The story of John Young was recently featured in the New York Times. One thing Buffalo has always been known for is chicken wings, now days pretty much every local restaurant can make a pretty good chicken wing in my opinion. That has not always been the case here in Buffalo, back in the 1960s there was one savvy businessman that really made the Buffalo Wing what it is today.

Credit: nytimes.com 

John Young fried whole chicken wings, but it wasn't just the wings that made Mr. Young's wings so desirable, it was his famous "MUMBO SAUCE" a tomato-based condiment that people would come from all over the east side neighborhood late at night to John Young's restaurant just to order those famous wings, even some Buffalo Bills players would go there.

According to nytimes.com, in the late 1960s, the riots in black communities had left many black-owned businesses destroyed, and it was the same for John Young's restaurant on Buffalo's east side, which made Mr. Young move to Illinois where he ran food trucks and other wing shops. John Young did a lot of traveling and that's where much of his inspiration and idea's for his famous sauce recipes came from. John used everything from tomatoes, tropical fruits, and seasoned batter.

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I always wondered, who was the original founder of the Buffalo Wing, according to nytimes.com there was a version of John Young's famous sauce made by another east side tavern called, The Anchor Bar, which still ranks very high as one of Buffalo's best places to go for chicken wings.

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