The birth of the Pink Flamingo was anything but immaculate
When Mark Supples and Amy Taylor opened, the change in the till was all the money they had left
When mourners pulled a handle of Barton’s vodka from The Pink’s sooty rubble and sent it hand to hand, fueling their testimony as a crowd gathered to pay witness to the loss, it felt like 2024’s most Buffalo moment yet.
Buffalo once led the nation in making steel and moving grain. Now we are one of the nation’s leading specialists in civic grief. Other cities have ritual car-tipping after championships. In Buffalo, collective mourning is woven into our DNA, because we’ve had so much practice.
The Church of Buffalo Body Blows has its own calendar of observances marked by believers. Not just Super Bowl losses and Skate in the Crease, but Bethlehem Steel closing, the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and a racist murderer targeting an East Side supermarket because that’s where the most Black people were.
We’ve been the butt of so many cosmic jokes that fate’s writers’ room is recycling old gags. Wide right, again?
My hours clocked at The Pink barely put me in dabbler territory. I’ve enjoyed its DJs’ taste in music, and its outstanding steak sandwiches, plus all the beverages, but never hung out there long enough to shoot a game of pool.
People who loved the Pink took relics, like Holy Land pilgrims, to have a piece of the magic.
Nothing I could share could hold a candle to the outpouring online. So with everyone telling their stories of its ending, I decided to go back to the beginning, and get the Pink Flamingo origin story nailed down. Mark Supples, who opened the Pink at 23 with Amy Taylor, was willing to tell me how the story started.
Galarneau: “The Pink was a bar for people who got beat up in other bars.” Is that a real quote?
Supples: I believe that was a direct quote.
Q: Your first bar, already targeting an underserved audience.
A: I was 23 years old. I had gotten out of college a year and a half before. I went down to Florida for a while, came back to Buffalo, was working at Brick Bar, and the place became available. I borrowed $10,000 from my mother, and $2,000 from my aunt, and told them that if it doesn't work out, I'll get two jobs and pay you back. So you know, neither one of them had much money, but they had a little faith in me. And I opened the place with $12,000 total.
Q: How’d that work out for you?
A: Pretty well, as I'm sitting here looking at the CNBC financial stock ticker in front of me.
Q: You called it the Pink Flamingo because of the John Waters film?
A: Well, several things. One, I grew up from fourth grade through college in Cheektowaga, famous for the pink flamingos. When I used to work at Brick Bar, I convinced them to have a flamingo night. I said everyone from Cheektowaga would come down, it'll be a special night, with flamingos all over the place. And that worked out fabulously well.
But it was more the “Pink Flamingos” movie, which was probably late 70s. I just thought it was the most disgusting thing of all time. And I thought it had a really, really good punk and gay connotation.
Q: If you were to sum up the message of the movie that made you want to name your first bar after it: What's the message of the movie “Pink Flamingos”?
A: It's cool to be a freak.
Q: You sold that business decades ago. When it burned down, people called you to offer their condolences. What does that tell you about what the Pink was?
A: That it became overly important to a lot of people. It became kind of monocultural. You know, listen to one kind of music?
Q: For better or worse, the Pink had a reputation as a cocaine bar. Was it always that way?
A: When I had it, coke used to be fun. And, you know, until it became unfun, probably around the late 90s, maybe even before that, the cocaine was really good. The marijuana was weaker.
Q: So then, the Pink was always a cocaine bar. It's just the stuff used to be better?
A: It used to be a lot better. And it was a time when public servants would come in and do some blow.
Q: Wow.
A: You know, have a couple drinks.
Q: As one does. Little pep in your step.
A: Well, everyone knew coke wasn't dangerous at all. You could do it and go to bed a little later and get up and go to work the next morning. We were young. It took years for people to find out how dangerous it was. Some people got out of it, and some people didn't.
Q: And the crowd changed how?
A: Recently, everybody in there was between 20 and 35. They all look the same. They all dress the same. They all talk the same. When I had it, we really had the crazy people from Allentown. Dirty, addicted, tattooed guys.
Q: Lost that Mos Eisley Cantina edge?
A: Especially during the daytime. An ex-motorcycle copper was my daytime bartender. And so I had a lot of retired cops. I had the neighborhood nuts. You wouldn't remember Carl French, real famous neighborhood guy. Dirty John, Hatchet John, real famous guy who once came in to cut off Black Sam’s arm with a chainsaw. But it was an electric chainsaw, and the cord wasn't long enough to reach where Sam was sitting.
Q: All because you were 23 and you're already a thing with Amy, and you two start a little bar.
A Oh, yeah. We've been together for 42 years, man.
Q: Jelly.
A: We met at the bar we were working at, Murphy’s Tavern at 44th and Spruce in Philadelphia when we were at Penn. When I came back here, and I was gonna open up, I called her in Philly and said, “Do you want to move up to Buffalo?”
Her mother, a mainline Philadelphia Jewish mom, said “Where you're gonna live, under the bar?” Which I thought was hilarious. You get a degree in economics from the Wharton School and you want to open a punk rock bar. Well, okay.
Q: Business degree. One clue as to why you're not bankrupt, dead broke, or just plain dead.
A: I am unbelievably thankful that I was able to do what I did, at a time when I was flat broke, and had a lot more ideas than money. One of my strengths-slash-weaknesses is that I'm incredibly stubborn. If I have an idea in business, I'm gonna do it. And of course, you shape-shift over time. But I always think my ideas are good. It's just a matter of, do I have enough time so that everyone else realizes it?
Q: Whoa, sounds like you’re getting high on your own supply, buddy. That said, you can’t dispute the results.
A: When I opened up on October 1, 1983, I had $12,000. When we started that night, the $100 change in the till was all the money I had in life. And I’m thinking, I hope some people come in. And I hope nobody has a $100 bill for their first round, because I won't have change.
A GoFundme supporting workers who lost their jobs at the Pink has raised more than $27,000 so far.
#30#
Of all the Gin Joints in all the Cities in all the world it had to be The Old Pink in Buffalo that burned to the ground? No one would morn a Friday’s except the corporate suite. In Buffalo, a kick to the balls is the closest we will ever get to a love tap.
Great article Andrew. Made me smile and relive some of my memories of the early days. Too many stories, but many not fit to repeat. lol… RIP Pink Flamingo/Old Pink🦩