New Buffalo Restaurants Open in Winter After Redamak's Closes
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
Redamak's last service of 2026 is Sunday, October 18, at 5 p.m. Eastern. After that, New Buffalo still has kitchens serving lunch, dinner, coffee and late-night food all winter. They just don't all serve on the same days. The Stray Dog cooks every day. Jackie's Cafe takes Monday and Tuesday off. Kankakee Grille at Four Winds closes Tuesday and Wednesday, and Copper Rock closes Sunday and Monday. In the off-season, the question to ask is which night it is.
Redamak's says it's a seasonal restaurant, typically open from March through October. This year's sign-off came in a closing notice posted on its site:
"Thank you for a great 51st Season! We will be Closing for the Season on Sunday, October 18th, 2026 at 5:00PM E.S.T."
Until then, the restaurant runs fall hours of noon to 9 p.m., Thursday through Monday, and is closed Tuesday and Wednesday. That leaves four chances to go: Thursday, October 15, through Sunday, October 18, and the Sunday kitchen closes four hours early. It's still cash only, with an ATM inside.
The fall schedule is a preview of the off-season. Even before the doors close, the town's best-known seasonal restaurant already skips the middle of the week. Several of the places that stay open through winter do the same thing on different days.
These are the New Buffalo spots whose current published hours show service every day of the week:
Only one place on that list says outright that its schedule holds all year, and that's The Stray Dog. Michigan's state tourism directory labels Bentwood "Open Year-round," but that listing dates to 2022. Bentwood's own hours page shows the daily dinner schedule without using the phrase. The other three post seven-day hours but don't address winter one way or the other.
Of all the 2026 changes in New Buffalo, the one that matters most for winter happened back in March. Rios Mexican Grill served its last meals at its stand at 901 West Buffalo St. on March 11. Three days later, on March 14, it opened an expanded restaurant at 603 East Buffalo St. on U.S. 12, in the former Buffalo Bill's.
The new building has 48 indoor seats, plus outdoor seating, a drive-through and a gift shop. The menu also added homemade tamales. A drive-through and a dining room count for more in January than in July. The restaurant is run by Marysol Rios, her sister Esmeralda Garrett, her brother Alberto Rios and their mother, Maria Rios. The family has said it plans to reopen the south-end stand with a different concept "sometime early next year." That's still a plan, with no date.
The seven-day places carry most of the load. The places with days off decide what else you can choose from on a given night. Using each business's currently posted hours, the closed days fall like this:
| Place | Closed days | Posted hours on open days |
|---|---|---|
| Jackie's Cafe | Monday, Tuesday | 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. |
| Kankakee Grille, Four Winds | Tuesday, Wednesday | 4 to 9 p.m. Mon/Thu, 4 to 10 p.m. Fri, 2 to 10 p.m. Sat, 2 to 9 p.m. Sun |
| Copper Rock, Four Winds | Sunday, Monday | 5 to 9 p.m. Tue–Thu, 5 to 10 p.m. Fri–Sat |
| The Buffet, Four Winds | Sunday through Tuesday | Noon to 8 p.m. Wed, 4 to 8 p.m. Thu, noon to 9 p.m. Fri–Sat |
| Skip's European Farmers Market | Monday through Friday | 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sat–Sun |
Taken together, the table puts the pinch at the start of the week. On Monday, Jackie's and Copper Rock are both dark. On Tuesday, Jackie's is still closed, and Kankakee Grille and The Buffet are closed too. Both nights still have dinner at The Stray Dog, Rios, Bentwood and Oink's. A weekday breakfast is harder. Jackie's opens again on Wednesday morning, and until then the Marina Grand's 8 a.m. coffee and pastry service is the clearest posted option in town.
Two Four Winds kitchens cover hours the rest of town doesn't. Timbers serves from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until midnight on weekends. White Birch runs from 7 a.m. to 3 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, with a Thursday break from 3 to 6 p.m., and is open 24 hours on Friday and Saturday. If you need a meal before 8 a.m. on a Tuesday or after 10 p.m. on a weeknight, the published schedules point to Wilson Road.
Some well-known New Buffalo spots have published hours that may not be their winter hours yet.
Casey's own site lists the kitchen from noon to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The bar is listed until midnight on weeknights and 2 a.m. on weekends. Its Harbor Country Chamber listing shows separate winter kitchen hours of 2 to 9 p.m. The IceHouse Bar and backyard are a spring-to-fall amenity. Those two sources don't match, so an early-afternoon lunch at Casey's in December is the kind of plan to check first.
Hummingbird Lounge, at 9 S. Barton St., rolled out game-day dishes for fall and a tomato martini, which co-owner Ben Smock highlighted on WNDU in September. Its site is taking bookings for November and December holiday parties. Neither source lists public dining hours, so check before you go.
Jackie's Cafe has a January vacation notice on its site with no year attached. The site also promotes its Back Door bakery. If you're counting on a January breakfast there, confirm the dates. Oink's, Rios and Skip's all post regular schedules, and none of them posts an annual closing date. That isn't the same as a promise to stay open through February.
A short drive up Red Arrow Highway, Greenbush Brewing in Sawyer is still in transition. Original co-owner Justin Heckathorn and his family stepped in after the brewery closed in April, with an October 2026 reopening as the goal. A pre-opening inspection was on the calendar for October 5. The brewery's own site still reads "Currently closed – reopening fall of 2026."
The rest of October is busy, and most of it lands before Redamak's closes:
After that, the weekly calendar applies. Every hour in this post is the business's posted schedule as of early October 2026, and several of these places note that their hours can change.
If you own a home in Harbor Country and spend part of the year somewhere else, off-season routines like these are part of what Brian Waite keeps track of for clients who aren't in town. That includes which businesses stay open, when the town gets quiet, and what a winter week in New Buffalo looks like. If you have questions about your property or plans for this winter, let's connect.
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