Silver Creek gaining traction as destination on Lake Erie

SILVER CREEK, N.Y. (WIVB) — Visitors are traveling into town, or scheduling a staycation in Silver Creek, to embrace the experience around Lake Erie.

Kevin Cullen and his wife Christian have traveled all over for paddleboarding. In June, they opened up Hideaway Bay Resort, which offers beachfront amenities, outdoor activities and recently a restaurant called Drift that will feature high-end steak, mussels, oysters and more.

“Through our travels we always just had our eye on unique lodging experiences and unique recreation experiences,” Kevin Cullen said. “A lot of people don’t really realize that Western New York is a top outdoor recreation destination in the world.”

Hideaway Bay has 10 cottages on the shore of Lake Erie, and though the days with the summer sunshine may be winding down, they plan to be a destination for guests to enjoy throughout all four seasons of Western New York. Each cottage has two queen beds, a private rooftop patio along with a pullout couch.

A few steps from their cottage doorsteps, guests will have steelhead fishing, paddleboards, kiteboarding and more to help highlight what the community has to offer.

“There’s world class paddling, there’s world class wind sports, there’s world class fishing, there’s incredible mountain biking with the four seasons,” Cullen said. “We have ice climbing, we have snowboarding, there’s just an absolutely tremendous amount of things to do here.”

So far, they have seen visitors all the way from the mid-Atlantic to Europe.

“We knew we’d get people from out of town that were coming maybe for a wedding or to see Niagara Falls,” Cullen said. “But what we’re finding is people coming here, just to check this place out seeing it on social media and interested and people are driving in so that’s really encouraging and fun to see.”

The new menu at the restaurant will be rolled out next week. The resort will hold a kiteboarding and watersports festival from Oct. 4 to 6. For more information, click here.

Hope Winter is a reporter and multimedia journalist who has been part of the News 4 team since 2021. See more of her work here .