John Young King of Wings
The King of Wings: The Story of John Young and the Erasure of Black Culinary Legacy
By Candace Goodman, The Good Blog
A HISTORY WRITTEN IN HUNGER, NOT INK
There’s a peculiar silence in American history—loud in its absence, sharp in its precision. It's the silence of names not written, of inventions claimed by others, of contributions repackaged to fit more comfortable narratives. It is the silence of Black America’s culinary genius, served hot and consumed widely, yet almost never credited.
When we talk about Buffalo wings, we aren’t just talking about a snack. We’re talking about a billion-dollar American icon—a cultural symbol baptized in sauce and consumed en masse. But underneath the crispy skin of that story is a truth that rarely gets served.
John Young, a Black man from Buffalo’s East Side, didn't just fry wings. He introduced an entire city to them. He bottled his own mumbo sauce, built a restaurant from scratch, and named the product Buffalo wings before anyone else. Yet, today, most Americans associate that dish with a white-owned bar across town.
“History is not always written by the victors,” says food historian Dr. Jessica B. Harris. “Sometimes it’s written by those with the loudest megaphone, the right ZIP code, and the skin tone deemed most marketable.”
So the question isn’t just who made the wings.
It’s why some stories stick while others are stripped clean.
JOHN YOUNG’S WINGS ’N THINGS
In 1961, John Young opened Wings ’n Things on Jefferson Avenue, a modest restaurant in Buffalo’s predominantly Black East Side. His innovation? Whole, breaded chicken wings drenched in a thick, tomato-based mumbo sauce—a sweet, tangy recipe inspired by D.C.'s Black culinary traditions.
He wasn’t selling scraps or leftovers. He was making wings the main event, and they were flying out the door by the thousands. Young even filed his business name and brand. He was first.
Then in 1964, the white-owned Anchor Bar across town began serving split, unbreaded wings in hot pepper sauce. Years later, they’d be dubbed “the inventors.” The press came. The spotlight came. The trademarks came. John Young, despite beating them to it, was left behind.
“IF HE WERE WHITE, THIS WOULDN’T BE A DEBATE”
“My father had already named them Buffalo wings. He was already selling them. The Anchor Bar didn’t invent them—they reinterpreted them,” says Lina Brown-Young, John’s daughter.
Cynthia Van Ness, Director of Library & Archives at the Buffalo History Museum, supports that timeline:
“Young deserves credit. His restaurant specialized in wings before the Anchor Bar did. The story people know is only part of the truth.”
But Young’s truth lived on the East Side.
It didn’t get media coverage. It didn’t get city marketing.
It wasn’t deemed “palatable.”
“This is the erasure we see time and again,” notes culinary scholar Michael W. Twitty. “Black chefs innovate. White institutions repackage and profit.”
THE ECONOMIC WINGS THAT NEVER TOOK FLIGHT
Buffalo wings today are a billion-dollar industry. Americans consume over 1.3 billion wings on Super Bowl weekend alone. Brands like Buffalo Wild Wings generate billions in annual revenue. Yet John Young died in 1998 with no royalties, no national recognition, and no stake in the empire he helped create.
“Had he owned the brand the way Ray Kroc did McDonald’s, we’d be talking about a Black food mogul today,” said Dr. Adrian Miller, author of Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine.
Even if Young had received just one cent per wing, his family might’ve earned tens of millions over the years. But his intellectual property, like so many other Black innovations, was never protected. Because America often rewards the messenger—not the originator.
A PATTERN AS OLD AS AMERICA ITSELF
Young’s erasure fits a painful pattern.
Nearest Green, an enslaved Black man, taught Jack Daniel how to distill whiskey. His name was lost for over a century.
Lewis Latimer created the filament that made Edison’s lightbulb work—but Edison got the spotlight.
Henrietta Lacks’ cells revolutionized medicine—without her knowledge or her family’s consent.
“We don’t need new stories,” said author Ta-Nehisi Coates. “We need to tell the old ones honestly.”
REMEMBER THE MAN, NOT JUST THE WING
Picture this: John Young, home in Buffalo, watching TV. Football game on. Chicken wings everywhere. Reporters calling the Anchor Bar “the birthplace.” Families across America licking their fingers to his flavor—without ever knowing his name.
He isn’t bitter in that moment. He’s quiet.
Because some silences are louder than rage.
History didn’t just forget John Young. It chose to.
It chose a neater story, one that didn’t involve race, poverty, or the uncomfortable truth that a Black man on Jefferson Avenue built a culinary legacy—and was pushed to the margins of his own invention.
But here’s the thing about truth: it waits.
It simmers. It stirs. And eventually, it rises.
So the next time you order Buffalo wings, speak his name.
John Young. The real king of wings.
Not because he was first.
But because he was forgotten—and still matters.
