a joint · NYAtomic Wings
A New York wing chain founded in 1989 by a man trying to reproduce what he had eaten as a student in Buffalo. Wings are cut by hand and breaded on the premises, which is not the Buffalo method, and sauced from more than a dozen house mixes. Shops are small — 800 to 1,500 square feet — and built for takeout rather than for sitting.
When they’re open
Harlem shop: 11am–11pm daily
open closed not published · Harvested · osm · checked 2026-09-16 · why so many close Sunday
The story Cited · web-atomic-wings-about
The founder is Adam Lippin, and the house dates the idea eight years before the first shop: "Back in '81, our fearless founder, Adam, was on a mission: to recreate the hot, crispy wings he chowed down on during his college days in Buffalo." The first Atomic Wings opened in New York City in 1989, on the Upper East Side.
Inference — the name reads as a heat claim rather than a place claim, which is how a New York shop sells a Buffalo idea to people who have not been to Buffalo. The word does its own work; see the term record.
What the chain actually sells is a departure from the style it descends from. Restaurant Business, in a September 2020 piece the company reprints, names the difference: "fresh, hand-cut wings that are breaded in-house." A Buffalo wing is fried bare. Breading a wing and calling it Buffalo is the thing Rochester gets argued with about, and Atomic Wings does it in Manhattan without anyone raising it.
Zak Omar bought in and runs the company as owner and chief executive. The same 2020 piece counted eleven shops with sixteen more in the pipeline, and quoted Omar drawing a boundary: "Atomic Wings doesn't aspire to being Buffalo Wild Wings."
How it is done Cited · web-atomic-wings-about
Wings arrive fresh, get cut by hand, get breaded in the shop, fry, then take one of more than a dozen house sauces, most of them gluten-free. The chicken is "all-natural, antibiotic- and hormone-free" in the house's words. Small rooms, counters, delivery.
Today Cited · web-atomic-wings-about
Shops across New York City, Albany, Buffalo and beyond, with a franchise list running into other states as of September 2026. The record's address is the Harlem shop on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, which OpenStreetMap carries with its hours and phone; the first shop was on the Upper East Side.
The particulars
| state | NY |
|---|---|
| status | open |
| founded | 1989 |
| cooked | fried |
| styles | Buffalo wings |
| region | New York City, The United States |
| address | 2090 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, New York, NY, 10026 · New York County Harvested · osm |
| where | 40.8025, -73.9565 (street) · OpenStreetMap · open in maps Harvested · osm |
| links | Atomic Wings · About |
| confidence | medium · needs verification · updated 2026-09-16 |
Near here
Crow-flies miles; the road is always longer. The finder sorts every joint in the country from wherever you're standing.
- 1.8 mi — Blondies Sports New York ♀ Woman-owned 🍺 Bar, 21 and over 📅 Wing night
- 10.2 mi — Peppa's Jerk Chicken Brooklyn ✊🏾 Black-owned 👪 Family-run 🌙 Open late
- 78.6 mi — Chickie's & Pete's Philadelphia 🍺 Bar, 21 and over 👪 Family-run 🥣 Sauce made in house
- 191.9 mi — Capital City Mambo Sauce Bowie 👪 Family-run ♀ Woman-owned
- 206.1 mi — Horace & Dickie's Seafood Camp Springs 👪 Family-run 🪟 Counter or window, no dining room
Who it runs with
Who talks about it
Where we got it
Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.