Poultry pioneer Teressa Bellissimo inspired a delicious all-American bar-food phenomenon. The late restaurateur cooked the first batch of Buffalo wings, the most iconic of all barroom bites, by happenstance one winter night in 1964 at Anchor Bar in Buffalo. Her invention soon upended an entire multi-billion-dollar sector of American agriculture.
Buffalo loves its NFL team just as much as its chicken wings. The two Western New York passions are intricately intertwined. Cerza claims the success of the Buffalo Bills in the early 1990s, when they won four straight AFC championships, generated national attention for the region’s obsession with pigskin and poultry. 'Whenever they showed Buffalo fans getting ready for a big game, they were always eating chicken wings,' said The Wing King.