There were a lot of foam chicken wing hats bopping around the National Buffalo Wing Festival on Saturday, but only one blue cheese hat.
Lynda Taylor, a Hamburg resident, wears her homemade blue cheese hat – a wedge of foam Wisconsin cheese spray-painted blue – to Wing Fest most years, and has been going with her family since the festival’s first year in 2002. (Her daughter, MaryJo, wears a chicken wing. They have a celery hat for her husband, Thom, but he conveniently lost it before this year’s festival.)
Take a bite (copy)
Brody Gruel, 16, and his stepdad, Jason Rugg, bite into wings from Legend Larry’s during the National Buffalo Wing Festival on Saturday at Sahlen Field. Libby March, Buffalo News
They skipped the wing festival’s Highmark Stadium years. As season ticket holders for the Buffalo Bisons, they preferred the festival’s original location at the downtown Buffalo baseball stadium. At the Bills stadium, they thought the wing festival felt disjointed.
The Taylor family is among those happy that Wing Fest returned to its roots and is back this weekend at Sahlen Field.
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“We’re finally back home,” said MaryJo Taylor.
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Between bites of a drumstick tossed in gochujang sauce, North Tonawanda resident Adam Rezza said he liked Sahlen Field’s sprawling, open festival layout.
“It was so congested [at Highmark],” Rezza said. “Here it’s spread out. I actually feel like I can breathe and hear myself think.”
On Saturday morning, shortly before Wing Fest would open for the weekend, more than a dozen food vendors from all over the country prepped their wings.
Trent Weitzel, owner of Wyoming-based chicken wing food truck Double Dub's, expected to sell around 25,000 wings over the two-day wing festival.
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Trent Weitzel, owner of Double Dub's, shows off his chicken wing chain Saturday. Libby March, Buffalo News
Weitzel is a chicken wing devotee. He had been trying to get into the Wing Festival for years before a longtime customer, Bills quarterback Josh Allen, gave Weitzel the endorsement he needed. Since his first Wing Fest in 2019, Weitzel has won festival awards for his sauces, driven his yellow school bus full of employees to Bills tailgates at Highmark Stadium and been working on opening a food truck in Buffalo.
“I want a restaurant out here so bad,” Weitzel said. “Just because this is the home.”
For Buffalo, Wing Fest is a chance to celebrate our most famous food export and relish in hometown pride. It’s silly. (If the ubiquitous drumstick-shaped foam hats didn’t clue you in, then look at the bobbing for wings in blue cheese competition.) It’s tasty. It’s family-friendly.
All the trimmings (copy)
Workers from Double Dub’s put the finishing touches on a collection of wings at the National Buffalo Wing Festival. Libby March/Buffalo News
But for the restaurants that travel across many states to compete for trophies in the birthplace of the chicken wings, it’s serious.
“I mean, this is the Mecca of wings,” said Matt Ensero, founder and president of Connecticut-based wing franchise, Wing It On! “We’re just a humble little wing joint that started in Waterbury, Conn., and we can come in and compete with the legendary establishments like Anchor Bar … and even to be able to win awards, it’s just very humbling.”
Jordan Balduf, a South Buffalo native who has been living in Ann Arbor, Mich., is participating in his first Wing Fest as a wing vendor. He started his wing and biscuit restaurant, Side Biscuit, in 2020 from his Michigan driveway because he couldn’t find authentic Buffalo wings elsewhere.
“They’re all small. They’re all flabby,” Balduf said. “It wasn’t real-deal wings.”
Wing picnic (copy)
Tracy Matteson, left, Shelly Pitz and Kayla Scheib dig into an assortment of wings from Windjammers, Center Street Grille, Blind Rhino and Anchor Bar at the National Buffalo Wing Festival. Libby March, Buffalo News
Now, he wants to see if his wings can compete among the legends of his hometown. “I wanted to see if I got what it takes to be respected in the wing capital,” Balduf said.
There’s still some silliness to be had, even for the wing vendors.
With a glossy resin chicken wing dangling from a thick gold chain around his neck, Balduf put his arm around his wife, Olivia Chadwick, and said they’re expecting a baby. Wing Fest would be their gender reveal party.
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Buffalo Bills punter Brad Robbins, a customer of Side Biscuit from when he was in college, was going to kick a football onstage at Wing Fest on Saturday afternoon. The football would explode with red or blue to reveal the baby’s gender.
“Due the week of the Super Bowl,” Chadwick said.
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