Glens Falls Collaborative (File photo).
The annual Glens Falls Wing Fest is back on, April 30, 2022. The pandemic shut the event down over the past two years, and this picture of maskless people was taken pre-pandemic.
The Glens Falls Collaborative announced the return of the annual Wing Fest event on Saturday, April 30 from noon to 3 p.m. in downtown Glens Falls.
The collaborative cancelled the hot-wing festival in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. Last year, it was planned for October, late in the year when organizers thought the worst of the pandemic may have passed, but that too was cancelled.
The event is a competition between regional restaurants for the best hot wings, including traditional chicken wings, hot chicken fingers, and vegetarian or vegan wings. The Bullpen Tavern on Glen Street in the city has been dominant over past years.
This year’s event is dedicated to Michael DuBray, also known as DeeJay DuBray, who helped found the event in 2015 and served as its chair and champion for many years. He died in January, a day after having surgery at Glens Falls Hospital.
"Mike DuBray loved hot wings, the hotter the better,” said Nancy Turner owner of the Bell House Inn and the committee co-chair of the event.
She recalled a time that she, DuBray and a few others met at Fenimore’s, a restaurant in the Queensbury Hotel.
"He ordered their hottest wings,” she recalled. When the order arrived, he grabbed the to-go container and left, saying: “I'm taking them home, and I'm doctoring them up."
Nick Casey, an IT professional and local, professional Santa Claus, had seen DuBray do the same.
"He had a love of all things hot,” Casey said. The two had been friends since their days at Tamarac High School, in Cropseyville east of Troy.
DuBray required some acute medical attention including experimental growth hormones when growing up. Friends and acquaintances have remembered him for his small size but his great big heart and fun personality.
This love extended to the doctor who helped him, literally, grow.
[The Chronicle ran a story about DuBray, in 2019 highlighting the relationship between DuBray and Dr. Steven Levison with whom he reconnected many years after treatment. Read it here.]
Casey said he spoke with Dr. Levison at DuBray's memorial service this month.
The doctor lives in the middle of the country but was planning a trip back to Glens Falls this summer to visit DuBray, Casey said.
"They were going to get together for an eating contest of hot chicken wings and ribs,” Casey said. Thinking of the good-natured fun, "the doctor said, 'I don't know, I think I could beat him.'"
The exact way the Glens Falls Collaborative will remember DuBray on the day of the event is still being worked out.
The contest on April 30 runs from noon to 3 p.m. in City Park and along the adjacent streets. An awards ceremony will be held at City Park bandstand at 3:30.
Sidebar:
Restaurants are invited to participate by applying online at www.glensfallscollaborative.com.
Participating downtown restaurants will serve from their storefronts, and restaurants from outside the city will serve from locations along Glen, Ridge, Bay and Maple streets and in City Park.
For the public: Tasting Tickets are $1 each, and the number of tickets to taste varies by restaurant.
Tasting runs from 12-3 p.m. with an awards ceremony at 3:30.
Voting will take place online at glensfallscollaborative.com. QR codes for voting will be displayed around town and votes must be cast by 3 p.m.
This event is produced by the Glens Falls Collaborative with major support from the City of Glens Falls and the Glens Falls Business Improvement District.
FoothillsBusinessDaily.com is the media sponsor of the Collaborative.