BUFFALO, NY {WKBW-TV} — Cynthia Van Ness heads up the library at the Buffalo History Museum. Among the many treasures there, is a collection of more than eight-hundred local restaurant menus.
On the job fifteen years, Cynthia says the collection began with her predecessors, but she's kept it going. She figures she is responsible for adding as many as five hundred menus.
The menus represent both eating establishments that have closed as well as those that are still up and running. Names from the past like "The Park Lane" , "The Cloister" and "The Ground Round" are all included in the collection.
There are historic menus like the one from the from Clarendon Hotel which is the first known Buffalo Restaurant to serve "chicken wings" all the way back in the 1850's. Cynthia says that eventually the collection will be catalogued to make it easier for researchers.
Cynthia Van Ness welcomes menus old and new. She says "We will take menus from as humble as your pizza and wings joint all the way up to fine dining."
If you have any menus you would like to donate to the Buffalo Museum of Science you can email Cynthia Van Ness at library@buffalohistory.org
