Nationally Known “Wing King” Comes to Kenmore East High School | Schools

National Buffalo Wing Festival founder Drew Cerza offered Kenmore East Seniors his “recipe for success” during a morning long “Electives Exposition” at the high school, an event similar to a career fair meant to offer students ideas for potential career paths.  The “Wing King” spent 45 minutes speaking to students about his lengthy career, his favorite food that happens to be chicken wings, and what the true definition of success is.

“If you’re happy with yourself, then you’re successful.  Success is simply being happy and doing what you love.  I consider myself a success because I have two beautiful daughters.  They work hard in school, play multiple sports, and they think I’m pretty cool.  I have a wonderful wife who I love and adore, and I’m happy.  Even though it may change day to day or year to year, figure out what makes you happy, and simply do it,” said Cerza.

The founder of the wildly popular National Buffalo Wing Festival, hosted at the downtown ballpark that is home to the Buffalo Bisons, was inspired to create a party devoted to the chicken wing while sitting in his garage.

Cerza spotted a newspaper article on top of the recycle bin about the movie “Osmosis Jones” starring Bill Murray.  His character describes going to Buffalo, New York for a big chicken wing festival.  The author of the newspaper article noted that in reality there wasn’t a festival like that in Buffalo, and basically threw down the gauntlet for someone to start one.  Cerza literally struck gold, found his life’s inspiration, in the trash.

“I was inspired.  I thought ‘that’s got to be me.’ That was my calling.  I didn’t even know how to cook chicken wings, but I took a chance.  If you really want to know what to do in your life, just go to your garage and look for the recycle bin,” said the “Wing King.”

One week before the first National Buffalo Wing Festival Cerza was invited to cook chicken wings on national television, during a live broadcast with Matt Lauer on the “Today Show.”  It would be the first time he ever cooked a chicken wing.

“I didn’t have a chicken wing fryer, just a pot of oil.  Two things were going to happen: it would work or my hot oil would burn Matt Lauer to death.  Lo and behold, it worked,” said Cerza, who spoke to students about the importance of taking risks, and the fact that fears and personal doubts should never stop anyone from pursuing their passions.

“For the first festival, we had no idea if anyone would show up.  It was stressful.  There was a ballgame the night before so we couldn’t set up tents until midnight, the night before the big day.  Restaurants showed up at 10:30 the next morning, and people were lined up around the stadium at 10:00 AM.  The Fire Marshall showed up.  There was a big problem using 100 turkey fryers and 100 propane tanks to cook chicken wings for 40,000 people.  We worked it out, seven tents caught on fire, we had some bumps and bruises along the way, but it turned out to be a great event,” added the “Wing King.”

The tenth National Buffalo Wing Festival this summer hopes to grow on last year’s success, where 91,000 visitors from 49 states and 35 countries consumed 40 tons of chicken wings, the equivalent of 700,000 chicken wings.  The Kenmore native and his “Wing King” moniker has traveled the nation and appeared on national television shows promoting Western New York and the National Buffalo Wing Festival.

Pizza Hut hired Cerza to serve as the national spokesman of its Wing Street restaurants, and he has appeared on the Today Show, CNN, Live with Regis and Kelly, the Travel Channel, the Food Network, on the competitive cooking show “Throwdown! with Bobby Flay.”

“Before I found my calling I sold real estate, satellite dishes, and was even a pizza delivery guy.  I did what I had to do to pay the bills.  I didn’t find my purpose until I was 40 years old.  Don’t ever give up.  Life isn’t easy sometimes.  I didn’t give up.  I worked hard, found my passion, and followed my dreams,” were Cerza’s last words of wisdom for the Kenmore East students.