µþ³Ü´Ú´Ú²¹±ô´Ç’s birthplace of the famous Buffalo wing, is opening its first ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ location in Tucson.
Doug Perry, who grew up in Tucson, is bringing the restaurant/sports bar to the former Brushfire BBQ restaurant on East 22nd Street and South Kolb Road, which closed in late 2023.
He said he hopes to open in early fall once he finishes an extensive buildout of the 6,800-square-foot building at 7080 E. 22nd St.
Plans include adding a 1,300-square-foot patio and decorating the interior with some of the memorabilia that you will find hanging on the walls of the original Anchor Bar on Main Street in downtown Buffalo, including customer license plates from around the country.
Anchor Bar Tucson will offer the jumbo wings made famous at the Buffalo bar where they were born in 1964 with bleu cheese; you can ask for ranch if you dare.Â
Anchor Bar Tucson will offer pizza, wings and the Buffalo staple beef on weck, a roast beef sandwich on a salty kummelweck roll.
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“The food is not going to change at all,†said Perry, a self-confessed Buffalo wing fanatic who tried Anchor Bar’s wings for the first time three years ago at the restaurant’s Washington, D.C., area outpost. “We’re going to have fresh wings. They’re going to be to the Anchor Bar standard; we don’t freeze a wing at Anchor Bar. And it’s going to be to the jumbo wing standard that Anchor Bar has created over time. All the sauces are the original sauces.â€
Anchor Bar, birthplace of the Buffalo wing, is expected to open a Tucson location this fall at a former Brushfire BBQ restaurant on East 22nd Street and South Kolb Road.
Anchor Bar’s original owner, Teressa Bellissimo, didn’t realize she was making culinary history in 1964 when she threw a bunch of chicken wings intended for the stockpot in a pan of oil then tossed the fried chicken in a spicy sauce made with butter and Frank’s RedHot Sauce as a late-night snack for her son.
She served the wings with bleu cheese dressing and celery sticks, and her son Dominic and his friends were blown away, according to Anchor Bar lore. The wings were added to the menu the next day.
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By the early 1990s, wings were featured on restaurant and bar menus and at pizzerias around the country, offering ranch dressing as an alternative to bleu cheese.
“No self-respecting person eats wings with ranch, come on,†joked Perry, a retired federal air traffic controller who said that the Anchor Bar Tucson will have both ranch and bleu cheese, “but bleu cheese is going to be the staple.â€
Perry, who owns Anchor Bar Tucson with his wife, plans to install 58 TVs that will broadcast Buffalo Bills football and Buffalo Sabres hockey games alongside a full slate of pro and college sports. The restaurant, like the 17 Anchor Bar locations in places such as Western New York, Texas and Georgia, is part of the Bills Backers, the team’s worldwide fan club.
Anchor Bar Tucson is bringing a taste of Buffalo including the roast beef sandwich beef on weck to the Old Pueblo when Doug Perry opens the first ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ location in the fall.
It will join Tucson’s two other Bills Backers chapters: Your Mom’s House, formerly Jeff’s Pub Sports Bar & Grill, at 112 S. Camino Seco and Mulligan’s Sports Grill at 9403 E. Golf Links Road.
“The (Bills) Mafia is going to be welcome here with open arms. And I’m hoping to have Sabers fans,†Perry said. “We’re going to be a huge NFL sports bar so we’re going to be showing all the games every Sunday.â€
Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@tucson.com. On Bluesky
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Cathalena E. Burch
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