cowork buffalo

To our fellow co-workers:

CoworkBuffalo will be going out of business on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. After that day, our space will not be available to customers, existing or new. We will spend the month of November emptying the space, cleaning up, and tying up all the loose ends of more than six years in business. We have answered some questions you might have about what that means for you a little further below.

We would be sad if this happened for any reason other than our need to move onto other projects and phases of our lives. Some of us already have. Our lease on our Main Street space is up at the end of November, and we can’t commit to providing people with the kind of space and community we want to give them for another year or more.

CoworkBuffalo has always been a part-time, off-hours project for the co-founders. We started a coworking space in 2012 because we wanted Buffalo to have one, as its tech scene was growing and more workers could do a wider variety of jobs while living in this city. We take pride in having paid the bills for this long, while causing all kinds of people to meet and work and plan things together.

We will miss seeing people help each other out when it was not their job to do so. We will miss the inside jokes, the people finding us from all over the country and world, the feeling of contributing in our small way to a still-growing part of downtown. And we will dearly miss having a default excuse to get lunch from Sue’s Deli.

Thank you to the roughly 300 people who came through our doors at one time or another, not including meet-ups and 30-hour VJ world record attempts. Thank you to the 107 Kickstarter backers who helped us move into this place. Thank you to everyone who hosted a meeting here, referred a friend, or said something nice about us, in-person or on social media. We hope we can answer any questions you have on this page.

~ The CoworkBuffalo partners (Kevin Purdy, Nick Quaranto, Kevin Christner, Mike Macaluso, Dan Magnuszewski)

• Are there other coworking spaces I can work in Buffalo?

  • There is dig in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus’ Innovation Center, 640 Ellicott St., Buffalo. We recommend you contact them ahead of showing up to ensure there is space for a day visit or new membership.
  • Buffalo Game Space in the Tri-Main Building offers coworking as a benefit to its Silver and Gold memberships.
  • Inception Buffalo is at 1016 Niagara Falls Blvd. in Tonawanda that looks to have a similar open style and amenities to CoworkBuffalo.
  • The Loft is right by the airport and offers 3-day trial purchases for new members.
  • The Annex on West Ferry near Grant St. offers office and kitchen space specifically for growing food-based businesses.
  • The Guild @ 980 at 980 Northampton St. rents space to solo and small businesses, particularly those with a trade, craft, or creative angle.
  • Please let us know if we missed one.

• Why couldn’t you keep the business going? Or sell it? Or move it somewhere cheaper?

  We briefly discussed selling CoworkBuffalo with a few interested parties. Ultimately, though, this was a business that was run by a group of people, those people no longer can run that business the right way, and we don’t want to sell the name, find another home, or run a diminished version of our business under the same or different name.

• What are the founders doing after CoworkBuffalo closes?

  Generally, the full-time jobs that they’ve always had while running CoworkBuffalo, along with tending to their families, hobbies, side projects, and the like. A lot has changed in the six-plus years of CoworkBuffalo, and our lives are not less busy.

• What is happening to the space after CoworkBuffalo moves out?

  We don’t know, but we hope to see more businesses make use of Main Street, specifically our part of it. You can contact Plaza Group with inquiries about renting the space.

• What about Desktime, the software you use to book the space? Don’t you run that? What will happen to that?

  Desktime (also known as Mx. Desk) will continue to be available to shared working spaces everywhere. Nick Quaranto now owns and maintains Desktime/Mx. Desk solely. Desktime is good at running coworking spaces, and it’s slowly getting better with Nick’s stewardship.

• What’s the best thing to get at Sue’s Deli?

  • Kevin P - Avocado Wrap with Hungarian Mushroom soup.
  • Nick Q - Half + Half Salad, Tuna Salad / Feta + Spinach.
  • Kevin C - Chicken Souvlaki Wrap
  • Mike M - Chicken Veggie Wrap
  • Dan M - Falafel Roll-Up

• I have more questions!

  Sure, just email us at work@coworkbuffalo.com and we’ll do our best. Thank you for being with us as we built a small but useful thing in Buffalo.