made once a week with a different flavor. I would go back just for the butter! Ha.
Our waitress was very nice. She kept our glasses full throughout our meal and made sure we were very happy. The environment was very nice, all fabric table cloths and napkins, overall a great upscale restaurant. They also seem to have some really great specials. Everyone should check this place out.

The staff and environment is so welcoming and comfortable and they maintain a beautiful upscale feel. Every time we are here the food is fresh and there is always a unique variety. I look forward to our dinner dates there often!

My BF and I went for dinner here during Restaurant Week and we were pleasantly surprised about how good the food was. From the outside it looks like just another neighborhood bar, but the inside was packed with cozy little tables with linen tablecloths and a large bar with comfy chairs.
Our waiter was very friendly and attentive and made us feel welcomed. I had the pork medallions with jasmine rice, and my BF had the salmon with dill rizotto. Both dishes were exellent and seemed almost too fancy to be served in a bar. My BF had a local draft beer with his dinner and said it was very good.
The Hollow Bistro is a great place to get an upscale meal in a cozy neighborhood atmosphere.

My wife and I had lunch there. I had the Hollow Burg and she had the spinach pizza. Both were done to perfection. Both the lunch and dinner menus looked very appealing. Gluten free stuff if your into that. Fresh ingredients always, except for the fries but their working on that. Their salads look great. Warm atmosphere, fireplace with brick & wood paneling. Full bar.

Wow! This place is a little jewel in Clarence. It has a very comfortable unassuming atmosphere, but the food was amazing! What a pleasant surprise. We went on a Thursday night but even still they were busy. We will definitely be returning.

Kayla is hands down the coolest bartender in the entire universe. I would come back just for the entertainment. What a personality.

Amazing food, from the owner down everyone is watching out for you. Brenda is amazing

The Hollow is a hidden gem of WNY. A co-​worker and I checked out for lunch about a year ago and it has become part of our regular rotation. While the lunch menu is a little limited there are always a number of specials to choose from. In fact I usually pick a special for my meal.
The specials usually have an Asian flair to them. The best being the fried rice that is listed from time to time. The portions are the perfect size. Enough to fill you up but not overwhelming.
The beer selection is also great! Many different craft brews on tap and in bottle. They also keep the selection changing so it is different each time we stop in.
The desserts are also made fresh in house.
The atmosphere is casual enough for a weekday lunch and romantic and cozy enough for a dinner out with your significant other. I highly recommend this place the next time you are in Clarence.

I came here for dinner on a Monday night. We made 5:30 PM reservations. The restaurant was rather quiet but got busier as the night went on. They have a small outdoor patio but we opted to sit inside. The have a decent beer selection, although the menu should specifiy which beers were draft vs. bottle. I wish I knew that they had no corkage fee Mondays, but now I know (I should have checked Unilocal before visiting.) Everyone I was with enjoyed their meal. I got the salmon and was very pleased. My sister really liked her curry dish. This is a place I would definitely return to when I am in the area.

So we went here for the French onion soup, because we heard they are the best. The place was nice and intimate but the food was very avg. After we were done we said we would not come back. Then about for five hours afterwards my boyfriend and I started puking and having symptoms of food poisoning.
I will never ever go back.

No reservations are taken on Friday/​Saturday nights so upon entering I was anticipating a wait. There is really no room to wait without being right on top of someone trying to eat if the bar is full so keeping your butt out of someones face who is trying to enjoy their meal can be a bit of a chore. Once seated after about 10 minutes, we enjoyed a nice Asian inspired meal which started off with a rather size-​able field green salad with a wonderful sweet ranch dressing. The shrimp in the stir fry were just a bit overcooked but not bad enough to say anything about it and the portions were good sized and we did not go away hungry. That being said, our server never asked us if we wanted dessert which I wouldn’t have had anyway, on my full stomach but I still found that kind of strange. Service was good and the atmosphere is nice, on the darker side and the tables are kind of close together so if you are not conversing, then you will hear the conversation next to you.

Very chill, intimate pub. Dark wood walls, narrow building, good drink menu, totally dig the atmosphere. Not a kids’s restaurant. Bar area is in the mix with tables, so there’s some area in the middle where a person at a table has a bar patron’s butt in their face. As well, I stood (wife sat) at the bar– prepare to bump into staff/​patrons as they go by.
We got a table by the window in front (this was weird– we walked in, got told it was a 30 minute wait, so we sat at the bar which was about 10 feet from the table. That table was about 10 feet from the bar where we ordered a couple of drinks; it was empty the whole time. After we each had a Guinness, we were seated, so it wasn’t 30 minutes).
Worth the wait! Drink specials were cool; I had a perfect manhattan (done RIGHT), wife had whatever the special martini was. Food was awesome– menu is diverse (kind of an Asian Irish Italian American English gamut– trying to please everyone). Vegetarian dishes equal pasta or salad. Hummus appetizer was good. Not cheap, but if you like cozy casual without screaming babies, this is it. Excellent service, too.
Good place to hit some winter night when it’s snowing like crazy. For me, I don’t enjoy elbow to elbow; 5 stars for food/​pub-​ness, but oberall lose one because of the dining tables/​proximity to bar patrons in that middle area. (we didn’t sit there, but would have asked to wait longer for another table).
Which means we would have had more beer. Actually, not a bad thing! Will go again.

What a great place to go for Dinner. Me and my grandma discovered this place while we were on our way to Akron Falls Park for a walk through. After our walk we got over there (even thought we waited 40 Minutes for my Uncle to show up, cuz he just got out of Work) but we were sat down in the back, a nice small Place though (15 tables, I believe).
We then ordered, for my Appetizer I got the Pork Potstickers (even though they looked like Dumplings) with Asian Red Cabbage Slaw and 2 Dipping Sauces: a Soy Scallion and Spicy Sriracha (Nice Contrast of Salty and Spicy). My Uncles Appetizer he got their Homemade Tomato and Mozzarella Soup (Rich and Creamy).
Me and my uncle ordered a 2^nd Appetizer: the Asian Green Field Salad consisting of Cucumber Noodles, Alfalfa Sprouts, Water Chestnuts, Mandarin Oranges, Fried Wontons and a Malted Soy Vinaigrette (Really Good Salad). For our Entrees: My Uncle ordered the Chargrilled Salmon in a Lemon Beurre Blanc Sauce with Sautéed Green Beans and a Bacon-​Mushroom Risotto.
My Grandma got the Pork Porterhouse Chop glazed with Mustard and New York Maple Syrup and Whipped Sweet Potatoes on the Side and for Me I got the Hong Kong Seafood Stew (Lot of Seafood like a Cioppino) Salmon, Calamari, Mussels, Shrimp with Asian Vegetables, Crispy Wontons, Rice in a Lemongrass-​Seafood Broth.
To finish off the Meal we decided to get some dessert so we Split a Homemade slice of Rum Raisin Bread Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream. Such a nice place to go for Dinner, At least I know somewhere to go out there when I go to Akron Falls Park, can’t wait for next Time !!!

My food and drink was great! We were seated quickly from a call ahead. Waited briefly at the bar and the bartender was very pleasant and made a great Tom Collins.
The waitress was very attentive and made extra effort to find out if the soup in the specials menu was vegetarian (it was!).
I had the tomato mozzarella soup and it was delicious! I also had a special for my entrée which was prepared very well and had good flavor.
Everyone at my table enjoyed their meal. Hubby did have a few mussels that didn’t open in his dish, but enjoyed the rest of his meal.

The Hollow Bistro and Brew is a small restaurant located where I call Clarence Hollow downtown. It is a clean restaurant with classic decoration. But it is not ready for people with babies, because the high chair belt was broken and they tried to do a quick fix to it. What it lost so many points to me.
Stopping your car there could be a problem on a busy day because their parking lot is shared with other business. However when I went there on a Saturday afternoon for lunch, there were a lot of spots to park my car.
We had no reservations. But that was not a problem, because the place only had 2 tables filled and during my stay only 2 more were filled. The senior waitress that received me was a very polite and charismatic and directed me to my table. Unfortunately she was not our waitress. The noise level was very low, so I think this is a good place to enjoy intimate conversation.
The lunch menu was OK. Not so many options to choose, but they have a good variety. I just recommend that they fix their Lunch Menu page on their site, because I’m the kind of person that likes to see the menu before I’m going to a place. And asking for options on the dinner menu it was not allowed, where sometimes is possible from some restaurants.
We started our lunch with soda and a delicious bread basket. The soda taste was not so good, maybe a problem on the carbonation of the fountain. But kudos for the bread, they were delicious but very expensive ($ 3). For this price, I was expecting more bread pieces.
We asked for The Hollow Burger ($ 9.5) and a pasta with Shrimp Scampi that I don’t remember the plate name. First and more important, I was impressed how QUICK our food was done. It did not take 15 minutes to have the plates on our table. Very impressive!
The Hollow Burger pleased me so much. It was a delicious gourmet burger and the fries were crispy. Until now, I did not find a so good gourmet burger like I found here! However, the pasta for my wife was not so good. We did not found the capers and the scampi sauce was more a plenty of oil than the sauce. I do not recommend the pasta.
Another bad point of my experience with the restaurant was the young waitress that served us. She was not charismatic as the senior waitress and forgot to tell us the specials. I was only aware of that because I overheard the other waitress offering that to the other tables. We left the restaurant upset because the specials seemed to have better options that the lunch menu.
But even with the bad points, we enjoyed our visit to the restaurant. The burger was very good and the food delivery was very quick. If I plan to eat again at this restaurant? Maybe… But it will not be my first choice, mainly because the unsafe high chair for my baby.
—
Good for babies? NO
Good for big groups? YES
Enough parking spots to everyone? NO

The atmosphere was great, I love exposed brick — the bistro had a really nice ‘home feeling’ — also great music selection. Frank Sinatra over a bottle of Red, yes please…
(All items, except my salad, came off the house menu.)
Appetizer: Calamari with five spice sweet red chili dipping sauce.
The dipping sauce had a lot going on. Different flavor, spices, aromas, all with an Asian undertone. I was a little unsure at first, but by the third bite I was sold on it. (Good «alien head» to «o rings» ratio as well.)
Salads:
Mine: Walnut, Goat Cheese, Raspberry, & Arugula with a delicate balsamic vinaigrette. Well Done, but not perfect. There were three sad Raspberries on my plate. (If the chef is reading this… What about taking off the raspberries and adding pomegranate?)
His: Grilled Portobello Mushroom. He seemed to really enjoy it, as he ate a majority of it.
The salads were larger than I expected, I could have easily finished mine and I’m sure he could have too, but we both were saving room for the main course… Which deserves a slow clap while being introduced.
His: Linguine Jumbalaya, Chicken, shrimp, sausage, bell peppers in a hot smoked paprika tomato cream sauce.
Mine: Grilled Salmon Char w/​lemon beurre blanc sauce & bacon mushroom risotto
One thing that I feel is overlooked many times in restaurants is serving temperatures. This meal came out hot, not too hot to eat, but perfect. And it seemed to keep the temperature through the meal.
My salmon was tender and perfectly charred, with a nicely done, complimenting sauce. The Green Beans, were lacking the pop of color, (so I thought they were over cooked) but were firm (the lights were dim so maybe the pop was hidden by the ambiance). The risotto was rich and creamy and all things that make risotto amazing. The bacon/​mushroom combination worked extremely well with the meal.
His meal looked great, and he took home the leftovers, so I think he really liked it :) Also the chef came out to say hello, he received many compliments from every table in the restaurant.
All in all, this was a great first date. The atmosphere, food, wine, company, service — all very very nice.
The only reason I’m not giving this a five star is that I want to go back for an encore performance. If it’s still as amazing as the first time… I’ll upgrade :)