Steve Cichon is a proud Buffalonian helping the world experience the city he loves. writing about the people, places, and ideas that make Buffalo unique and special. The storyteller and historian has written six books, worn bow ties since the 80s, and is the News Director at WECK Radio. A 25 year Buffalo media veteran, Steve's contributed more than 1400 Buffalo History stories to The Buffalo News, worked at WIVB-TV, Empire Sports Network, and spent ten years as a newsman and News Director at WBEN Radio. He's also put his communication skills to work as an adjunct professor, a producer of PBS documentaries, and even run for Erie County Clerk. Steve's Buffalo roots run deep: all eight of his great-grandparents called Buffalo home, with his first ancestors arriving here in 1827.
Even removing any social justice or political overtones, as a community, Buffalo has a tortured relationship with national chains, especially chain restaurants.
Police blockades set up outside Chick-Fil-A’s Walden Avenue location in Cheektowaga during its first week of operation, November, 2018. (Steve Cichon photo)
On one hand, we are proud of our superlative and eclectic local dining scene, and we are very encouraging and protective of our Western New York neighbors trying to make it in the slim-margin restaurant world.
One the other hand, though, we bear a chip on our collective shoulder when Western New York “doesn’t fit into the business model” of some trendy shop we saw on vacation or a Shangri-La Superbowl advertiser.
“It’s fine,” we say, like any other jilted lover, if a national company ignores us– but then we drop everything and fawn when they pay us any attention. For a little while anyway, depending on the brand.
We say “thanks, but no thanks” to plenty of big names. Dominos and Dunkin Donuts have both tried more than once to make splashy entrances into the Buffalo market, but stores have eventually closed. Folks in the Elmwood Village were downright hostile when a Jimmy John’s Subs opened in 2016 (and closed the following year.)
The fact is Buffalo has a pretty good handle on quick pizza, coffee, and subs, and those places did little to ignite our imaginations here.
But the opposite is also true.
Just like with this week’s bated-breath arrival of Chick-Fil-A, a handful of big chains have made headlines with their much-anticipated grand openings in Western New York. In 2013, Popeye’s came to Elmwood Avenue in North Buffalo and in 2015, Sonic opened on Union Road in Cheektowaga, each with much fanfare, long lines, and news coverage. Both were nationally advertised brands that Buffalonians might have only sampled on vacation.
Lining up at Sonic during its first week of operation on Union Road. (Steve Cichon photo)
That notion of seeing something great elsewhere and wanting it here extended to grocery stores as well. Wegmans remains a beloved local giant, but when Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods came to town, many waited in line to give them a try.
Jammed aisles in the days after Trader Joe’s opening on Niagara Falls Blvd. (Steve Cichon photo)
By now, whether you’re a Buffalonian who waits in line or Western New Yorker who scoffs at the queues, just about everyone expects a line when something new comes to town. Even if you don’t “get it,” you know it’s going to happen—ever since the grand-daddy of all mass-hysteria snaking lineups happened in October, 2000.
Directing traffic outside Krispy Kreme, 2000.
Just like all Buffalo snow storms are measured against the Blizzard of ’77, all Buffalo grand-opening crowds are measured against Krispy Kreme.
Because of the blizzard, we recognize that any snow can quickly become an emergency. Because of Krispy Kreme, we know our fellow Western New Yorkers can’t wait to get into a newly opened chain.
Both the ’77 and ’00 watermark events started slowly. Krispy Kreme hired an off-duty police officer to handle traffic and two Town of Tonawanda cars were sent to the scene on that first morning on Oct. 3, 2000.
Making the donuts at Krispy Kreme’s now-closed Niagara Falls Blvd. store.
“Traffic was backed up two blocks to Brighton (Road), and there were women with babies in strollers, all sorts of people just milling around watching the action,” said Town of Tonawanda Assistant Chief Robert Rowland on that first day. Traffic stayed heavy all day.
More than a week later, on Oct. 11, store manager Dave Benfanti told The News, “We never expected the opening to be this big.” Several nearby businesses like Goodyear Tire, EMS, and M&T Bank reported their parking lots were still being filled with more Krispy Kreme customers than their own.
A month later, only a few days before Election Day, the lines were still long as First Lady Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea came to Buffalo in the closing moments of what would prove to be Mrs. Clinton’s successful run for the US Senate. A good part of the Western New York trip was spent at—yes, Krispy Kreme on Niagara Falls Blvd., with both Clintons shaking hands to those in line and signing boxes of doughnuts of those leaving. It all added to the surreal feel of Buffalo’s weird obsession of late 2000.
The lines lasted longer than anyone would have expected, but they died out just as quickly.
Krispy Kreme’s Western New York footprint rapidly expanded first with another stand-alone store across Walden Avenue from the Walden Galleria, and then by making the doughnuts available in each of the several dozen Wilson Farms stores in the area.
Niagara Falls Blvd store, now just a memory.
Five years later though, in August, 2006, it was announced the stores would close and the red glow of the “Hot Doughnuts Now” sign was forever darkened, but the memory is forever imprinted on our psyche.
The lasting result of the Krispy Kreme story is a lot like the result of the Blizzard. Until the last person who remembers the epic snow of 1977 is gone, whenever it snows a little more than we expect, there will be someone telling the story of where they were, and how the snow drifts reached the traffic lights.
And whenever we Buffalonians get overly excited about a fast food joint, national grocery store, or heaven forbid—someday an Ikea store, we remember with smiles, frowns, and a sense of bewilderment the great Krispy Kreme rush of 2000.
There was never anything but goodness and duty in his heart and in his intentions, from a time when that meant something to most Americans. I mourn his death today and continue to mourn what seems to be the further eroding of that part of the American spirit every day.
Found a couple of new articles about my great-great-grandfather, Grandpa Coyle’s grandpa, Captain Thomas Slattery.
He was a Great Lakes ship captain. After many years commanding package freighters, he was given the helm of the SS Juniata, one of the great passenger ships of the Great Lakes.
Thomas J. Slattery was born to recent Irish immigrants in Prescott, Ontario. He moved to Buffalo as a young sailor in his 20s, living first on Orlando Street and then on Indian Church Rd.
I’ve never seen the photo of him as a young man in the one article. The only photos I’ve ever seen of of him as a much older man.
The WECK Coffee Club paused at 8:46am this morning.
This morning we pause to remember… where we were, what we doing at the moment when we found out our world had changed.
We remember that moment…
We remember the people who were sitting at their desks in the World Trade Center and The Pentagon… and those who wrestled evil on a plane over Pennsylvania.
We remember the first responders who rushed in to help…
We remember those who volunteered to defend our country…
and we remember those who who never returned home.
In their honor, I hope we also remember the way we came together as a country and as a people, and try to find some way to bring that feeling into our daily lives– and remember what we have in common as Americans, in honor of those we lost on this day 17 years ago.
When 1230 am officially signed on in 1956, WNIA was promised to be “as revolutionary to radio as color was to television.”
WNIA, 1956
The record library here in our Genesee Street studios boasted more than 10-thousand recordings.
From early on, 1230am was “a home for top tunes” as J. Don Schlaerth put it in the pages of the Courier Express, who wrote, “as a new station with lots of peppy music, the ratings began to jiggle.”
WNIA control room. (Dennis Majewicz photo)
Sixty years ago, it was a difficult decision for a radio station to play rock ‘n’ roll music full-time, like WECK does now.
In 1957, Gordon Brown, owner, WNIA, told The Courier-Express, “We play the top 100 tunes half of the time and the old standards the other half of the time. I think people like the sweet popular music as well as rock ‘n’ roll. We’ve had terrific results in the popular music field. We also like to play some soft music to help the housewife work around the house.”
WNIA Founder Gordon Brown, remembered in his hometown Democrat & Chronicle in 1979.Tom Donahue, 7th grade
A few years after the station first signed on, a group of local singers—all high school students– at WAY Radio productions sang the jingles you can hear in the piece linked above.
One of those singers was Tom Donahue.
That means his voice has now been heard professionally on the station for more than 50 years.
Mike Melody, Tommy Thomas, and Jerry Jack…
We’re continuing to talk about the early rock ‘n’ roll history here at 1230am.
There were dozens of young disc jockeys who played the hits here at Buffalo’s upstart rock ‘n’ roll station.
Dozens of DJs– but only 4 or 5 names.
Station founder Gordon Brown insisted that the disc jockeys at the radio stations he owned use those on-air handles instead of their own.
He felt the stock jock names gave a more consistent sound even as the DJs changed rapidly, it was always Mike Melody and Jerry Jack.
WNIA’s on air schedule
6 AM to Noon – Tommy Thomas
Noon to 6:30 – Jerry Jack
6:30 to 12:30 AM – Mike Melody
Brown died in 1977, and the station was sold. Since then, the disc jockeys you’ve heard on WECK didn’t necessarily have to use their own names– but they didn’t have to be Mike Melody or Mac McGuire, either.
WNIA poster created from original WNIA art by Steve Cichon.
Midnight Mood & Be Big….
We continue our week long look back at the early rock ‘n’ roll history of 1230am.
It’s one of the most requested songs as people reminisce about radio in Buffalo in the 50s and 60s.
It was the 1230 theme song for years, Richard Maltby’s Midnight Mood would play every night at midnight… that’s a tradition we continue now at WECK each night as the clock strikes twelve.
WNIA was a quirky station. The daily noon time Catholic prayers were bookended by rock ‘n’ roll music.
And if you listened to the station at all in those days, you probably remember that you should be big… be a builder.
THE IMPRESSION YOUR FRIENDS AND OTHERS HAVE OF YOU IS BASED ON WHAT YOU DO…TO TEACH…
TO CREATE… TO ACCOMPLISH… OR TO BUILD, WHETHER YOU DIG THE TRENCH FOR THE FOUNDATION
FOR A BUILDING; WHETHER YOU LAY THE LAST BRICK ON ITS TOP; WHETHER YOU WORK WITH A PICK
AND SHOVEL OR WITH THE TOOLS AND MACHINES, OR IN THE OFFICE,OR SELL THE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES
OF INDUSTRY; WHETHER YOU GROW, PREPARE OR HARVEST THE VERY FOOD WE EAT… WHETHER YOU ARE A
HOMEBUILDER RAISING,TEACHING OR EDUCATING YOUR FAMILY OR OTHERS HOW TO BE COME A BUILDER…
NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU DO, IF YOU ARE A BUILDER, YOU ARE ONE TO BE LONG REMEMBERED.
THOSE WHO ATTEMPTED TO DESTROY THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT WERE DESPISED AND SOON FORGOTTEN…THOSE
THOUSANDS WHO LABORED TO BUILD THEM WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN………. BE BIG…… BE A BUILDER
–as transcribed at http://www.flynnflam.com/wsay/bbbb.html, a website dedicated to remembering WNIA’s sister station, WSAY, in Rochester.
The minute long diatribe, punctuated with the slogan BE BIG, BE A BUILDER, was the brainchild of station owner Gordon Brown.
It was a reaction to the war protests of the late 60s, and now its a well-remembered part of Buffalo’s broadcasting history.
Listening to the Archives
Mac McGuire, Tommy Thomas, Mike Melody, and Jerry Jack all holding court in the Make Believe Ballroom during the 50s, 60s and 70s.
The call letters WNIA originally stood for “NIAGARA.”
When the station was sold in 1977, the new call letters, WECK were selected to represent another Buffalo institution.
WECK sticker, late 1970s.
From WNIA to WECK
This week we’ve been looking back at the history of 1230am…
For 20 years, tiny WNIA had a powerhouse sized influence on rock ‘n’ roll radio in Buffalo, from the same ranch house we broadcast from on Genesee Street.
From Mike Melody’s “Make Believe Ball Room,” to “Be Big… BE A BUILDER,” to Richard Maltby’s “Midnight Mood,” WNIA and 1230am were very much a part of the tapestry that made up life as a teenager in Buffalo in the 50s and 60s.
By the late 70s, those days were over, the station was sold. WNIA became WECK.
The Roll that rocks. Get it? WECK Roll?
Anyway, 1230 grew up with those 50s and 60s rock ‘n’ rollers and was spinning the disco tunes with DJs like Frankie Nestro.
After years of “Music of Your Life,” then talk for a while, we’re now back to our roots as Buffalo’s home for Good Times, and Great Oldies…
Burt Reynolds spent time in Buffalo during the shooting of “Best Friends” in 1982.
He happened to be in Buffalo for a bit of history.
Reynolds and his co-star Goldie Hawn were at the Aud when Wayne Gretzky broke Phil Esposito’s single season goals record.
Along with Oilers GM Glen Sather, Gretzky, Hawn, Reynolds and Espo celebrated with a photo in the Aud Club at Memorial Auditorium, in front of that amazing Sabres latch hook rug.
Glen Sather, Wayne Gretzky, Goldie Hawn, Burt Reynolds, Phil Esposito, on the night Gretzky beat Espo’s single season goal record with his 77th goal of the season of the 1981-82 season.
Like most good things in Buffalo in the 80s, Mayor Griffin played a small role in “Best Friends”– he can be seen as a kid’s hockey coach in one scene.
Mayor Griffin with Burt Reynolds, when he was in town shooting “Best Friends.”
From The Complete History of Parkside:
Parkside Goes Hollywood
Though usually thought of in terms of a staid, august, and venerable neighborhood, Parkside has also seen its share of glitz and glamour. For the same reason so many Buffalonians are attracted to its wonderful architecture and tree-lined streets, Hollywood producers have also taken notice over the years.
For three weeks in February, 1982, Summit Avenue went Hollywood for a week. Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn spent that time holed up at 45 Summit Avenue, shooting scenes for the big screen motion picture Best Friends. The local accommodations were much cheaper than the LA high rollers were used to, as Ellen Parisi wrote in her History of the Good Shepherd Church, only a few doors down from the home where most of the film was shot:
In order to accommodate the cast’s and crew’s noon meal, the advance people made arrangements to rent Jewett Memorial Hall. “Probably the biggest mistake I ever made,” said Fr. Jerre Feagin, Good Shepherd rector 1978-82, “was not charging them more. When they asked how much it would cost to rent the hall for three weeks, I said, ‘One Thousand dollars.’ that was a lot of money to the Church of the Good Shepherd. But the man looked at me with great surprise in his eyes, as if to say, ‘Is that all?’ and he immediately wrote a check.”
Production trucks for BEST FRIENDS line up along Summit Avenue
The Parkside home of Alex Trammell and the Buffalo snow provided the perfect backdrop for producers. Signs outside of the home pleaded for untracked snow… But one four-legged critter didn’t see the sign and spoiled the scene producers had hoped for, namely virgin, freshly fallen snow. But that errant dog didn’t provide the only challenge to filming:
“There was one problem with a neighbor who didn’t want (the film people) there,” Fr. Feagin continued. “It was a nuisance. They roped the streets off. Mounted police were all over keeping intruders out. Big sound and power trucks came in at 5am and parked all over the streets. There were catering trucks selling things. It was like a carnival. Well, this one neighbor didn’t like it, and in protest, every time they’d begin filming, he’d run his lawnmower. In February. The director, Norman Jewison, approached me and asked me to do something. The man causing the trouble was a Roman Catholic, so I called Fr. Braun from St. Mark’s and he straightened it out. That movie company was only a few hours from packing up and leaving town in search of a new location if Fr. Braun hadn’t been able to stop the noise.”
Main Street mocked up to look like Chicago.
Hollywood was back in Parkside the following year, this time at the corner of Main Street and West Oakwood Place for the shooting of The Natural. Glenn Close and Robert Redford spent a few days in August, 1983 at the Parkside Candy Shoppe. The no-nonsense long time owners of the ice cream parlor, Ted and Sandy Malamas, told the Parkside News in 1988 that they were impressed with Close, who garnered an Academy Award Nomination for her role in the film. Given their silence on the rest of the cast, one can draw ones own conclusion.
from The Natural. Glenn Close and Robert Redford on Main St at W Oakwood Pl.
The scenes shot inside the store were, according to the story, taking place in Chicago. A large matrix of I-beams was erected of Main Street at Oakwood to give the appearance of Chicago’s elevated train. Filming of the movie also took place at War Memorial Stadium and All-High Stadium, the Buffalo Schools field just up the street behind Bennett High School.
Redford standing in roughly the same location as the above shot, from a different angle.
After a twenty year hiatus from Tinsletown, Parkside returned to the small screen in 2003 as the setting for the MTV Reality Series Sorority Life. Season 2 of the show featured the Delta Xi Omega sorority from the University at Buffalo. Their sorority house for 2002 was at the southwest corner of Crescent and West Oakwood. Shooting for the show happened all over the neighborhood, but perhaps most publicly at Kostas Restaurant on Hertel Avenue, where cameras followed one of the sisters to work as a waitress.
Parkside also played a dark role in a similar MTV show shot in Buffalo the following year. Three UB students were arrested after breaking into the Buffalo Zoo in 2003 as a part of a videotaped stunt for the show Fraternity Life. In an incident reminiscent of stunts dreamt up after a night of collegiate drinking at the Park Meadow two decades earlier, The pledges were to break into to the zoo, and take an animal home as a pet.
This week we’re looking back at the Disco era in Buffalo.
By 1975, the music and fashion and lifestyle associated with disco music was sweeping the nation.
Buffalo in 1975
Today, what Buffalo looked like when we first did the Hustle and learned to do a little dance, make a little love, and get down tonight in 1975.
Stan Makowski was Buffalo’s mayor. He had taken over City Hall a year earlier when Mayor Frank Sedita resigned because of failing health.
Mayor Stan Makowski was a state champion bowler.
Rick James had just signed with A&M Record, and was getting ready to return to Buffalo to form the Stone City Band.
Rick James, on the hood of his Cadillac, at Main & Genesee, Downtown Buffalo, 1977.
OJ Simpson had a career high 16 touchdowns for the Bills… and was known to enjoy the nightlife in Buffalo’s disco clubs.
Rick Azar with OJ Simspon
Only five seasons after first skating into Memorial Auditorium, The Buffalo Sabres were playing in the fog in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Gil Perreault congratulated by Jim Schoenfeld on the ice at Memorial Auditorium.
And when the Sabres weren’t playing at The Aud, it was the NBA Buffalo Braves with Bob McAdoo and Randy Smith.
Bob McAdoo signs with the Buffalo Braves
The Clubs
The flashy sights and groove-filled sounds of the disco experience filled places like Club 747, Uncle Sam’s, Mulligan’s, and dozens of smaller clubs around WNY.
In 1975, New York City’s Studio 54 was still two years away, but Buffalo’s Club 747 was touting itself as “America’s only superjet disco.”
WKBW Radio disc jockey “Super Shannon” was “in the cockpit” playing records and bringing plenty of energy to the microphone and atmosphere.
Club 747.
As many as 5,000 people a week were hustling their way through the airplane-themed club on Genesee Street.
By the end of the ’70s, the place had a $100,000 renovation, carried out by the same lighting crew that was responsible for “Saturday Night Fever.”
Uncle Sam’s on Walden Avenue was part of a chain of discotheques around the nation. The music was just as dance-able– but the dress code was a bit more relaxed and over all the crowd a big younger than it was over by the airport at 747.
Uncle Sam’s, Walden Avenue, 1974
Not too far away, Big Bertha’s at Broadway and Transit had an electronic dance floor.
There was He & She’s, the former Mother Tuckers, inside the Fun & Games amusement park near the blue whale car wash in Tonawanda.
Buffalo’s ultimate disco scene was Hertel Avenue’s hotspot of the 1970s, Mulligan’s. There was a little of everything there. It was the scene of a mafia ambush hit murder in 1974.
When a renovated Mulligan’s opened in 1975, it was billed as “a dancing and dining emporium modeled to suit the far ranging and capricious fancies of all who enter its doors.”
A trip to Mulligan’s might include a sighting of any number of national celebrities known by only their first names, like Cher or OJ, along with Rick James and his girlfriend Exorcist’s Linda Blair.
Buffalo’s Disco Fashion
We’re looking back at the disco era in Buffalo– and fashion was a big part of it.
During the late ’70s heyday at Club 747, a “boarding pass” to get into the club was $1, $2 on Saturday nights. Dancers were expected to be dressed appropriately — no sneakers, sweatshirts or “non-dress jeans” (remember, this was the ’70s) were allowed.
So where did you get your dress jeans?
Perhaps the best remembered disco duds stores were ManTwo and Pantastik. Each had as many as six WNY locations, but they were headquarted next door to one another on Bailey Avenue in the city.
Morey’s bellbottoms, Bailey Avenue, 1969
Morey Holtz was selling youth fashions at Morey’s on Bailey Avenue, when he decided to open ManTwo to sell youthful men’s fashions suits and leisure suits. Ads talk about things like “sensuous velvet” and “clothes that make it happen.”
ManTwo expanded into the Rochester market, before ManTwo and Pantastik filed for bankruptcy in 1981.
ManTwo, 1971
Next door was Pantastik, which opened bragging about 10,000 unisex pairs of pants– mostly bell-bottoms, dancing pants, and even those “dress jeans” that Club 747 was talking about.
Also unisex were Bastad clogs.
Bastad clogs at The Sample
Early on, you had to go to the Trillium Shop in Fort Erie to get a pair, before Trillium opened and Amherst store, and then The Sample started selling the Scandinavian footwear, too.
The Trillium Shop, home of Bastad Clogs in Fort Erie
It’s what we were wearing in Buffalo during the disco era.
The Personalities
There were a few personalities who became known as Buffalo’s disco ringleaders…
Frankie Nestro at WNIA
Right here on 1230am… back when our call letters were WNIA–in the late 70s, this station was Buffalo’s disco outlet as “The New Super Sound 12.”
DJs like Frankie Nestro– who was former recording artist himself and a Motown record promoter– was spinning the disco hits on these very airwaves.
Shane Brother Shane was spinning the music on the radio, but also at Club 747.
Shane Brother Shane
Aside from playing the music, he helped design the cockpit, the sound system, and the take off video. That video played every night at 9, when in a soft voice Shane would call to their seats to prepare for takeoff. As the engines started, and sound rattled glasses on the bar, “Higher and Higher” by the Moody Blues would play, and a dozen television monitors would hop to life with video of a 747 takeoff.
Kevin O’Connell is forever tied to Buffalo’s disco era, too.
Kevin O’Connell at Club 747, shooting “Disco Step-By-Step”
Not only did he air “Weather with a Beat,” a collection of weather statics scrolling with disco music playing in the background during his Channel 4 weather segments, he was also the host of Channel 4’s Disco Step-By-Step show.
Of course there were dozens guys in DJ booths in bars across the city who kept the music going, guys with names like Dr. John and Captain Disco.
Dr. John, left, and Captain Disco at Club 747. (From the John Bisci collection)
All providing the soundscape for the Disco era in Buffalo.
All this week, we’ve been looking at Buffalo’s definitive foods– the dishes we long for we we’re away, and the ones that just never seem to measure up when Buffalonians try to eat them elsewhere.
We’re starting with a classic.
Beef on Weck
Anderson’s beef on weck and a loganberry.
Beef on Weck has been a Buffalo staple since around the time of the 1901 Pan Am Exposition.
Gohn’s Tavern at Main and Delavan, across Delavan Avenue from Forest Lawn’s entrance, was the first restaurant that made roast beef on Kimmelweck rolls a regular specialty.
Gohn moved into a building next door when his property was bought out to put up a gas station in the 1930s. That spot eventually became The Locker Room, which claimed to be the original home of the Beef on Weck.
Inside The Locker Room Athletic Club, Delaware Ave, 1978
The Locker Room, Delaware Ave, 1978
The Locker Room and Bailo’s on Bailey and Lovejoy were Buffalo’s two favorite Beef on Weck spots for generations, but the sandwich was really Buffalo’s signature bar food, and available at dozens if not hundreds of taverns around Western New York.
There was even Beefy’s– the local roast beef fast food place that offered Beef on Weck at the Seneca Mall and a few other locations in the 1970s.
These days there are plenty of places that will serve you a Beef on Weck sandwich, but very few gin mills with a giant slab of beef and a pile of hard rolls right there behind the bar– the way the sandwich was first served more than a hundred years ago.
But the Beef on Weck remains one of Buffalo’s definitive foods.
Buffalo-style pizza
We’re looking at Buffalo’s definitive foods this week…
An author recently referred to Buffalo as “The Comfort Food Capital of America,” and there’s little doubt that Buffalo’s universal comfort food is take-out pizza.
a Bob & John’s-Hertel pie, 2015
That same writer, Arthur Bovino, writes in The Daily Beast that Buffalo just might be America’s Pizza Capital— or at least the country’s most underappreciated regional variety.
The sheer numbers bear that out. There are at least 600 pizzerias in the Buffalo area. Or to put it a different way, you could get pizza every night for 20 months, and not go to the same pie joint twice.
What makes a Buffalo pizza?
Santora’s was Buffalo’s first pizzeria. 1947 ad.
It starts with the crust. Tasty, doughy and golden, for those of us accustomed to it, it makes other crusts taste like cardboard. It’s doughy and soft, but it also stands up– literally. No floppy folding needed for a Buffalo slice.
1959 ad for Bison pepperoni, makers of Buffalo’s “cup and curl” pepperoni.
So there’s plenty of crust, and the crusts are bigger too. Order a large somewhere else in the country and you just might be disappointed.
On that bigger pizza, we pile on cheese in a way that would be considered extra cheese anywhere else.
Then there’s the pepperoni, which might be defined generally as flavorless, flat pink circles on your pizza. The best Buffalo pepperoni curls up a bit, gets a little charred on the edge, and makes the perfect meat vessel for the greasy goodness that adds so much flavor to our favorite pizzas.
Pizza became a fad around the country in the 50s, but we’ve been eating it here, and watching the perfect pie evolve since 1927 when Fioravante Santora started serving it. And then in 1946 when Dino started slinging pies at the Bocce Club on Hickory Street. And the Todaro’s started selling La Nova pizza in 1957.
Bocce Club announces new Bailey Avenue location. 1959 ad.
Pizza is an institution in Western New York, made up of hundreds of neighborhood institutions that make it a quintessential taste of Buffalo.
Santora’s was not only Buffalo;’s first pizzeria, but also among the first to deliver pizza. 1964 ad.
The Fish Fry
We’re continuing our week-long look at Buffalo’s definitive foods…
Mineo South take out fish fry, Lent 2018.
You can get a fish fry in other places, but Western New York is the only place you can get a Buffalo Fish Fry.
What that usually means for most of us is a giant piece of haddock covered thick, golden and crispy beer batter, tartar sauce, a lemon wedge, french fries, and hopefully more than one salad like coleslaw or potato salad. And the best fish fries have a piece of seeded rye bread thrown in on top.
This Buffalo Friday night staple at VFW Halls, Holy Name Dinners, and neighborhood taverns has been evolving into our current expectation for generations and generations.
The first place Buffalo flocked to go out for a fish fry was Richie Roth’s fish house. He was the city’s renown expert fisherman, and he started frying it up in his ramshackle shed on the banks of the Erie Canal at the foot of Hudson Street sometime around 1900.
Today, the spot is covered by the baseball diamonds you can see from the 190 in LaSalle Park. That part of the 190 was built in the bed of the Erie Canal.
The Buffalo Commercial, 1922
The shack which was condemned more than once still played host to politicians, musicians, and plain old working people. Those fishing boats were good for more than just bringing in fresh-caught Lake Erie fish– even during Prohibition, the beer flowed freely at Richie Roth’s.
Buffalo’s brewer Mayor Francis X. Schwab, who himself faced federal charges in the production of “near-beer” that was over the legal alcohol limit, lauded Roth after an inspection of his fish shack in 1922.
“This vice talk is all bunk,” Schwab told The Buffalo Commercial. “(Police Captain) Jimmy Higgins didn’t see a thing wrong. There’s no law against eating fish, I guess.” He called it “a nice place.”
The Courier-Express called Richie Roth’s “the best fish fry in the world.” He spent decades arguing with the city over his right to stay in the shack he’d worked out of for more than 40 years. He died in 1948.
Trautwein’s serving Blue Pike, 1955.
Before 1960, any good fish fry was made with blue pike. Once the most ubiquitous and tasty fish of Lake Erie, the blue pike was over-fished and saw competition from invasive species such as rainbow smelt.
As the blue pike grew more rare, Buffalonians began to acquire a taste for the haddock fish fry, which is a good thing. By the 1970s, the blue pike was generally accepted as extinct.
The Buffalo Hot Dog
As we continue to look at Buffalo’s definitive foods, we look at the hot dog.
Sahlen’s hot dogs on a home grill, with 4 different levels of char.
Just like pizza, they have hot dogs everywhere, but we all know there’s something special and different about a Buffalo hot dog.
Longtime Buffalo butcher Mark Redlinksi tells me the biggest difference between a Buffalo hot dog and one of the national brands is the casing. He says it’s difficult to find a natural casing if you’re not buying a Buffalo dog. Sahlen’s most popular varieties are tender casing dogs, but natural casings are also available.
It’s also what’s inside– or not inside– a Buffalo dog. All meat, no fillers in a Sahlen’s or any other local brand. It’s also a unique beef to pork ratio we’ve become used to here.
And of course, like everything else in Buffalo– our hot dogs are much bigger than what the national brands sell.
A Ted’s dog, loaded.
As far as how we eat ’em, there are two equally definitive Buffalo styles.
The charcoal broiled dog highlights that natural casing and gives a great bite… and maybe a great crunch if you like yours well done. Ted’s charbroiled dog, on a toasted roll, with special spicy sauce, mustard, relish, onions, and a pickle spear is a WNY Classic.
Ted’s has been serving Buffalo’s favorite hot dogs since 1947.A Louie’s Texas hot, “up,” wrapped in the to-go wax paper.
Another WNY classic is the Texas Hot, also known as the “slime dog,” the “scum dog,” and if you’re from South Buffalo, the “shit canoe.” (I think I grew up thinking that last one is what they were officially called. )
The hot dogs are usually a slightly different formulation… usually without the natural casing, which would get rubbery when fried on the griddle.
On that griddled dog, add mustard, slivered onions, and that spicy meat sauce.
“Slime on the line” at Seneca Texas Hots on Seneca Street.
Whether you like ’em off the grill or drowning in that Texas Hot gravy, the Buffalo hot dog is like no other.
Of all these great Buffalo foods, only one is known around the world with the city’s name attached to it– of course, that’s the chicken wing.
Wings. Medium. Extra Crispy.
These days, there are dozens, probably hundreds of varieties of chicken wings available across WNY… but the original is still the benchmark… chicken wing parts fried doused in a combination of butter and Frank’s hot sauce.
The well-told story of the chicken wing is that Anchor Bar owner Teressa Bellissimo whipped up the first wings as snack for her son and his friends after midnight on a Lenten Friday in 1964.
This 1972 shot is the first of many photos showing The Anchor Bar’s Dominic Bellissimo and chicken wings appearing in The Buffalo News through the years. (Buffalo Stories archives)Teressa Bellissimo, the inventor of the chicken wing
While Teressa Bellissimo and the Anchor Bar certainly get the kudos for Buffalo’s first split wing, they might have to share the title of Buffalo’s first spicy wing with John Young, who served unsplit wings— with the flat and club still connected to each other and the wing tip— all covered in his spicy Mambo sauce at his “Wings & Things” restaurant on Jefferson Avenue starting in the mid-’60s.
Still, it’s the Anchor Bar’s version which gained notoriety and became a Buffalo institution.
Looking under “Pizza” in the yellow pages of Buffalo’s 1969 phone book, only one restaurant — the Anchor Bar — lists “chicken wings” as a menu option in its ad.
Ten years later, in the 1979 phone book, 54 different pizza restaurants list wings as a menu option.
Today, even the restaurant that calls itself “Just Pizza” has succumbed to wing sales.
But back to that 1969 phone book– in the “Restaurant” section– the Anchor Bar’s ad makes mention of music and Italian specialties, there is no mention of chicken wings.
In the RESTAURANT section, the only mention of wings is a small listing for “Wings & Things,” John Young’s Jefferson Avenue restaurant, which was of many East Side spots were people were eating some version of chicken wings before the Anchor Bar made them into what the world knows as Buffalo Wings.
By Steve Cichon
