A recent dinner at ATL Wings included (from top left) Cajun barbecue boneless wings, deep fried biscuits, lemon pepper wings, ranch dip, ATL style fries and medium hot wings.
Ralph and Velveia Bankhead like to think a little heavenly intervention led them to the 1950s-era gas station-turned restaurant on the corner of North Fourth Avenue and East University.
It all started with a business networking meeting at their Phoenix church three years ago. Velveia Bankhead was the keynote speaker, and one of the guests, fellow church member Cianna Kirksey, pitched her and her husband Mike’s ATL Wings restaurant chain.
Not long afterward, the Bankheads visited the restaurant in west Phoenix — there are eight locations in the Valley — and discovered something Ralph Bankhead called life-changing.
“These wings do something to you,” he said, sounding like a preacher about to hit that fever pitch of his sermon. “When people eat our wings, they love our wings.”
With so many locations in the Phoenix area, the Bankheads, who own the restaurant with Angela and Alphonso Tyson, turned their attention to Tucson and that 2,000-square-foot former filling station at 802 N. Fourth Ave. that had been converted into a restaurant in 2017.
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