Fire On The Mountain 2 now open in Portland - East Burnside

After a short delay, Fire On the Mountain 2 has officially opened it's doors for business on the ever renewing strip of East Burnside in Portland. The silent opening (the place was completely packed even though they didn't do any promotion, just opened up the doors) makes FOTM the first locally owned and operated wing joint in Portland to have mulitlpe locations - and marks another monumental step forward for the wing industry in the city.

Often times you will see the large chain wing joints (such as Buffalo Wild Wings and the Wingstop) open up multiple locations as a part of their market entry strategy, but once a local place is able to open up multiple locations, you know that they've found a winning recipe and a market that is truly ready and open to the wing. The Wingdome in Seattle has witnessed a similar level of success with their multiple locations in the Emerald City.

Fire On the Mountain has recieved much publicity lately for their success, the Oregonian wrote an article about them "Winging it" back on December 21st and BusinessWeek inked their small business success story "Restauranteurs Don't Just Wing It" on January 14th.

Much more will be written by us and others about about this wing joint gem over the coming months and years, but for now, enjoy our review on the Oregon page of the Internet Hot Wing Database and check out the camera-phone pics below...

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
http://www.cluckbucket.com/

Fire On the Mountain 2 at 17th and East Burnside


The front half of the restaurant with the expanded bar area

Friends of Cluck (Aaaron and Robbie) getting ready to hurt some FOTM chicken!

A quick stop at University Chicken - Santa Clara, CA

Was on a work trip in the Bay Area last week and was able to sneak away for an hour to check out University Chicken right off of Santa Clara's campus. All-in-all it was a pretty solid visit. The wings were very large and fresh, but slightly breaded and I think I'm done with breading. Pictures below and you can read the full review at the bottom of the California page in the Internet Hot Wing Database: http://www.cluckbucket.com/ihwdbresults.asp?state=CA

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
http://www.cluckbucket.com/

Friends of Cluck (Noe, Bill, and Kristen) outside of University Chicken

Batch of wings from University Chicken

Cluckbucket Featured in BusinessWeek

Fire on the Mountain and Cluckbucket.com were recently featured in a BusinessWeek article about local restaurant success tactics and the burgeoning wing scene in Portland. It was reported in the article that in just it's third year of business, FOTM has topped $1M in revenues. I guess Portland is a sustainable wing town afterall...

Check out the article at the link below:

Restaurateurs Don't Just Wing It

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
http://www.cluckbucket.com/

PS: Check out The Smash wing eating technique at http://www.cluckbucket.com/ucluck2/wingeating/smash.htm

Wing Bowl 16 - Right Around the Corner

Christmas and New Years have come and gone, that can only mean one thing - the annual Wing Bowl in Phillidelphia is right around the corner. This year's event, Wing Bowl 16 will be held bright and early (as usual) from 6:00-10:00 am on Friday, February 1st.

The key match-up to watch this year is 5-time champion El Wingador (Bill Simmons) and the reigning champion and world record holder Joey Chestnut. Last year Chestnut beat his own record by devouring 182 wings in 30 minutes. The local favorite, El Wingador hopes to bring the Wing Bowl crown back to Philly by employing unique form and technique during the battle. Speaking of wing eating techniques, check out the Cluckbucket wing eating techniques on uCluck2.

Think you'd like to attend the event? Well, think again, the 15,000 tickets for Wing Bowl 16 sold out in roughly 45 minutes. The best you can do at this point is stay tuned on our blog and at the Philly.com website below for complete coverage:

Philly.com Wing Bowl

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Brooklyn Restaurant Holds First Ever Vegan Buffalo Wing Eating Contest

A vegan restaurant in Brooklyn is going to hold the first ever "Vegan Buffalo Wing Eating Contest" on Wednesday, January 16 at 6:00. It should be interesting to see how much publicity this event gets because of its novelty concept.

Check out the story here:
Brooklyn Restaurant Holds First Ever Vegan Buffalo Wing Eating Contest

I'm all for it, but I rather they call it the first ever "Fake Chicken Buffalo Wing Sauce Flavored Eating Contest".

Peace, love, and real deep fried chicken grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

The Chicken Wing Project

So check this out, this guy Phred Barnet reached out to me last month and apparently he has an annual tradition, to eat nothing but chicken wings for the month of January. He successfully completed this feat back in January of 2007 and has decided to make a cluck of it again in 2008. He's about a third of the way through the journey and has eclipsed the 200 wing mark - apparently he is pacing himself - something I can definitely empathize with after knocking back roughly 70 wings in one day back at the National Buffalo Wing Festival.

So Phred, congrats and best of luck from your friends of the Cluckbucket!

You can follow along with Phred's journey at:
The Chicken Wing Project

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Portland, OR Wing Wars Continue

A friend sent me some recent blog posts that had comparisons of the wing joints in Portland, OR. Very interesting read, and I'm very to glad that there are others as obsesed about chicken wings in Portland as I am. Overall I agree with the Blogger's assessment, Fire on the Mountain still is my favorite wing joint in Portland and I can't wait to see what happens when they open up their second location. I still must admit that I haven't yet had wings from Biggs Brothers Wing Shack but I have heard very very good things about them. Maybe this lovely football weekend will be my time...

Nonetheless, here are the links to the recent wing reviews in Portland and a link to the wing recap that I wrote a few months ago (just in case you forgot about it...)

Comparison of Buffalo Wild Wings to Fire on the Mountain:
http://portland.metblogs.com/archives/2007/12/wings_in_portla.phtml

Comparison of the Wing Stop to Fire on the Mountain:
http://portland.metblogs.com/archives/2008/01/the_wing_wars_c.phtml

Cluckbucket.com Portland Wing Roundup:
http://cluckbucket.blogspot.com/search/label/portland%20oregon%20wing%20round-up

Peace, love, and grease!
Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth