Rochester, NY

We made a trip to upstate New York for the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in May of this year and had a wonderful long weekend. We all flew into Rochester from a variety of different places with a very smooth and easy process. My little brother was living in Rochester while in grad school at RIT so he made for the best tour guide!

For the golf tournament, we stayed within walking distance to one of the entrances of Oak Hill in an Airbnb, minimizing our travel time which was great. Before the weekend started, my brother stocked up on all the necessities from area’s local grocery store – Wegmans. Yes it is weird to be reviewing a grocery store, but we all love Wegmans so had to mention it!!

This area of upstate New York has a ton of smaller towns that all make up the Finger Lakes region or just broadly Monroe County. Rochester itself sits on Lake Ontario and is the largest of this area. Oak Hill is in between Rochester and Pittsford and was a top notch host for the Championship. I will leave the details of the incredible tournament to Matthew’s post, but from a non-golfer’s perspective, everything was so much fun and so beautiful. From the variety of viewing areas, the food that was included, and the way they made each day unique, I was constantly entertained and learned a lot about golf that weekend! The entire set up from the location of the practice areas, pro shop, food stands, etc. everything you needed was so easy to get to and there was so much to see and do while on the property.

We were able to do a lot off site once we were done with the tournament for the day as well. Our first night we started at Living Roots Winery tasting room. Living Roots winery has two locations: one in the Finger Lakes region with the tasting room separately in Rochester, and the second location in Australia. Both New York and Australia have their own harvests to expand the variety of wine they are able to produce. The tasting room was beautiful and boasted a ton of information about the winery, the differences in New York and Australia for wine making, and had so much to offer. They had great appetizers and a variety of wine flights so customers could try a variety of wine. We tried to get a couple different flights so we could all try them all. My favorite was the Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc!

After the tasting room, we had dinner at Lucky’s. A Wellington Golf Co customer gave us a recommendation to go to Good Luck, the sister restaurant. Good Luck was all booked up but we decided to try Lucky’s and had such a fun and enjoyable evening! The inside has a beautiful bar where you could wait for your table or enjoy your meal. The vibe of the restaurant reminded me of my favorite restaurant in Charleston, Little Jack’s – so we all felt right at home! We all tried our luck for cocktails with their “shuffle the deck” where the customer “plays their hand” and lets the bartender surprise them with a cocktail. Such a fun experience – all we had to do was say the type of liquor and a flavor profile and every drink came out so good. Definitely cannot go wrong with either Lucky’s or Good Luck.

The next day our nightly outing was to the Rohrbach Brewery and Tasting Room where we had incredible wood fired pizzas. The brewery has a very cool feel in an old building and the beers were just as good. I opted for a flight here as well since we do not have Rohrbach beer back at home. For pizza, the Beer Hall Classic was so good – just a good pepperoni pizza! We got hot honey to dip it in which was a great recommendation!

Our third night we ventured out to our family’s favorite Rochester restaurant – Rocco. This Italian restaurant makes you feel like you are truly sitting down in your nonna’s kitchen in the Italian countryside. Large plates, a good sole, and outstanding food. We shared bottles of wine, spaghetti, meatballs, incredible dessert. Needless to say, we left happy and very full! This was one of the first places our family went when my brother moved to Rochester and its safe to say we will probably be back on every visit.

The final night we ordered pizza back to the house because we stayed all the way to the end of the tournament and watched the trophy presentation. Truly packed it in that last day not wanting to miss anything! We ordered from JT’s Pizza and got one of their sheet pan pizzas. It did not disappoint – truly the size of a large sheet pan – we got the JT’s which is essentially their house pizza with sausage, mushrooms, peppers, and pepperoni. 

The last day in Rochester we were able to tour around the area with my brother more since the golf tournament had ended. We started our morning in Pittsford at the neutral ground coffeehouse where we got coffees to go so we could walk along the Erie Canal and window shop in the downtown area of Pittsford. We then drove through RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) and saw the buildings where my brother goes for class and labs! For lunch we hit Dinosaur BBQ which was great. It sits on the Genesse River in an old railroad station and has a ton of local beers. Before heading to the airport we made a stop by Lake Ontario to see the beach and feel how cold it still was in May!

Other spots that we looked into when deciding on our meals as well as other restaurants my brother has hit and loves are below! We loved our getaway to Rochester and cannot wait to be back while my brother still lives there!

-       Native

-       Label 7

-       Pane Vino

-       Silver Iguana

-       Donuts Delight

-       Fifth Frame

-       20 Deep Winery

-       Casa Larga Winery

-       Strangebird Brewery

-       Genesee Brewery

-       Swiftwater Brewing

-       Stone Yard Brewery

-       Copper Leaf Brewing

In May of 2025 we found ourselves back in Rochester, NY for the weekend. We discovered a few new spots that we had to highlight! We also took the inaugural Breeze flight direct from Charleston to Rochester and, much like our other trips with Breeze, had a great experience!

We stayed in Pittsford this time and made it to Pittsford Dairy Farm for some ice cream. There is another location in Rochester. Next to the location in Rochester is a coffee shop called Cafe Sasso. In Pittsford we went into the shops close to Neutral Grounds Coffee and over a little walk to a downtown street with a book shop called Book Culture and the Pittsford MRKT featuring an upscale outdoorsy type store. The Pittsford Pub is also a favorite to stop in at any time of the day! We had dinner at Redd Rochester and it was absolutely phenomenal. The other dinner spot we went to was Nosh and it was also delicious. They change the menu based upon the local goods and food that they are able to source. We tried Owl House in downtown Rochester and would recommend grabbing a house made cocktail from their intimate bar. We went to the George Eastman Museum highlighting both George Eastman’s mansion as well as a history of photography, as George Eastman was the founder of Kodak. His home felt like a real life clue game featuring a conservatory, study, billiards room, dining room, and more. Other than these new spots, we went back to some of our favorites from above and had a great weekend! It was so great to see how the city and surrounding towns loved hosting the PGA Championship and still are remembering such a great week.