Holiday Touchdown A Bills Love Story

Orchard Park

Location Stops

Stroll along Allen Street, one of the side streets near the Highmark Stadium parking lots, where fans gather to park and tailgate. For one scene in the movie, the entire street was closed down for a big Bills party. 

Stop for hot chocolate at Chestnut Ridge Park’s casino lodge at the top of the toboggan hill. On clear days take in distant views of Buffalo and Lake Erie. The park is a good place to hike, cross country ski, sled and ride down the toboggan chute. In the movie, look for the park’s star turn in a scene with a tree farm and reindeers.

Eat & Drink

Soak up the Bills fan experience at a classic football bar, the Big Tree Inn, 4277 Abbott Road. Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who makes a cameo appearance in the film, is known for ordering their honey mustard golden barbecue wings with ranch dressing.

East Aurora

Location Stops

Stroll along a Main Street that feels like a complete movie set with restaurants, shops and a 1925 movie theater. One place embodies the village’s sense of fun and style: Wander through aisles stocked with toys, kitchen wares and art supplies at Vidler’s 5&10, 676- 694 Main St. In the movie, the romantic leads shopped at this emporium, run by the same family that founded it 95 years ago. It is authentically retro: Scoop candy from glass jars, buy popcorn for a dime and step on a scale that will reveal your weight and your fortune. 

Vidler’s is on the stretch of Main that closes on an evening the weekend before Christmas for the annual Carolcade. Since 1971, people gather, fill the street and sing carols together, en masse. A scene in the movie recreates the tradition reminiscent the Who-ville Christmas Dr. Seuss imagined.

Eat & Drink

Elm Street Bakery, 72 Elm St., once a farm supply store, has become a community hub, a rustically cool setting where people sip coffee — just as characters in the movie do — nosh on breakfast sandwiches and caramelized onion omelets. 

Bar-Bill Tavern, 185 Main St., is an East Aurora tradition with sought-after wings known for the sauce and its uniform application method developed by the bar’s engineer founder – by brush. In the movie, characters stop here for a beer.

Spend the Night

The Roycroft Inn, 40 S. Grove St., built in 1905 it has rooms, a restaurant and a bar with a big, cozy fireplace. Theodore Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony and Mark Twain once stayed here. The inn harkens back to the time when East Aurora became home to the Arts and Crafts’ Roycroft community. The furniture, and a printing press, and left behind a unique, rustic style that infuses the village and town to this day. 

Buffalo

Location Stops

The downtown Canalside waterfront district where boats dock and people soak up sun in summer becomes a winter escape with ice skating. Take a spin on a unique local invention, the ice bike, just like the movie characters. Nearby, find stops for mugs of hot chocolate and Buffalo’s special warm, creamy, rum-infused Tom & Jerry cocktail. 

The O’Shei Children’s Hospital, 1001 Main St., where the movie’s heroine works as a doctor, is near the Allentown neighborhood of shops, bars and restaurants along Buffalo’s Allen Street. Producer Andrew Gernhard found his favorite wings in city here at Gabriel’s Gate, 145 Allen St.

Eat & Drink

Start the day with a breakfast sweet and another of Gernhard’s favorites at Paula’s Donuts. He fell for their red velvet donuts. “They blew my mind,” he said. A location near downtown, 822 Seneca St., is in the Larkinville district with restaurants, a brewery and distillery.

Spend the Night

The Mansion on Delaware, 414 Delaware Ave., is near Allentown on Delaware Avenue and has restaurants and cozy taverns nearby, like Founding Fathers Pub, 75 Edward St. The owner, a former social studies teacher, will quiz the willing on their knowledge of presidential history.

Photos from the Set