On Saturday Sept. 21 from 12 to 3, the 2019 Genesee Valley Chicken Wing Festival lined the sides of Center Street in Geneseo. Profits went to the Association for the Preservation of Geneseo (Madelyn Dewey/arts and entertainment editor).
The scorching sun of Saturday Sept. 22 was no match for the spice of the 2019 Genesee Valley Chicken Wing Festival’s chicken wings. Half of Geneseo’s Center Street was closed off and prepped with tents for the cheerful festival from 12 to 3 p.m. Geneseo students, their parents and several members of the Geneseo community showed up to try some chicken wings.
Tickets for food were sold online ahead of time, but spontaneous wing-fanatics were also able to purchase a package of wings and a soft drink on the spot at the festival’s entrance tent. Profit from ticket sales went to the Association for Preservation of Geneseo’s effort to save the Wadsworth wall.
The mile-long wall around the Wadsworth Estate is a Geneseo historical landmark. According to APOG, the wall represents the “gateway to Geneseo’s Historic District.” This stone wall was built in the 19th century and has begun to crumble with time.
Every Saturday since 2012, APOG has worked on maintaining the wall because of its historical significance to the Geneseo community and the organization uses the Genesee Valley Chicken Wing Festival as a fundraiser to support this project. This wing festival has become an annual tradition in Geneseo and invites people of all ages to attend.
The Genesee Valley Chicken Wing Festival offers entertainment for the entire family. A wing tasting competition and a wing eating competition were two of the festival’s highlights. In front of several tables for chicken-wing-eaters, live music was performed by the cover band The Reef Airs.
The Reef Airs band plays covers of “swing, boogie-woogie and Texas honky-tonk” songs by Asleep at the Wheel, Commander Cody, Elvis, Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Jerry Lee Lewis, Big Bopper and more. Band member Captain Jones plays piano, member General Trott plays guitar and both men provide vocals. The charismatic duo brought life and excitement to the festival.
Chicken wing venders at the festival included local restaurant Pizza Paul’s, Livingston Lanes pub and the Village Tavern bar. Manager of Pizza Paul’s, Teresa Chichester, enjoys seeing the annual festival crowd.
“My favorite part of the festival is bringing the community together,” Chichester said. “We don’t necessarily get to see the parents of students much. One of the parents calls and orders pizza for her son while he’s at college, and I actually got to meet her today face to face, so that was fun.”
Chichester is one of the reasons that the Genesee Valley Chicken Wing Festival is still up and running.
“Four of us business owners are all friends,” Chichester said. “We wanted to keep this festival going for the community. We kind of pulled this together last minute and made it happen.”
Festivalgoers enjoyed the event immensely. Psychology major junior Francesca Calobrisi attended with her sister, first-year Domonique Calobrisi and their mother.
“It’s cool,” Calobrisi said. “I like the tavern wings the best.”
The Village Tavern wings were a crowd favorite, thanks to the blue cheese in their sauce. The fundraiser was definitely helpful for the APOG rebuild of the Wadsworth wall. Not only did the event raise money for the project, but it reminded people of their appreciation for the wall and its significance to the community.
“My freshman year, I did the Knights First Day of Service and I helped rebuild the wall,” Calobrisi said. The wall has made an impact on the lives of several Geneseo community members, and people at the festival were glad to pitch in to support its conservation.
APOG “exists to preserve, improve and restore the places of civic, architectural and historic interest to Geneseo and to educate members of the community about their architectural and historical heritage.” The wing festival certainly did its job to spread the word of APOG’s mission and kept students and the community entertained with delicious food in the meantime.