Buffalo Wild Wings plans HQ move - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:
BW3 is moving the headquarters, but not far, they're staying in Minneapolis. Apparently they have outgrown their space and need to expand. There also was some commentary about their ability to financially perform, they're still feeling the pinch of rising chicken prices - I hate it when that ruins a good business model...
Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Recipes, Fire House Wings
Very interesting new recipe. I haven't tried them yet. If you do, be sure to let me know what you think-
Peace, love, and grease!
Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com
Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Eating Techniques; The Plunger
Thanks a ton to WonderDude from St. Louis for putting my latest wing eating technique into words. This is a move I've been doing a good amount lately, it's a derivation from the Smash (actually, a lazy man's Smash), but it works great.
Wingstop Sells Three Million Wings on Super Bowl Sunday; National Chain Breaks Its All-Time Single Day Sales Record: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
The Wingstop, one of the fastest growing chicken wing chains in the US claims that it sold over 3 million wings on Super Bowl sunday eclipsing it's record of 2.5 million last year.
If this is true, I'd say it's safe to say that over 16 million wings were sold on Super Bowl sunday this year. Here's my math:
Major Chains
Wingstop has 550 locations and sold 3M wings, that's roughly 5,500 wings per location.
BW3 has 415 locations, so if they also sold 5,500 wings per location that's another 2.3M.
Hooters has 435 locations, keeping with our average per location that's another 2.4M.
The Wing Zone has 100 locations, there's another .5M.
So, by covering the major chain's 1,500 locations we've already got 8.2M wings flying out the door.
Other Places to Get Wings
Let's just assume that for every Wingstop, BW3, Hooters, and Wing Zone that exists there 5x as many "other places to get wings" (and I think this is a very conservative number). By "other places to get wings" I mean everything from a great local wing chain like Show-Me's in St. Louis or Taco Mac in Atlanta to your local Applebees or Fridays. That gives us 7,500 locations (1,500 x 5).
And let's also assume that those "other places to get wings" sold on average 20% of what one of the big wing chain locations sold. That's 1,100 wings per location (5,500 x .2).
From the 7,500 other places to get wings we have another 8.3M wings.
The Grand Total
In my book, by combining the major wing chains and the other places to get wings, it's very likely that 16.5 million wings were sold on Super Bowl sunday. How's that for a new record!
Peace, love, and grease!
Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com
Best Wings in Portland, OR
Loyal Cluckbucket fan Lex from Portland writes:
Dear Cluckbucket,
Wish I had had your phone number the other day – Superbowl wing crisis. Drinking bloody mary’s at noon we decided it was time to put in an order for the big game. After our fourth attempt Fire On the Mountain picked up their phone only to tell us the earliest they could have our order ready was 5PM.
So what is now the reigning number 2 wing joint in the city if I ever need a backup? The bartender where we were drinking said her family owns Jax and therefore suggested we try that place. We weren’t buying it.
Hope all is well,
Lex
PS: We had cheese steaks instead.
Dear Lex-
I can completely understand your quandary. Fire On the Mountain is without a doubt the BEST wing joint in the greater Portland area. For the odd situations where you can't get a batch served up from FOTM, here's what I recommend.
2. The Wing Stop: Even though it's a tough location for most of us (4124 SE 82nd Ave), The Wing Stop is my number 2 wing joint in the Portland area. They are primarily known for take-out orders but they do have a small dine in space. Their wings are are naked with a great variety of sauces, try the cajun, original hot, and garlic parmesan. Add to that pretty cheap beer and great fresh cut french fries, and you've got a winning combination. It's no FOTM, but it's great for a runner up.
3. Buffalo Wild Wings: Better as a sports bar than a wing joint, Buffalo Wild Wings (BW3 or B-Dubs) is my number 3 pick for the Portland area. They have a disturbing amount of really really nice televisions and a good beer selection which makes this an excellent spot to watch the game. Their wings and sauces are solid, but not great. The other downfall is that their prices seem to be a bit high unless you go on Tuesdays when they have $.50 wings. All said, I recommend BW3 to anyone who hasn't been to one before or anyone who is stuck out in the Beaverton/Hillsboro area (more locations coming to Portland in the not-so-distant future).
4. Make your own wings: If you can find any chicken left on Super Bowl sunday, grab what you can, find a recipe from the Cluckbucket, and cook them up on your own.
5. Hooters: Hooters wings are well, Hooters wings. Again, they are okay, but they aren't great. Their breaded wings usually have too much breading and the naked ones are actually a good alternative. Be prepared to pay the high prices they need to charge in order to cover the costs of adequately staffing the establishments (you'd ask for a lot of money to wear those orange shorts and put up with drunken fools too!). They have three locations in Portland now.
6. The rest of the best: Portland has a lot of great "other" places for wings. They're not necessarily wing joints, but some of them have solid wing offerings on their menu. Check out the Cluckbucket Internet Hot Wing Database for more information.
Thanks for your question Lex, hope this info helps.
Peace, love, and grease!
Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com
Philadelphia Inquirer 02/01/2007 Chestnut defends crown
Joey Chestnut polished off 182 wings en route to defending his Wing Bowl crown last Thursday morning at the Wachovia Center in Philly. The early morning crowd was rowdy as rowdy as ever during the tight race, but in the end it was Chestnut that pulled away from the pack.
In big post-event news, Bill "El Wingador" Simmons, previous Wing Bowl conquistidor, announced he would come out of retirement for next year's event to challenge Chestnut.
Begin wing drama.
In addition to our own traffic spike, other wing related businesses across the country are recovering and celebrating the boost that the Super Bowl brings to the industry. Here are a few of their stories:
Colts, Bears, and Chicken Wings
Football fans gear up for game
Buffalo Wild Wings gets part of it's spice from sporting events
Second to the game are the snacks
At Super Bowl parties, we all scream for chicken wings
Super Bowl big business for some, "ghost town" for others
Another Super Bowl has come and gone and even though the game was pretty ugly, according to my analysis, people were at least enjoying their fair share of wings! Yep, we here at http://www.cluckbucket.com/ saw another big traffic spike with folks looking either for recipes or restaurants to get carryout/delivery. The Super Bowl means big business for the food industry, and wing joints are taking a bite out of pizza place’s pie.
As you may recall, last year following the Super Bowl left a post that showed the traffic patterns for the week leading up to the big day. This year I’ll give you some week-over-week perspective as well as some year-over-year figures.
Week-over-week
Using our analysis from WebTrends, we were able to easily compare the week of 1/22/07 through 1/28/07 (a very normal week) to 1/29/07 through 2/4/07 (the days leading up to the big game). Here’s what we saw:
Wasted Opportunities
Now to the bad news, I was totally slacking when it comes to getting my site prepped and ready for a big day/week of traffic. Had I thought about it in advance I would have definitely done some strategic promotion of the following things:
Summing it all up
Even though there were some wasted opportunities, the net net was that was a good week for us both week-over-week and year-over-year. Similar to last year, my main hope is that people will remember the Cluckbucket keep coming back throughout the rest of the year…
Peace, love, and grease!
Scott “The Cluckbucket” Roth
http://www.cluckbucket.com/
