Anchor Bar

Anchor Bar, at 1047 Main Street in Buffalo, New York, is the birthplace of one of the most consequential dishes in American culinary history: the Buffalo wing. On March 4, 1964, Teressa Bellissimo — co-owner of the bar with her husband Frank — fried a batch of chicken wings, tossed them in a sauce of Frank's RedHot and margarine (later butter), and served them with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing to her son Dominic and his friends late at night. The preparation, invented to use a kitchen ingredient that most restaurants discarded as scrap, became the defining bar food of the late twentieth century and has spread globally to become one of the most consumed American dishes worldwide. Anchor Bar continues to serve the original recipe: jumbo chicken wings fried to order, tossed in the original sauce, and served with celery and blue cheese dressing. Medium, hot, and suicide heat levels are available alongside the mild original preparation. The restaurant is large — a sprawling bar and dining room that accommodates the substantial tourist traffic the birthplace of the Buffalo wing attracts — and the interior is decorated with memorabilia and Buffalo sports iconography that gives it the character of a genuine western New York institution. The house sauces are bottled and sold nationally. Buffalo is located in western New York State, approximately an hour from Niagara Falls and a 4.5-hour drive from New York City.