By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
In 1950, Your Host opened its ninth restaurant — rapid growth after starting with a hot dog stand in 1944.
The Kenmore Avenue location, serving Sahlen’s hot dogs, was the first Your Host.
The restaurant chain’s growth, one ad proclaimed, was built upon “cleanliness, fine food and excellent service.”
A 1950 newspaper ad trumpeting the new restaurant showed photos of each of the restaurants first eight locations.
By 1968, there were 38 Your Host locations, with more than 850 employees serving 11 million meals a year.
The last 11 Your Host restaurants closed up for good in 1993.
Among the fine foods offered at the local chain with both booth and counter service, was Buffalo-baked Wonder Bread and Rolls, made by the Continental Baking Company, 313 Fougeron St.
Wonder Bread ad, 1930. Wonder Bread would come sliced starting in 1931.
Ward & Ward built the bakery in 1915, baking “Ward’s wonderful bread, the achievement of four bread-baking generations of the Ward Family.”
In 1924, Ward & Ward became a part of the Continental Baking empire, which became the makers of Wonder Bread in 1925.
For the next eight decades, Wonder Bread and the Hostess Cakes line of snacks were churned out the building where 100-foot-long ovens of brick and steel were capable of between 50,000 and 60,000 loaves a day.
“Ward’s” is visible on the smokestack of the Wonder Bread Bakery, as shown from the New York Central Beltline tracks.
There were still 300 employees making Wonder Bread and Twinkies when Continental Baking was bought out by Interstate Bakeries in 1995. Interstate let the ovens go cold in Buffalo in 2004, eliminating the last 150 jobs as well as the smell of bread baking along the Beltline railroad tracks.
