The company's first general manager, Lewis H. Bown, recruited a number of skilled craftsmen and artisans from throughout the United States, including William J. Rea, Anna Kappler, and Ralph Stuart.

[4] Under the leadership of John D. Larkin Jr. (1877–1945) in the late 1920s, Buffalo Pottery changed its focus to manufacturing custom institutional, restaurant, railroad, steamship, and hotel ware.

The company would produce ware for such entities as the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (George Washington and Chessie Cat services), the Greenbrier, the Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite, the Roycroft Inn, the 1939 New York World's Fair, and the US Navy.

Having lost some of its best skilled labor and with competitors not subject to similar regulation, the company turned to automation, with new equipment funded by the sale of several buildings.

By this time, economic efficiency had forced the company to drop customization in favor of mass production of a limited catalog of designs.

In 1956, the company changed its name from Buffalo Pottery to Buffalo China, Inc.[1] Harold M. Esty Jr. (1914–1986),[8] John D. Larkin's grandson, served as the company's president from 1964 until 1970, overseeing the production of a wider range of designs and the installation of state-of-the-art direct screening, offset printing, and glaze equipment.