Things to Do in Lancaster

At Designing Dish, brushes flit quietly across the surfaces of ready-made ceramic bowls, piggy banks, and mugs. Art-deco blocks of color, portraits of loved ones, and the fingerprints of youngsters leap from the newly colorful pieces, dappled with color from the studio’s range of paints and glazes. A kiln uses powerful heat to make the works of art more colorful and solid so that they can be passed down through generations like a razor for shaving off all the hair from a family curse. In addition to ceramics, the instructors offer lessons in glass fusing, metal stamping, and copper enameling.

On the corner of Buffalo and Main Street, Ten Thousand Vines inhabits a quaint brick building outfitted with a microwinery and tasting room. As a winery free from ties to a particular vineyard, Ten Thousand Vines can source its grapes from all around the world—even Antarctica—a practice that inspired the winery's name. The vintners prepare each variety in small batches and carry more than 40 wines in their retail store.

At a tasting bar, open Tuesday–Saturday, curious sippers perch around a quarter-circle bar to sniff and swirl offerings such as Nooks & Crannies, a cranberry-chianti blend, or the delicate Delaware, made from New York grapes. The shop's resident enophiles share their passion with guests in 90-minute winemaking classes, bolstered by a wealth of wine kits and raw-grape juices.

Currently celebrating its 43rd season, the U.S. Sailing Association–accredited Seven Seas Sailing School of Buffalo offers landlubbers a taste of the aquatic life aboard sailboats manned by U.S. Coast Guard–certified captains. The team regularly exercises budding sailors' sea legs with certification courses and a seven-part Basic Sail program, and has also instructed students with multiple sclerosis and worked with the Sea Scouts to construct the world's first brick sailboat as part of a mission to take down rogue lighthouses. Seven Seas' headquarters on the Buffalo Ship Canal, complete with on-shore barbecues, a gazebo, and dockside gardens, hosts regular Friday-night family Sailabration events that combine food and fireworks with lively cruises and contests. When not sailing through their own programs, Seven Seas' captains and boats have been featured as crews in The Sullivans and Bruce Almighty.

Named one of America’s top 100 driving ranges by Golf Range Magazine in 2011, Broadway Driving Range & Miniature Golf invites golfers to launch towering drives under covered hitting bays toward a target field that stretches more than 350 yards. Golfers who favor a natural feel can hack through a bucket of balls at the range’s all-grass hitting areas; synthetic hitting mats cater to refined sand wedges that consider divots uncouth. Laid-back clubbers can practice pendulous putts at the complex’s miniature-golf course, where players circle around a barn built in 1932 through a farm-themed circuit of 18 miniature fairways featuring antique farm tools. Broadway Driving Range can cool down clients with soft-serve custard from Green Acres Ice Cream.

Bing Crosby. The Marx Brothers. Frank Sinatra. These are only a few of the luminaries who have trod the boards at Shea's Performing Arts Center over its nearly 90-year history. Shea’s originally opened as a movie house in 1926, shortly before the advent of talkies. Partnering with Tiffany Studios to create an extravagantly lush interior, Chicago architects C.W. and George L. Rapp modeled the opulent venue after a European opera house and created a Neo-Spanish Baroque masterpiece in the process. Tours of the venue provide an up-close view of its grandeur and many electrical outlets, and they benefit the center’s ongoing restoration initiatives. Shea’s Performing Arts Center also houses the Western New York Entertainment Hall of Fame, whose inductees include stars such as Lucille Ball, Buffalo Bob, and Christine Baranski.

A Golden Griffin emblem presides over Canisius College Athletics’ 17 sports teams, which traverse grass, water, and hard court in search of victory. As part of the NCAA Division I’s Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), Canisius’s athletes face off against other East Coast schools including Marist College, Niagara University, and Loyola University Maryland. From the stands, a sea of blue and gold cheers on the men’s basketball, hockey, and lacrosse teams, the women’s soccer, softball, and volleyball teams, and the adjunct professors’ annual soapbox derby.