The Buffalo Wing & It's Rise to the Ultimate Sports Food .

[T master]

Last night as i sit thumbing through the channels I saw a listing on the History channel the name of the show was The Foods That Built America so i went there to see what it was about i got up went to the kitchen & when i came back the show that had just come on was about the Buffalo wing & how it started to be .

 

In 1963/64 there was a black restauranteur by the name of John Young that had a restaurant near the old rock pile i didn't happen to catch the name of it but he had been ordering wings & frying them then adding what looked to be a barbecue sauce on them & they sold very well among the community but this was during the time of much distress in Buffalo due to the civil rights movement .

 

John Young fell upon hard times & wound up moving to Illinois so only those that came into his restaurant new about the chicken wings in the sauce which after he left no one was making them & the chicken wing was considered a throw away item so not many other restaurants would buy them until one day a restaurant about a mile away named the Anchor Bar got a shipment of chicken wings by mistake .

 

The original Anchor bar which was a Italian restaurant owned by Frank & Theresa Velisimo which Theresa was the main cook took the mistaken order of chicken wings & she wondered why they got delivered there & just exactly what she would do with them until i believe it was her son asked if they had anything mom could cook up for him & a couple of his friends so instead of leaving the wings hole she cut of the tip & cut the 2 remaining pieces into the the drumstick & the flat .

 

She fried them but when she took a bight they didn't have much of any flavor so she added some butter & a spicy sauce that she had for a different recipe & covered them in the sauce . Her son & his friends thought it was much to spicey all by them selves so she thought how can i take the heat down a bit so she added blue cheese as the dip & then she wanted to add something more after she put them on the menu because they started out as free in baskets on the bar kind of like they do with peanuts .

 

But soon everyone in Buffalo was coming in to eat them so that's when she put them on the menu & added celery with them & the original sauce to cover the wings is now known as Franks Red Hot which i'm not sure about this if any of you do know please elaborate on this but but i'm thinking that seeing as the owner of the Anchor bars name was Frank that could be where the red hot sauce got it's name & i wonder if they were the originators of it .

 

Of course the show goes on to tell how 2 brothers from Ohio that had visited Buffalo  & went back home & while sitting at a bar ordered some wings to which no one knew about them so they decided to try & duplicate the sauce but couldn't & had 12 sauces made up & decided to have all 12 on the menu . 

 

They wanted to open a restaurant so they did they had 50 different beers on tap 12 sauces for the wings & at first they called Buffalo Wild wings & Weck the Weck being Beef on Weck as we all know from living up home but it didn't start out to great . The bar was near the Ohio State Buckeye stadium in Columbus & 1 day while a college student came in for a beer & some wings he asked if they could turn the Buckeyes on the TV it was near the end of the game so he did .

 

So they dropped the Weck from the name & Hence Buffalo Wild Wings was born & became the first Sports bar which was 1982 . Shortly after that hooters came to be and we all know now that Buffalo wings are all over the world & they said that the anchor bar serves 1 ton of wings per day .

 

If you get a chance look up on the History Channel the show called The Foods That Built America & the name of this episode is "Flight of the Buffalo Wing" I think being Buffalo fans you would dig it I know i was glued to it till the end . So now we all know a bit more about how Buffalo wings came to be in Buffalo & I believe they said John Young's daughter opened a bar not to far from the Anchor bar which again i didn't catch the name but maybe we should pay homage to Mr. Young for first starting to put wings in sauce .

 

But there will only be 1 Anchor bar where the original Buffalo wing was first made !! Thank you Theresa Velisimo for many nights of drinking to be able to have Buffalo wings to go with a ice cold Brew !!! 

[without a drought]

I thought they were chicken wings.

[coloradobillsfan]

 

[LOVEMESOMEBILLS]

1 minute ago, coloradobillsfan said:

 

 

 You beat me to it lol.

 

 

 

[coloradobillsfan]

1 minute ago, LOVEMESOMEBILLS said:

 You beat me to it lol.

 

It's like reaching for that last wing... 

[Beast]

14 minutes ago, T master said:

 

 

In 1963/64 there was a black restauranteur by the name of John Young that had a restaurant near the old rock pile i didn't happen to catch the name of it but he had been ordering wings & frying them then adding what looked to be a barbecue sauce on them & they sold very well among the community but this was during the time of much distress in Buffalo due to the civil rights movement .

 

 

[jayg]

 

Intersting series in general.  

 

[Simon Says]

25 minutes ago, T master said:

Last night as i sit thumbing through the channels I saw a listing on the History channel the name of the show was The Foods That Built America so i went there to see what it was about i got up went to the kitchen & when i came back the show that had just come on was about the Buffalo wing & how it started to be .

 

In 1963/64 there was a black restauranteur by the name of John Young that had a restaurant near the old rock pile i didn't happen to catch the name of it but he had been ordering wings & frying them then adding what looked to be a barbecue sauce on them & they sold very well among the community but this was during the time of much distress in Buffalo due to the civil rights movement .

 

John Young fell upon hard times & wound up moving to Illinois so only those that came into his restaurant new about the chicken wings in the sauce which after he left no one was making them & the chicken wing was considered a throw away item so not many other restaurants would buy them until one day a restaurant about a mile away named the Anchor Bar got a shipment of chicken wings by mistake .

 

The original Anchor bar which was a Italian restaurant owned by Frank & Theresa Velisimo which Theresa was the main cook took the mistaken order of chicken wings & she wondered why they got delivered there & just exactly what she would do with them until i believe it was her son asked if they had anything mom could cook up for him & a couple of his friends so instead of leaving the wings hole she cut of the tip & cut the 2 remaining pieces into the the drumstick & the flat .

 

She fried them but when she took a bight they didn't have much of any flavor so she added some butter & a spicy sauce that she had for a different recipe & covered them in the sauce . Her son & his friends thought it was much to spicey all by them selves so she thought how can i take the heat down a bit so she added blue cheese as the dip & then she wanted to add something more after she put them on the menu because they started out as free in baskets on the bar kind of like they do with peanuts .

 

But soon everyone in Buffalo was coming in to eat them so that's when she put them on the menu & added celery with them & the original sauce to cover the wings is now known as Franks Red Hot which i'm not sure about this if any of you do know please elaborate on this but but i'm thinking that seeing as the owner of the Anchor bars name was Frank that could be where the red hot sauce got it's name & i wonder if they were the originators of it .

 

Of course the show goes on to tell how 2 brothers from Ohio that had visited Buffalo  & went back home & while sitting at a bar ordered some wings to which no one knew about them so they decided to try & duplicate the sauce but couldn't & had 12 sauces made up & decided to have all 12 on the menu . 

 

They wanted to open a restaurant so they did they had 50 different beers on tap 12 sauces for the wings & at first they called Buffalo Wild wings & Weck the Weck being Beef on Weck as we all know from living up home but it didn't start out to great . The bar was near the Ohio State Buckeye stadium in Columbus & 1 day while a college student came in for a beer & some wings he asked if they could turn the Buckeyes on the TV it was near the end of the game so he did .

 

So they dropped the Weck from the name & Hence Buffalo Wild Wings was born & became the first Sports bar which was 1982 . Shortly after that hooters came to be and we all know now that Buffalo wings are all over the world & they said that the anchor bar serves 1 ton of wings per day .

 

If you get a chance look up on the History Channel the show called The Foods That Built America & the name of this episode is "Flight of the Buffalo Wing" I think being Buffalo fans you would dig it I know i was glued to it till the end . So now we all know a bit more about how Buffalo wings came to be in Buffalo & I believe they said John Young's daughter opened a bar not to far from the Anchor bar which again i didn't catch the name but maybe we should pay homage to Mr. Young for first starting to put wings in sauce .

 

But there will only be 1 Anchor bar where the original Buffalo wing was first made !! Thank you Theresa Velisimo for many nights of drinking to be able to have Buffalo wings to go with a ice cold Brew !!! 

Dude. Could you have posted this in several volumes? Or maybe used a link?

[ColoradoBills]

"Wings and Things".  First chicken wings I ever had.

[JakeFrommStateFarm]

I like wings but only with ranch dressing 

[Bubba Gump]

I thought everyone already knew this? 

[Orlando Buffalo]

1 hour ago, ColoradoBills said:

"Wings and Things".  First chicken wings I ever had.

Is that the Fredonia one?

[T master]

1 hour ago, jayg said:

 

Intersting series in general.  

 

 

Yes it was i watched it for about 5 episodes it's amazing how things like the hamburger came to be a american standard & they told how Nathans hot dogs became Nathans it just very interesting all the foods we eat and just take as normal but back in the day it was anything but that .

[ColoradoBills]

3 minutes ago, Orlando Tim said:

Is that the Fredonia one?

 

No.  This was back I'm guessing around 1970.  East side of Buffalo somewhere I can't remember.  Just always remembered the name.

[T master]

21 minutes ago, Bubba Gump said:

I thought everyone already knew this? 

 

I knew the Anchor bar story but nothing about John Young or Buffalo Wild wings but of course there are always those that know more about every thing in general the i do . 

[T master]

1 minute ago, BUFFALOBART said:

My wife worked for Buffalo Wild Wings in Columbus, Ohio, when she was a student at Ohio State. (A long time ago)

 

 

According to the show that was the first one .

[OZBILLS]

35 minutes ago, JakeFrommStateFarm said:

I like wings but only with ranch dressing 

 

Oven baked with ketchup. The only way.

[Wacka]

Please do some proofreading. It's Belisimo. And I remember reading years ago that the guys that founded Buffalo Wild Wings were  from Buffalo and went to Ohio State.

3 minutes ago, OZBILLS said:

 

Oven baked with ketchup. The only way.

Yuck!

[without a drought]

1 hour ago, OZBILLS said:

 

Oven baked with ketchup. The only way.

I usually just boil them and dip them in mayo.

[TC in St. Louis]

Back in 1984 my sister and I both lived in Milwaukee.  We thought it would be great to introduce Buffalo Style Wings to the area.  At first we thought about opening a restaurant, but we didn't have the money for that.  So we created our own....to sample at taverns and the like.  Meanwhile, a friend knew a place in Watertown, Wisconsin that made frozen fish.  We met with that guy, and brought some samples.  He freaked out at the idea, because he'd had them while visiting Buffalo.  He said he could make them for us!  He reversed the fish frying process.....first fry the wings, then coat them with a sauce, then freeze them and package them.  I found a guy in Tennessee who sold us 55 gallon drums of hot sauce (he said "I can make that as hot as you want.  We've got peppers that will kill people."  We went with a medium level heat.) We had a couple guys selling them to bars and restaurants, and they were a hit.  We were having them produced 10,000 pounds at a time, and selling 21 pound boxes (6 3.5 lb. bags in each) for $49.95.  We eventually had nearly 200 places that had ordered at least one case, and we had the airport restaurant on board.  We found ourselves  on the front page of the business section of the Milwaukee Journal (color picture), and things were looking pretty good.  

Then we met a food distributor who was interested in taking us to a higher level.  We met with the president of the company, who snarfed down about a pound of wings in under a minute; blue cheese dripping on his shirt.  He said, "We're gonna make you guys a lot of money!" and ordered 500 cases.  We had 30,000 pounds processed and delivered to this company.....and their sales VP told us they were on a consignment basis, the old man's nuts.  We'll pay you as we sell them.  And then they sat in their warehouse.  They screwed up our relationships our existing clients.  We sent our own people out with their sales team, and the only wings that were sold were sold by our guys.  They jacked the price up to $65 a case, and they just sat there til we were out of money and out of business.  Our lawyer couldn't get the old man to admit he even ordered the stuff, and we had no choice but to stop.

I can honestly say that we had an impact on bringing the wings to the midwest....it was inevitable that they would end up being popular.  And they are pretty easy to duplicate.  But we had an impact.  

We were young and made some mistakes, but we were on the right track.