How Larry Swayne’s Wingzza Mambo Sauce Solidified a DC Staple in Charlotte

Growing up in Prince George’s County in Maryland, Larry Swayne was always surrounded by cooks — competitive cooks, at that.

“We loved to cook, we loved to taste, we loved having competitions. Who can make the best mac and cheese? Who can make the best fried chicken?” said the founder of Charlotte-based brand Wingzza. “It was one of those things where we always thought to make restaurant-quality food at home. We taste something cool, we try something cool, how can we do it at home? How can we really elevate our home meal? It was definitely a cooking environment.”

As folks from Prince George’s County know, there was one ingredient that was absolutely critical for keeping up in such an environment: mambo sauce. Now, as owner of Wingzza, which sells mambo sauce by the bottle, Swayne has made it life mission to familiarize folks in the Charlotte area and beyond with the joys of the zesty condiment.

What is mambo sauce? A DC staple with deep cultural roots

Somewhere between barbecue sauce and hot sauce on the spectrum of sweet vs. spicy, mambo sauce is a staple of Black culinary culture in the Washington DC area.

With apparent roots in Chicago and/or Buffalo (the true site of its invention and who was responsible is up for debate), mambo sauce has inarguably taken hold as an “everything sauce” in DC and the surrounding area. Swayne found out just how regional it was when he moved out of PG County for the first time to attend college in nearby Baltimore.

“It was my first time going to college and, you know how it is, you venture out, ‘Oh, cool. A little chicken spot over here. Let me go get some wings and fries and I’ll have the mambo sauce,’” he recalled. “They didn’t have the mambo because they never heard of mambo sauce.”

Upon moving to Charlotte with his future wife Robyn in 2006, he quickly made the same predictable revelation.

It wasn’t until a few years later that he decided he would be the change he wanted to see in the local culinary scene.

From food truck to sauce brand: The Rise of Wingzza

Having grown disenchanted with corporate life, Swayne quit his job and launched his first food truck in 2010. Called Holy Matrimony, the truck served wings and pizza, a match made in heaven, he explained.

A pioneer on Charlotte’s food truck scene, Holy Matrimony saw early success only to catch fire eight months into the business. The truck was destroyed.

Swayne turned the accident into an opportunity, putting the insurance money toward a rebranding that more fully expressed his specialties: Wingzza.

What became more apparent as Wingzza built a following over the next five years was that the real attraction was the mambo sauce.

“Having that point of reference of eating it since I was a kid, I got a chance to really see people have it for the first time and react to it for the first time and come back for it and love it and want to pay for extra on the side and want their wings extra wet and go through this process,” he said. “It became synonymous with our business.”

Eventually, Swayne began bottling the Wingzza Mambo Sauce and selling it out of the truck. When he had to make the tough decision to shut down the business in 2016 — stretched too thin by the expansion into a brick-and-mortar space in Hickory that he won in an episode of Food Network’s Food Court Wars — he kept the brand alive by continuing to sell the sauce.

While operating the food truck, he was a regular customer at the US Foods CHEF’STORE in east Charlotte. After convincing the manager there to carry his sauce, it began to get picked up for use on menus across Charlotte. Cuzzo’s Cuisine, The Nappy Chef, Seafood Connection and others were some of his early customers.

Because it was for sale to any restaurateurs shopping at the CHEF’STORE, Swayne wasn’t always aware of which local culinary establishments were using it, but he could always tell when it was part of a recipe.

“I can taste it,” he insisted. “I mean, they can use it, that’s what it’s for — for chefs, caterers, food trucks to use it, restaurants to use it. The secrets in the back of the house are those restaurants’ secrets, so we don’t always know what products they’re using with it, but I can taste it.”

Wingzza Mambo Sauce gains ground in Charlotte and beyond

Swayne reentered the corporate workforce while managing Wingzza as a sauce company on the side until late 2023, when he was able to make it his full-time job. Since then, it’s continued to grow, now available in more than 600 retail stores, even served in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Aside from contracted companies that handle some of the manufacturing and shipping, it’s just Larry and Robyn handling day-to-day operations these days. That can mean dropping off product at a new restaurant in University City, as Swayne was doing the day I spoke with him, hitting culinary pop-ups around the state or packaging up online orders.

The hard work pays off when he gets to see Wingzza Mambo Sauce being enjoyed both by new communities in the South or by the old guard in DC, as was the case when someone shared a video of the sauce being used at a Washington Commanders tailgate in November.

“That was incredible,” he said of the full-circle moment. “I never thought I would be in the sauce business, let alone carrying something on my back that had so much cultural relevance to me and everyone I grew up with. So it’s a really cool thing to see that out there at the Commander stadium tailgate and to get photos and get pictures. People always send me stuff. It’s really surreal.”

Swayne does have some ideas for expansion in the coming year that he is playing close to the chest, though he did share that he hopes to expand his size options from the current three: a 1-gallon jug, 10-ounce bottle, or 1-ounce dipping cup like what’s served in CMS schools.

He’s also exploring options to add to the product line, though those ideas remain “top secret.”

“I do have a couple of new products in the works for the first time ever, but it’s one of those things,” he explained. “I think about Texas Pete or Frank’s Red Hot. How many years did they only have that one product before they started branching out with new products? I feel like there’s so much ground to cover educating folks on mambo sauce and what it is, how you use it, there’s just a lot more runway there.”

It’s not about instant gratification for Swayne but building a brand patiently and purposefully. He’s experienced the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, remaining steadfastly focused on sharing his passion with whomever hasn’t experienced his childhood staple yet.

“I can’t get the respect of the world in 10 years, but I do believe in this product wholeheartedly,” he said, “and my purpose is tied up in this product, so I’m after it.”

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