John Young
John Young (1934–1998) was an American restaurateur, street vendor, and entrepreneur based in Buffalo, New York. He operated the chicken-wing restaurant Wings ’n Things on Buffalo’s East Side during the 1960s, where he sold whole, breaded chicken wings in a sweet, tomato-based “mumbo sauce.” Young is widely cited by food historians and journalists as one of the earliest pioneers of Buffalo-style chicken wings and a key figure in the dish’s disputed origin story.
Early life
Young was born in 1934 in Stockton, Alabama. He moved with his family to Buffalo, New York, as a teenager and worked a series of industrial and service jobs before entering the food business. He married Elizabeth Christine, and the couple had three children.
Wings ’n Things and mumbo wings
In the early 1960s, Young opened a small storefront at Jefferson Avenue and Carlton Street in Buffalo. After briefly selling household goods door-to-door, he began focusing exclusively on food and renamed the business Wings ’n Things.
Young’s signature dish consisted of whole, breaded chicken wings coated in a tangy, reddish “mumbo sauce,” a style influenced by African-American culinary traditions and Washington, D.C. takeout culture. The restaurant became a popular East Side gathering place and attracted local residents, musicians, and athletes.
Young later stated that he registered the “Wings ’n Things” name with the Erie County Clerk and intentionally built his business around wings years before many Buffalo establishments featured them prominently. Food writers have since described his shop as one of the earliest known restaurants to specialize in chicken wings as a standalone entrée.
Relationship to the Anchor Bar narrative
Young’s work is often contrasted with the more widely publicized story of the Anchor Bar, where Teressa and Frank Bellissimo are credited with popularizing another style of Buffalo wings in 1964. While the Anchor Bar version typically features unbreaded wings tossed in a vinegar–cayenne hot sauce, Young’s “mumbo wings” were whole, breaded wings coated in a sweet, tomato-based sauce.
Food historians note that these two early wing traditions developed independently on different sides of Buffalo and reflect distinct cultural influences. Young’s contributions have increasingly been recognized in scholarship and media as essential to understanding the full history of Buffalo wings.
Later life and death
Amid racial unrest and economic changes on Buffalo’s East Side around 1970, Young closed Wings ’n Things and moved with his family to Decatur, Illinois, where he continued to operate food businesses. He eventually returned to Buffalo in the 1980s and ran additional wing and soul-food restaurants at several locations. Young died in 1998.
Recognition and reassessment
For decades, popular histories of Buffalo wings focused largely on the Anchor Bar account. Beginning in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, journalists, culinary historians, and documentary filmmakers reevaluated Young’s role and highlighted his pioneering work at Wings ’n Things.
He has been profiled by national and local outlets including the History Channel series The Food That Built America, Vice’s Munchies documentary, the USA Today Network, and multiple Buffalo media organizations.
Young was posthumously inducted into the National Buffalo Wing Festival’s “Hall of Flame” for his early influence on the wing tradition.
Media coverage
Young’s story appeared in early reporting on Buffalo wings, including a 1980 article by Calvin Trillin in The New Yorker, which brought national attention to his claim as an early wing innovator.
In the 2010s and 2020s, Young was featured in:
- The History Channel’s The Food That Built America episode covering the origins of Buffalo wings
- Vice Munchies documentary segments on Black East Side food culture
- USA Today Network and Black Enterprise articles recounting his contributions
- Buffalo television features revisiting his place in local food history
Mural and public commemoration
In 2021–2022, a large public mural honoring Young—depicting him as the “King of Wings”—was installed near the site of the original Wings ’n Things restaurant at Jefferson Avenue and Carlton Street. The project involved Buffalo artists and local cultural organizations and was intended to recognize Young’s importance to the history of Buffalo wings and to African-American entrepreneurship on the East Side.
John Young’s Original Mumbo Sauce
In the 2020s, Young’s family revived his signature sauce under the brand John Young’s Original, using his original mumbo-sauce recipe. The product launch was celebrated through community events and covered by local media outlets. The brand emphasizes preserving Young’s culinary legacy and educating the public about his role in wing history.
Tours and popular culture
Young’s story has been incorporated into heritage tourism and food-history programming in Buffalo. A local bicycle tour company developed a “Wing Ride” that interprets multiple wing traditions in the city—contrasting the Anchor Bar narrative with Young’s East Side story—and includes tastings of wings prepared using his mumbo-sauce recipe in partnership with his daughter.
Local publications have described this approach as highlighting “a tale of two wings” in Buffalo and contributing to broader public recognition of Young’s place in the city’s culinary identity.
Legacy
Historians, journalists, and cultural institutions increasingly cite Young as a central figure in the evolution of Buffalo wings. His work at Wings ’n Things is now viewed as both a culinary innovation and a reflection of the cultural, racial, and economic dynamics of mid-20th-century Buffalo.
Ongoing efforts—including documentaries, murals, tours, and the John Young’s Original sauce brand—continue to promote a fuller understanding of Young’s contributions and ensure that his version of Buffalo wing history remains part of the public record.
See also
External links
References
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