The Roth Brothers set to attend upcoming wing events

In an announcement long over-due (something that I'll explain later on in this post), I am proud to share with you the fact that myself (Scott) and my brother Steve, The Original Brothers of Wing, will be travelling to join up with two of the most exciting wing events ever to occur - The filming of the documentary The Great Chicken Wing Hunt and the 6th annual National Buffalo Wing Festival.

The Great Chicken Wing Hunt: During the morning of Friday, August 31st I will fly from Portland and Steve will fly from St. Louis to Buffalo, NY. Immediately after we arrive in Buffalo we will meet up with Matt Reynolds, a filmmaker who is the in the midst of filming a documentary about the buffalo wing, “The Great Chicken Wing Hunt”. We will be Matt’s guests of honor and will join a caravan of wing enthusiasts and dignitaries as we sample the deep fried delicacies of five local restaurants. These five restaurants are the culmination of the caravan’s two week journey from Manhattan and Buffalo on a quest to find the best buffalo wing in the world…

The National Buffalo Wing Festival: On Saturday, we will join the “Wing King” Drew Cerza (you may have recently seen him on Throw Down with Bobby Flay on the Food Network) at Dunn Tire Park for the 6th annual National Buffalo Wing Festival. While there, we will join the crowd in sampling wings from over 25 participating wing joints from around the country. We’ll watch the world's foremost competitive eaters battle it out in the buffalo wing eating contest, and may even participate in the 0.5K Running of the Chickens. In addition, I Steve and I will get to put our years of buffalo wing eating experience together as we serve as honorary judges in one of the festival's wing cooking contests.

The Anchor Bar: Last but certainly not least, we will pay homage to the birthplace of the wing by having dinner at the Anchor Bar, the very location where Frank and Teressa Bellisimo created the first buffalo wing some forty years ago.

The Wedding Surprise: The reason why this announcement is so late in the game is because it was officially unveiled this past weekend. Back in In April 2007 Kama (Steve's finance at the time) asked Scott what the greatest wedding gift in the world would be for Steve. After much deliberation and contemplative thought, Scott arrived at what he thought would be a winner - this trip to Buffalo. Kama surprised Steve with the unveiling of the gift at the wedding rehearsal dinner on Friday, August 17. Kama first gave Steve what he thought was his gift - her ability to accurately recite the colleges and mascots that make up the Big Ten Conference - then she dropped the real bomb by asking Steve to read her one more college basketball related question. Much to Steve's surprise, the question that he was reading, actually was the agenda of the trip that he and Scott were scheduled to take to Buffalo merely three days after he and Kama got back from their honeymoon.

We hope to meet many of you wing lovers in person in Buffalo!

Peace, love, and grease!

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

Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Eating Techniques; The Washing Machine

One of the most wing knowledgeable high school students in the Portland area, Cameron "The Black Hole" Dunlap recently shared his patented wing eating technique with us. Click on the link below to learn how to do The Washing Machine...

Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Eating Techniques; The Washing Machine

I've asked Cameron to video tape his technique and share it with us, stay tuned...

Great Rochester Wing Hunt

Details have recently been released about a leg of the Great Chicken Wing Hunt. Use the link below to learn more and join the fun in Rochester:

The Great Chicken Wing Hunt: Great Rochester Wing Hunt

Great Manhattan Wing Hunt

Details have recently been released about the first leg of the Great Chicken Wing Hunt. Use the link below to learn more and join the fun in Manhattan:

The Great Chicken Wing Hunt: Great Manhattan Wing Hunt

Interview with Matt Reynolds - Chicken Wing Documentarian

If you are a lover of the wing you've probably seen by now that a new film is in the works - a documentary that will recount the buffalo wing's rise in popularity as well as attempt to find the world's greatest buffalo wing in the state of New York. On a recent evening, I had a chance to sit down with Matt Reynolds and find out more about his passion for the wing. Here's how it went...

Cluckbucket: For the record, please state your name.

Matt: My name is Matt Reynolds. I was briefly known as Matt "Old Hickory" Reynolds in high school but the nickname didn't stick.

Cluckbucket: Why a wing documentary?

Matt: I've been looking for two years to transition from text journalist to documentary filmmaker. Buffalo wings were a subject dear to my heart. The more I thought about doing a wing documentary, the more it made sense. I believe wings are on the verge of pizza-like stardom. I also believe that I, having 1. grown up in wing country 2. lived abroad and 3. practiced journalism for eight years, am uniquely qualified to understand and interpret this moment. Imagine if you could go back to Naples in 1640 and locate the best pizza, the prototype for this food billions of people eat, film it being made, interview its chef, and document the culture that produced it. That's what I want to do for the wing.

Cluckbucket: What/where was the best plate of wings that you've ever consumed?

Matt: My best plate of wings was Danny Boys, Newark, New York, 1992-1994. Some say atmosphere counts heavily in determining the quality of a wing. Not as a separate consideration. But that it actually affects the taste and how you remember the taste. It may be so -- Danny boy's had a 10 cent wing night that epitomized the best of wing culture: young women in tight stonewashed jeans, beer, pot-smoking in the parking lot, bar games such as table shuffleboard and darts. And yet I really believe there was something special about their wings -- big, juicy wings. Crispy, but not too crispy. Very hot (they called them suicidal) but still buttery as a medium. (pet peeve: when a bar cranks up the heat with peppers (good) but then takes it up another notch by removing the butter (bad)). Their pepper of choice was the habanera.

Cluckbucket: Do you always hold true to the buffalo wing flavor, or do you ever consume wings with an alternative sauce like BBQ, teriyaki, or others?

Matt: I occasionally try a novelty wing. I have nothing against them. I try to be objective. If someone came up with a wing better than a Buffalo wing, I would feel honor-bound as a journalist to acknowledge its superiority. But I haven't had that experience yet. I went to a bar last week with 30 flavors -- parmesan, boss sauce, jerk, et cetera. None of them were as good as their straight hot Buffalo, although the Buffalo parmesan came close.

Cluckbucket: Lastly, if I want to be involved in the documentary, how do go about doing that?

Matt: Email me at matt@chickenwinghunt.com. The trip is open to the public. All are welcome. You can learn more about the Great Chicken Wing Hunt at the following sites:
.
http://www.chickenwinghunt.com
.
http://www.cluckbucket.com/events/greatbuffalochickenwinghunt.htm

Peace, love, and grease!

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

Wings Coming to Downtown Portland

I just caught wind that Buffalo Wild Wings is going to be opening up their second Portland-area location this fall, this time they've got a massive space downtown - 4th and Morrison to be exact. It's right across the street from Pioneer Place mall next door to Alessandro's italian restaurant. I just walked by and it looks like they've got a lot of work to do to get the place ready, but because of the size it will make a huge impact on the wing and sports bar scene in downtown PDX.

In my opinion, this will make a great addition to the Portland wing scene, especially on Tuesdays when the $.40 wing offer makes their small wings and massed produced consistency very palatable. As I always say, BW3 is better as a sports bar than a wing joint - but I can imagine you will be finding me there on Tuesdays...

Cluckbucket: Submit Restaurant

The ability to submit restaurants to the Internet Hot Wing Database is back up and running. We're still working on some bigger picture things and our site redesign, but for now you can start submitting or resubmitting your favorite wing restaurants!

Cluckbucket: Submit Restaurant

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

Wingstop Hits One-Billion Chicken Wings

Remember back in the day when your local McDonald's used to have a "X million served" sign out front? Well, The Wingstop has just eclipsed a major milestone in that it's served over 1 billion wings since inception in 1994. With locations now in over 27 states, The Wingstop is continues to be on a major growth surge and is spreading its wings at a very rapid pace...

Wingstop Hits One-Billion Chicken Wings

Casinos and Wings

Was in Vegas over Memorial Day weekend and came across a beautiful sight, a wing joint in a casino. Yep, apparently the Wing Stop has landed at Green Valley Ranch Casino and Resort which is off the strip a little ways, but a very nice place. What better way to cast your sorrows away after losing than with a nice batch of chicken.

Check it out:

Portland, OR Wing Round-up: Buffalo Wild Wings

It's been a while since I've written about the wing scene in Portland, OR (where I live) so I thought I'd give you a bit of an update.

My third favorite place to get wings in Portland is Buffalo Wild Wings (or, as I will forever call them, BW3 - or B-Dubs). Similar to The Wingstop which I talked about earlier, BW3 is a nationwide chain that has recently opened up a franchise location locally in Portland. B-Dubs made it's way onto the Portland wing scene late last fall and seems to be a very popular destination for the west-side (read Beaverton and Hillsboro) crowd.

While I love BW3 as a sports bar - I only like BW3 as a wing joint. Let me be clear (thanks JP), I do believe that you really need to give B-Dubs some mad props for helping to spread the love of the wing across the United States, but outside of that - their wings are just very average. They have some pretty good wing sauces, but the thing that always gets me is how tiny their wings are, and how much they charge for them. Hands down, the best night to go to BW3 is on Tuesday when they have $.40 wings.

Again, if you are in Portland and you can't make it to Fire On the Mountain and you find yourself on the west side of town - Buffalo Wild Wings is a good bet for you.

Want to put your money where your mouth is? Buffalo Wild Wings is a publicly traded company that is blazing (pun intended) up the financial charts. Since their IPO a couple of years ago, the stock price has tripled and they just recently announced a stock-split. Man, yet another company I should have invested in a while ago...

Here are the vitals:

Buffalo Wild Wings
2219 NW Allie Ave.
Hillsboro, OR
http://www.buffalowildwings.com/

Peace, love, and grease!

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

Cluckbucket: The Great Buffalo Chicken Wing Hunt

Cluckbucket: The Great Buffalo Chicken Wing Hunt

At the end of this summer, history will be made with the first ever documentary that follows wing lovers on a quest for the best buffalo wing in the world. Learn more about this epic in the making by visiting The Great Buffalo Chicken Wing Hunt promo page on Cluckbucket.com:

Cluckbucket: The Great Buffalo Chicken Wing Hunt

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Portland, OR Wing Round-up: The Wingstop

It's been a while since I've written about the wing scene in Portland, OR (where I live) so I thought I'd give you a bit of an update.

Next up on my list is The Wingstop. The Wingstop joined the Portland wing scene earlier this year with their first location at Eastport Plaza, just off 82nd Ave or I-205. The Wingstop has a small dine-in area and appears to do an even bigger carry-out business.

Their menu features about ten different wing sauces and my personal favorites are the original hot, cajun, and the garlic parmesean. This is one place where I don't mind getting more saunces that just a traditional buffalo flavor. Similar to FOTM they also have pretty good fresh cut french fries to go with the wings. They also have some Family Packs that come with wings, fries, and veggies and make ordering quite convenient.

If making it to North Portland for FOTM is problematic for you and you live on the east side of town, I highly recommend that you check The Wingstop out.

Here are the vitals:

The Wingstop
4124 SE 82nd Ave
Portland, OR 97266
http://www.mywingstop.com/?cl=317

Order Online

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Portland, OR Wing Round-up: Fire On The Mountain

It's been a while since I've written about the wing scene in Portland, OR (where I live) so I thought I'd give you a bit of an update.

Let's start with the hands down favorite for best wings in Portland, Fire On The Mountain. FOTM first burst onto the Portland wing scene in January of 2005. They got of to a pretty quick start since they were one of the only wing joints in Portland at the time. And now, every time that I go to FOTM (which is about every 2 or 3 weeks) the place is completely packed - it doesn't matter what time of the day it is or what day of the week, there is always a big crowd.

They've held true to their love of the wing and continue to crank out some of the best wings I've ever had. They have many different sauces that are all really good, but the only sauce for me is their regular "hot" sauce. The wings are pretty good sized and are always deep fried to an absolute perfection. Even more, in addition to having the best wings in town, they also have the best fresh-cut french fries.

Rumor has it that they are currently working on FOTM2 which will be located around 20th and East Burnside, but I haven't recieved any confirmation on whether or not this is actually going to happen and when...

If you are ever in Portland, OR, make sure you stop by Fire On The Mountain. Here are the vitals:

Fire On The Mountain
4225 N. Interstate Ave.
Portland, OR
www.portlandwings.com

Hours of Operation:
Monday - Thursday
11am - 10pm
Friday - Saturday
11am - 11pm
Sunday
11am - 10pm

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Buffalo Wild Wings: En Fuego [Fool.com] May 02, 2007

Buffalo Wild Wings: En Fuego [Fool.com] May 02, 2007

While I rather be talking about chicken than money, there's an interesting story developing that combines both of them... Buffalo Wild Wings (formerly known as BW3) is the only publicly traded wing chain and their financial performance is off the charts. They're expanding their number of stores pretty rapidly and the strategy is paying off. Check out the article and learn how both their company and franchise stores are outperforming.

Now, my simple plea to the folks at Buffalo Wild Wings - since you're doing so well financially, lower your wing prices (or get bigger wings) so that you can make the wing enthusiasts a little bit happier.

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Down and Out

The Cluckbucket is under attack! OK, this is really sad to have to report, but apparently someone has created a malicious spider that is crawling the web and submitting content to our Internet Hot Wing Database. For the past couple of weeks we have been recieving tons of restaurant reviews that weren't reviews but were promotions and links to porn, gambling, and other fun sites of that nature...

So, it sucks, but I've had to take down the ability to submit wing restaurant reviews for the time being and have locked the database down to view only. It's a shame that the work of a few can spoil the fun of thousands but that's the deal until I can find someone technical enough to help me out...

Will post again when things are back up and running!

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Search for the Ultimate Wing Fanatics

The folks at the Wingstop are looking for a few Wing-Nuts to prove that they are the biggest wing fans in the world. The entry process is simple: Create a video that demonstrates your love of wings and includes the Wingstop name and/or logo (naturally), post your video to a video sharing site like YouTube, and submit your entry on their site.

The wing world has such a deep cult-like following that it should produce some really interesting results, as well as generate some good viral marketing buzz for the company...

Submit your entry today-

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Buffalo Wild Wings plans HQ move - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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...

New Chicken Wing Recipe, Fire House Wings

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

New Chicken Wing Eating Technique; The Plunger

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.

Over 16 million wings sold on Super Bowl sunday

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

The Super Bowl Wing Crisis: Portland Oregon Style

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

Wing Bowl Results

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.

Other Super Bowl Wing Success Stories

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

The Super Bowl Feast: It’s not just about pizza anymore…

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:

• Unique Visitors: Increased 138% from 773 to 1,848
• Pages Viewed: Increased 153% from 2,340 to 5,913
• New Visitors: Increased 144% from 711 to 1,733
• Returning Visitors: Increased 64% from 73 to 120

The graph below shows a comparison of the level of visitors I received to the site each day of the week:


Also interesting to note, I only had 1.7% of my visitors reject the cookie that WebTrends uses to identify them. This is way down from the levels that I used to see (upwards of 15%) before WebTrends rolled a 1st party cookie solution out to their hosted software customers.

I also took an in-depth view at where I got all of these new visitors from. The report below shows the top sites that referred traffic to my site throughout the week, and their corresponding growth week-over-week:


I’m particularly fond of the fact that my direct traffic grew as nicely as it did. That means that folks are starting to remember the name Cluckbucket and seem to find some value in the content that we offer.

The growth of referrals from Yahoo and MSN also intrigued me, so I decided to see what search phrases were fuelling those results. Here you can see the straight up figures of the top search phrases and the associated search engine (I’m looking only at organic search engine results so I don’t mix up the clicks that I actually am paying for):



Finally, I wanted to see what content people viewed most frequently, and based on the search phrases reports I had a good hunch that it would be recipes. The report below shows the top 5 pages on the site, and the comparison week-over-week. As I expected, four of the top five pages had to do with wing recpies:



Year-over-year

Again, using our analysis from WebTrends, we were able to easily compare the week of 1/30/06 through 2/5/06 (week leading up to the Super Bowl last year) to 1/29/07 through 2/4/07 (week leading up to the SuperBowl this year). Here’s what we saw:

• Unique Visitors: Increased 29% from 1,422 to 1,842
• Pages Viewed: Increased 27% from 4,647 to 5,913
• New Visitors: Increased 39% from 1,325 to 1,733
• Returning Visitors: Increased 30% from 92 to 120

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:

• Highlight Interactive Content: The only real investment I’ve made in this area is the video of the Smash wing eating technique. It’s proven to be a pretty popular clip and gets decent air time on both Google Video and YouTube. I should have put a promo for it in the side nav of the recipes page.
• Promote the Newsletter: I’ve developed a decent sized subscriber base to my newsletter “The Clucker”, had I been thinking I could have suggested that people that like the recipes they are seeing on the site will enjoy the more in-depth wing related content I provide in the newsletter.
• Cross-sell the IHWDB: The Internet Hot Wing Database is usually one of our most popular and by far our most dynamic destination. Getting people over to the IHWDB would have increased their time on the site, and helped visitors to see that the Cluckbucket is about more than just recipes.

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/

Greer Relief > 2006 Wing Fling : The Upstate's ONLY Chicken Wing Contest

Great new wing event coming on November 9th in Greer, SC. This is a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone - all you can eat wings and a fundraiser for a great cause! They already have 12 participating restaurants signed up that will be cooking up their own local delights.

There will be live music and all of the typical wing-contest events...

If you live in or even near South Carolina be sure to head down for this event at 6:00 PM on November 9th.

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth

Cluckbucket: Original Anchor Bar Wing Sauces

We just recently completed our official review of the wing sauces from the original home of the buffalo wing, The Anchor Bar and Grill. Read the full review at the link above.

How to judge a wing.

By Steve "The Vanilla Cluckilla" Roth

As co-founder of the cluckbucket as well as a certified KCBS (Kansas City Barbeque Society) trained and certified judge, I am more than qualified to help. There are three main criteria when judging a buffalo, or hot wing:

Using a scale of 1-5 "drummies", wings are judged for the following:

1. Appearance - this should be the easiest to judge. Does it look appetizing? A wing should not be negatively judged because of personal preference. Meaning, if you don't like breaded wings, but that's what that restaurant serves, they shouldn't be downgraded. You may not go back because of that, but it doesn't make them a bad wing. Wings should be crisp, but not look like fried chicken either. Wings should have sauce on them - buffalo wing sauce should have an orange-ish tint to it. Also, whether the restaurant serves just wings, just drummies, or just the wing attached to the drummy should be noted, but shouldn't change your scoring. However, if you are served a combination of wings and drummies, there should be fairly equal portions of both. A batch with 15 wings and 5 drummies may be downgraded on all three categories. Size of the wings also comes into play here - they don't need to be "wings on steroids", but they should be good-sized. A good rule of thumb is a bit smaller than a standard business card in both length and width.

2. Texture/Tenderness - this should also be fairly easy to judge. Wings should be crispy on the outside, and juicy on the inside. That is the whole point of frying a wing. Whether they are naked or breaded should not matter, but you need to look for different things depending on which. With naked wings, often times the skin is rubbery - this should be a downgrade. Also, with naked wings, often times the wing sauce falls off, pooling at the bottom of the plate or bowl. Some sauce loss is expected, but there should still be a fair amount of sauce on the wings. For breaded wings, the breading will absorb the sauce. If a breaded wing is dry, it is either severely overcooked, or not enough sauce, or both. This is a downgrade. Bone breakage also comes into play here - bones should not be broken. The two wing bones can be torn apart at the ends by the judges, but no bones should be broken in the middle. One in a batch is ok - more than that and you can start to downgrade.

3. Taste - this is the most subjective. Heat should only be a qualifier if they are significantly hotter or milder than advertised. Assuming you are a person of normal taste heat tolerance, and you order mild wings and you have to drink five glasses of water just to get the wings down, that can be a downgrade. Same goes if you order hot and can barely taste the hot. But if you order atomic wings and can't get through them because of the heat, you can't downgrade them. Butter can come into play here as well. Usually that is what is used to lessen the heat of hot sauce or Tabasco. But too much butter is a no-no. If you can taste the butter, it's too much. Butter should be used to lessen the heat, not remove it's flavor (unless of course you ordered butter-flavored wings). DO NOT USE RANCH OR BLUE CHEESE WHEN JUDGING A WING! Once you're done judging, feel free to eat as many wings with either condiment, but while judging, just the wings. You may use some celery to try to remove the taste between each wing, or saltine crackers, or water. Try to stay away from other beverages during the judging process. While the actual chicken meat under the skin shouldn't have much taste besides chicken, it should compliment the flavor of the hot sauce. After that, it is up to your own personal taste!

Each of the three categories should have a weighting. Appearance should be weighted as .10, Texture/Tenderness as .40 and Taste as .50. Thus, a wing that had an appearance score of 3, a T/T of 4, and a Taste as 5 would be judged a 4.40. The formula works like this - (3 x .10) + (4 x. 40) + (5 x .50) = 4.40.

My team of trusty wing enthusiasts made our way out to the new Buffalo Wild Wings (BW3) this past Friday and I've finally gotten around to posting my review. The high-level takeaway is that they have pretty good sauces and the setting is a really large sports bar with tons of flat panel and projection TVs. Unfortuantely, that's were all of the positive things end. Their pricing is completely out of wack because the size of their wings are so terribly small - on an ordinary day 50 wings cost $30 and won't even fill four people.

Outside of perhaps a big game or a Tueday night ($.40 wings), you probably won't be finding me at the new BW3. Fire On the Mountain is still the place for me...

See the full review at the link below:
Cluckbucket: Internet Hot Wing Database Results

Charlotte Observer 09/01/2006 Buffalo Wings creators bringing taste to Charlotte

The Anchor Bar has determined where the locations will be for it's first forray into the franchise restaurant business: Charlotte and Concord, NC. The first location will open up early next year and will mark the beginning of the Anchor Bar's slow but steady march towards even further domination of the wing world. Not only did they invent the wing, but now they are taking their/bar concept on the road to share the wing-love with millions of Americans that can't make it up to Buffalo. Much more to come...

National Buffalo Wing Festival

Greetings Friends of the Cluckbucket-

I'm sorry if you've recieved this more than once (or didn't want to recieve it at all), but I'm trying to get the word out as quickly as possible.

In an act of shameless self-promotion I'm asking for a couple of minutes of your time and your help. You see, I'm trying to become a member of the inaugural National Buffalo Wing Hall of Fame. They will be announcing the members next weekend during the National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, NY so you’ve only got a limited amount of time to cast your vote.

Please visit the following web page:

http://www.buffalowing.com/hof.php

And nominate me, Scott “The Cluckbucket” Roth and let them know what a swell guy you think I am (or at least make something up) and how cool you think Cluckbucket.com is.

But don’t stop there, please forward this message on to all of your wing loving friends so that they can cast their votes as well…

Thank you in advance for all of your support.

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott “The Cluckbucket” Roth

Buffalo Wild Wings(R) Announces Seven Franchise Area Development Agreements - Agreements signed for 34 franchised units

Here's another article that says 10 locations for Portland.

BW3 Coming to Portland in a Big Way

New restaurant winging its way to Portland - The Portland Business Journal:

The business journal today had an article stating that Buffalo Wild Wings has signed on to open up 10 Portland area locations. Can it possibly be? 10? I knew they were opening up one location at Streets of Tannasborne in Hillsboro, but 10? Wow!

I'll try to do some digging to see if this could possibly be true. Stay tuned.

Oh, just as an FYI, the Streets of Tannasborne location will have their grand opening at 11:00 AM on Labor Day, Monday, September 4th.

Mixed emotions...

With the end of another softball season comes my annual trek to Hooters of Beaverton (Oregon) and this year I'm typing with mixed emotions. I've become so spoiled with tremendous wings at Fire On the Mountain that I don't have to go to Hoots very often, but that being said, I always do enjoy checking in and seeing how they are doing.

I'll cut to the chase of why I have mixed emotions. You see, the wings last night were really really good, probably the best batch of Hoots wings that I have had in two years. And I think I've learned the trick in ordering, you need to ask for them breaded (or naked), hot, extra wet. The "extra wet" is critical or you are sure to be dissapointed with dried wings that taste more like KFC.

The flip side of my experience was how ridiculously expensive Hooters has gotten. I'm not sure about the other locations across the US, but in Oregon the going rate for 50 wings is, get this, $29. $29 stinkin' dollars! You've got to be kidding me. I'm no math genious, but even I can figure out that that is a rip off. $.58 a wing when ordering in quanities of 50 is just absurd. I can remember back to my high school days when 50 wings cost around $10 and then in college they pushed up near $15-20, but $29, give me a break! And to make matters even worse, the frosty cold pitchers of Bud Light that we used to wash down the wings cost were $12. Ouch!

To wrap things up. All-in-all it was a pleasant experience, good wings, good brews, good times, but man, the folks at Hoots must be rollin' in cash. I guess I'll just have to wait till next year to go back... Fire On the Mountain, here I come.

The Cluckbucket wing eating technique "The Smash" was cited by the New York Times on Sunday as an excellent consumption method that will help casual wing eaters become seasoned wing veterans...

The Arsenal - New York Times

Hooters chairman Brooks found dead - Yahoo! News

A mogul of the wing industry has passed away today. Robert Brooks, the chairman of Hooters of America died suddenly over the weekend. While he wasn't the founder of Hooters, he can largely be credited for the firms spreading of the wings. He bought the expansion and franchise rights back in 1984 and the rest is history...

Ummmm... chicken wings...

Cluckbucket: 8th Annual St. Charles County Wing Ding

Another year, and another successful St. Charles County Wing Ding has been wrapped up. As usual, we sent our St. Louis contingent co-owner of Cluckbucket.com, Steve "The Vanilla Gorilla" Roth, and past Cluckbuckie of the Year, Tony "Gome" Frierdich out to cover the event. See their official review:

Cluckbucket: 8th Annual St. Charles County Wing Ding

8th Annual St. Charles County Wing Ding

It's not surprising that they've made it this long, but what is amazing is that we've already come upon the 8th installment of the St. Charles County, MO Wing Ding.

This is a great event featuring the top wing eateries (and other places that serve wings) in the St. Louis area. They've got a sleu of contests going on during the event and the wings are all-you-can-haus.

Go out and support this great cause!

YouTube - Cluck U Chicken 911 Challenge

Nice little documentary of individuals risking their life to knock back some firey wings.

Chicken prices fall, but don't benefit consumers

So you thought the pain at the pump was bad, how about the unnecessary pain that is being felt at the grocery cash register when purchasing chicken? According to this WSJ article, chicken prices are remaining high but the costs are actually quite low right now due to excess supply. Whey the excess supply? Avian flu fears oversees.

Bottom line, protest at grocery stores, wings should be half the price of what they are charging!!!

New video on the Cluckbucket

I just posted my first wing eating technique video to the site. I plan to tape them all in the near future, but for now we're just starting with the Smash. No longer do you have to read the text and visualize the technique in your head.

Check it out at the link below:

Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Eating Techniques; The Smash

This clip was taped at Fire on the Mountain in Portland, OR, west coast winner of the Cluckbucket.com 2006 Chicken Wing Joint of the Year

Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Eating Techniques; The Pinch

Hey wing lovers, check out the link above to learn how to perform the latest and greatest wing eating technique, The Pinch. Thanks to wing lover Tom Martini for submitting his favorite move...

Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Joint of the Year

We've posted our first ever "Wing Joint of the Year" winners, hit the link above to find out who took the crown for 2006!!!

Wingstop Sells 2.5 million Wings on Super Bowl Sunday; Exceeds Predictions - Franchisewire.com

Even more Super Bowl success stories: apparently the Wingstop sold 2.5 million wings across their 260 locations. Earlier they had projected selling 2.2 million so the day was definitely a big success for them.

WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: Superbowl Sunday Marks A Boom for Local Businesses

Not only was the SuperBowl a huge day for the Cluckbucket and many local wing/pizza joints, but did you know that over 11 million pounds of potato chips were consumed on the big day? This article shows more SuperBowl impact and details how busy a local BW3 was during the day.

ARTICLE: Chicken wings taste test: Bad to the bone (The Virginian-Pilot - HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline.com)

Here's an interesting little article about a newspaper sponsored wing taste test in Virginia Beach. Nice to hear stories about other lovers of the wing...

Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Joint of the Year

We just opened up the polls for our first ever Cluckbucket.com Wing Joint of the Year contest. The winner will be determined by 100% by the visitors to Cluckbucket.com and any wing joint in the United States is eligible.

Cast your vote today and be sure to tell all of your friends to nominate their favorite. Please hurry, the polls will close at midnight (pacific time) on Tuesday, March 14th.

Vote Now

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Super Bowl Spikes Web Traffic for Cluckbucket.com

Everybody knows that football and chicken wings go together, but what you may not know is how big of an impact the Super Bowl (the football game of all football games) has on the world's top provider of chicken wing recipes, restaurant reviews, and other wing information. Using the online marketing analytics service provided by WebTrends I'm able to share some specific impact on how big of a boost the Super Bowl was for Cluckbucket.com. Here are some figures:

First let's take a look at some trends comparing the week of 1/23-1/29 (a pretty typical week) to the week of 1/30-2/5 (the week leading up to and including the Super Bowl).

• Number of "Unique Visitors" - Increased 142% (from 586 to 1,422)
• Number of "Pages Viewed" - Increased 180% (from 1,661 to 4,647)
• Number of "Visitors who visited more than once" - Increased 120%
• Number of "New Visitors" to the site - Increased 153% (from 522 to 1,325)
• Number of "Returning Visitors" to the site - increased 70% (from 54 to 92)

It's important to note that I didn't do any form of out of the ordinary marketing to new or existing visitors during this timeframe, so it is safe to say that most of the growth listed above is organic based on customer demands, not my proactive demand creation. As you can tell, this week was huge from a standpoint of increasing overall visitors to the site, and even better for attracting valuable new visitors, let's just hope that they found what they were looking for and had a good first impression...

Speaking of what they were looking for, now I'll take a quick look at the week prior to and including the Super Bowl in isolation to share with you a little bit more about who these visitors were, and what they were doing on the Cluckbucket:

• The most popular content on the site was by far the "recipes" area. Overall, the recipe homepage and 12 individual recipe pages on the site were viewed a total of 2,164 times during the week which represents a 230% increase over an ordinary week.
• Getting people down to the point in the site where they view an actual wing recipe is something that I define as a critical conversion event. My site conversion rate for this event for the week was a whopping 53% (786 recipe visits divided by 1,469 overall site visits)
• Wrapping up on the recipes thread, one of the nice things that WebTrends gives me (that I've heard other providers can't do) is some unique breakdowns for specific pages on my site. For example, I've already told you that the recipes area of my site performed well over the Super Bowl, but what I really want to know is additional detail about the recipe home page, http://www.cluckbucket.com/recipes/recipes.htm: WebTrends tells me that this page was viewed 1,319 times, by a total of 512 visits, and 496 individual unique visitors. They also let me know that this page was the entry page for visitors 380 times and that while most people went from this page on to visit actual recipe pages, other visitors to this page were interested in my home page as well as my Internet Hot Wing Database (which are two other key areas of my site).
• Last but certainly not least, I want to know how all of these visitors got to my site in the first place. As you can recall from earlier on, I didn't do any email, paid search engine, or other marketing campaigns during this timeframe so the most likely place to look is traffic from organic/natural search listings. As usual, the big three search engines were responsible for referring the bulk of the traffic throughout the week; Google - 463 visits, Yahoo - 327 visits, and MSN - 312 visits. It's interesting to note that I do a lot better on what I consider core search phrases (like "chicken wings" and "chicken wing recipes") on Yahoo and MSN, but my phrases referred from Google seem to be more sporadic. Overall, "chicken wing recipes" was responsible for sending the most traffic to my site, to a tune of 129 visits (mostly from Yahoo and MSN where I perform in the top 5 listings).

So, I guess looking at the top content that people were hitting and the top search engine referrals all makes sense when I look at it together. Wing recipes are what everybody is looking for to make an solid contribution to their Super Bowl festivities.

Aren't you hungry for some wings now? Check out the Wing Recipes page to make some yourself or to the Internet Hot Wing Database to find a wing-focused restaurant near you!!!

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth

www.cluckbucket.com

More Wing Bowl Coverage

On a Chicken Wing and a Prayer - Los Angeles Times

More coverage on Wing Bowl. This is a great article that gives some scoop on how Philly can't seem to fill the Wachovia Center for basketball or hockey. Pretty good read.

Chaos in Philly

Philadelphia Inquirer 02/03/2006 Joey Chestnut wins Wing Bowl

Newbie Joey Chestnut used a last round surge (not purge) to edge out the crafty veteran Rich "The Locust" LeFevre in a Wing Bowl of epic proporations this morning. Chestnut, who qualified for the event by chugging a gallon of milk in 42 seconds, not only won, but set a new Wing Bowl record by consuming 173 wings over the 30 minute duration. Chestnut was a steady competititor putting away 83 wings in the first round, finishing the second round with a total of 155 knocked back, and then putting the icing on the cake with an additional 18 wings during the final elimination.

Apparently the scene was as utterly chaotic as usual. Wing Tut was eliminated due to regurgitation, the new Miss Wingette was chosen from a field of 75, and in a moving and emotional ceremony between rounds one and two, Bill "El Wingador" Simmons was inducted into the Wing Hall of Fame. Simmons is by and large the most accomplished Wing Bowl comptetitor of all time, holding five championship crowns.

Here's a blog that covered the event live at the Wachovia Center.

Philly.com 02/02/2006 Wing Bowl odds announced

They just released the vegas odds for tomorrow's event. If "The Locust" that is listed is Rich "The Locust" LeFevre, then he's getting all my money. At 5-1 odds, The Locust is an absolute steal!

Read more about the Locust

View all the competitors

Wing Bowl -- Philly.com

Alas, another Super Bowl is upon us and with that comes an even bigger event for the world of wings, the Wing Bowl. Now in it's 14th year, the annual event at the Wachovia Center in Philadephia (where until last year they had no real reason to watch the Super Bowl and hence invented the Wing Bowl) merges two of my favorite things, competitive eating and of course wings.

This organizers has shifted thing up this year in two big and notable ways. First, they have dubbed this year a "Virgin Wing Bowl" in that no prior participants are allowed to perform in the contest. Apparently they were sick of Sonya Thomas and El Wingador (Bill Simmons) beating up on the rest of the field each year. Second, they are now charging a $5 admission fee instead of the event being free. We'll see how these changes go, the big event is tomorrow morning...

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Bulgarian Diva Wins Glutting Race

The competitive wing eating circuit has officially crossed over into Europe. There was a charity competition in Bulgaria today and the winner was a surprise, a popular television actress.

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

Quick update on Cluckbucket T-Shirts through CafePress.com. I just got my first order in the other day. I ordered the Cluckbucket "Trendy" White T-shirt and it is defintely a sweet shirt. It has a nice lightweight feel to it and is in the style of the new "vintage" t-shirts you see around.

I also ordered the Cluckbucket Long Sleeve T-Shirt and it is pretty sweet as well. It's printed on a Hanes Beefy T which is very good quality.

As for the printing method, I selected both direct printing and heat transfer to see what the difference is. The heat transfer definitely looks better initially, the clarity on the logo is great and the colors are top notch. The kicker is that it is potentially going to fade or crack over time. I'll post another note in a couple of months or so when I actually wash it for the first time. :-)

As for the direct printing the logo's don't look good at all, it is faded and I wouldn't recommend it even though they say it is the recommended best method. I suppose it will last longer over time because it is actually embedded into the fabric versus being heat printed on the top of it...

Well, there's your review, hope you, your family, and all your chicken wing friends enjoy their shirts!!!

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

http://www.cafepress.com/cluckbucket

Cluckbucket.com t-shirts are back thanks to our new partnership with CafePress! We've got everything set up and you can order direct at the link above. Tell all your friends, "trendy people wear Cluckbucket t-shirts"...

2 On Your Side - News

Yep, it looks like it is true, they are planning different formats from an "Express" version that will appear at Food Courts to full-blown replicas of the original Anchor Bar. This is such an interesting move and an unbelievable day for the world of wings!!!

Anchor Bar going national with franchises

Stop the presses! This is huge news! Can it be that the original home of the buffalo wing is going to go nation-wide with franchises? This is the first I've heard of this development so please post a note if you know anything about this. I'll post more info as soon as I know anything...

HeraldNet: Speed eaters wing their way to victory

Wing event held this past weekend in the Seattle area. It'm particularly pleased that both competitive eating and the love of the buffalo wing have started to spread out to the Pacific Northwest. Seattle actually has a couple of really good wing joints with Wing Zone and the locally owned/operated Wingdome. This is a good step in the right direction and hopefully will bring Seattle area wing lovers together.

Wing Scene Heating Up in Portland, OR!

It's been confirmed that there is a new guy coming to the block on September 6th. A Slice of Buffalo: Pizza and Wings will be piggybacking off the roaring success of Fire On the Mountain and taking the Portland wing scene up one notch. A Slice of Buffalo will be located in the downtown area at 12th and Jefferson and will cater mostly to the carryout crowd with a few seats available for dine in.

I stopped by today for a sneak peak where I was greeted by the owner Jack. He promised me a focus on simplicity, value (read, good prices!), and a focus on TRADITIONAL buffalo wings. The wings will be deep fried, naked, and come in one of four sauces with various heat ranges. They also are going to offer lunch specials that offer either individual items or combinations of pizza, wings, fries, and salads.

I personally can't wait till Tuesday!

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

Wingstop Opens 250th Restaurant

Wingstop Celebrates 250-Store Milestone; Nation's Leading Chicken-Wing Chain Sets Sights on 500 in 2007

The Wingstop just continues to grow and grown opening celebrating the openin of it's 250th wing restaurant. The chain has pushed it's way into the list of the top growing restaurants in the US and expects that it will have 500 locations by 2007.

Selfish Plea: Someone, please open up a Wingstop in Portland, OR; I love their chicken!!!

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

4th Annual National Buffalo Wing Festival Takes Flight

National Buffalo Wing Festival

The 4th Annual National Buffalo Wing Festival kicks off this holiday weekend in Buffalo, NY. The organization team lead by Drew Cerza, the "Wing King" have lined up another jam packed weekend of buffalo wing fun. The list of events includes the .5K Wing Run, Chicken Wing Eating, Most Creative Wing Sauce, Traditional Wing Sauce, Miss Buffalo Wing, Blue Cheese Bowl, Baby Wing, Mega Car & Truck Show. Oh, and how could we forget to mention a performance by two of the people from the Real World - Austin. I'm not quite sure yet what they are going to be performing or why they are are even going to be there, but I'm sure it will draw in some form of a crowd. I think they should both be forced to enter the wing eating contest and go side-by-side against Cookie, Booker, Sonya and the rest.

This wing festival is a can't miss event if you live in the area (or just want to get away for a while). You'll be treated to wings from over 20 different vendors and get to see the interworkings of the wing industry at it's finest.

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Upcoming Movie about the Wing Bowl?

Our sources indicate that there is an upcoming film in the works that will center around the wildly popular Wing Bowl. The Wing Bowl is the annual event held at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia in which several contestants participate in an all-out, 30 minute wing eating battle. Apparently the film will center around Bill "El Winador" Simmons, the longime champion of the event. Stay tuned for more...

1st Ever "Wing Tasting"

Suns announce "Wing Fling 2005" - OurSports Central

Following on the widespread popularity of wine tasting events the Hagerstown Suns, a Mets class A affiliate in Maryland, have scheduled the first ever "wing tasting" event. While there have been plenty of wing-offs in the past, this is the first time I've ever heard it called a wing tasting. They will have about ten restaurants competing for the ilustrious best wing title. Go check it out on July 22nd from 6:00-10:00. Thanks for the lead Wade!

Peace, love, and grease!
Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Wings in Billings

Winging it: Buffalo Wild Wings latest franchise restaurant to come to Billings - billingsgazette.com

Billings, Montana now has a BW3, can someone in Portland, OR please step up to the plate and open up a location? Actually, don't and I'll talk to the folks at Fire on the Mountain to see if they can open a location across from every Starbucks!

Buffalo Wild Wings shares up on a strong quarter

Buffalo Wild Wings hikes 2Q outlook

Not only are people eating more wings than ever, but BW3 was able to get their wings at a couple of cents less per pound than normal and the combination lead to a great financial quarter. BW3 paid about $1.14 per pound for wings this quarter which still continues to astonish me. You have to figure that BW3 is probably one of the 2nd or 3rd largest purchasers of wings in the world and that's the best deal that they can swing. Does anybody remember the good ole' days three or four years ago when wings never cost more than $.99/pound???

I love the fact that wings are popular now, but I want my good prices back!!!

The other thing of astonishment for me is that there are financial analysts that are covering the world of wings. How cool is that? I'm waiting for my call from them to weigh in on non-financial wing trends... :-)

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

International Federation of Competitive Eating - IFOCE - Nathan's Famous Resource Center

Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Championships

Just another days work for Takeru Kobayashi as he destroyed the American field for his 5th straight World Hot Dog Eating Championship. While he didn't break his own world record, the noticably stronger Kobayashi calmly put away 49 hot dogs in 12 minutes. The closest runners up were Sonya Thomas (36 hot dogs) and rookie Joey Chestnut (32 hot dogs). A sign that things are changing, noticably out of the top contenders were the old standbys, Ed Cookie Jarvis, Eric Badlands Booker, Rich and Carlene LeFevre, Charles Hardy, and Crazy Legs Conti. One of the coolest new features of the contest was the helmet cam that Eater X Janus wore. The helmet recorded what he was seeing while also capturing a rear-view mirror that looked back at his face. For the fourth year in a row the contest aired live on ESPN. Man, I love America!

Hooters goes for exposure - Top Stories - MSNBC.com

Is Hooters spreading it's wings too far?

In the mind of this wing purist, yes, way too far. First let me say that I'm coming off a bad Hooters experience. Went there two weeks ago after a softball game and the wings were overcooked, under-sauced, then over-sauced, and man, I've forgotten how expensive Hooters has gotten. Now, don't get me wrong, I will still tell you to your face that a properly prepared batch of Hooters wings will stand up against any other wing, but their business ventures are going way too far. Their airline doesn't serve wings on the flights and the magazine just seems like a cheap exploit. Perhaps they are smart and leveraging one of their core assets, hot chicks, but my advice, stick to the "hot chicks" that come out of the deep fryer and get consumed in quantities of 10, 20, or 50 and you'll be much better off!!!

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

Wingstop Restaurants, Inc. Expands in Southern California; Nation's Leading Chicken-Wing Chain Sees Area as Next Big Hub

Wingstop is completely blowing up!

They just signed a deal to open up 26 stores in California and expect over 50 to be opened in the next three years. They claim that Californians are really taking to their "brand". I'm not so sure about that claim, but from my perspective I know that there are enough midwest and east coast transplants (as well as other types of transplants ;-) in California to support a lot of wing joints. People that grew up and/or went to school back east need to get their wing fix somewhere and up until now, the whole west coast has been underserved.

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

Eatery features award-winning hot wings The first of 11 Wingstop's just opened up in the Pheonix (or is it Phoenix, I can never remember!). These guys are on a massive expansion plan lately. See the other article about their new presence in So-Cal.

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

Cardinals bring back the powder blue uni's!

STLtoday - Sports - Cardinals

One thing that I love almost as much as wings is Cardinals baseball. On Saturday evening the Cardinals franchise earned even more of my respect pulling out the powder blue's that the 1982 birds donned while swallowing the Brewers in the series...

Calling all birds fans: Let's flood the front office with suggestions that they keep the powder blues full time!

Wingstop chain picking up steam! Wingstop, America's #1 Wing Chain, Reaches $100 Million Milestone

I personally am a huge fan of the Wingstop! Their focus on the wing is admirable and they've got a good thing going. Their wings come an multiple flavors and the provide an atmosphere that really caters to quick meals or carryout. Their goal is to do to wings what Domino's did to pizza. I'm down with that!

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Buffalo Wild Wings sues KFC! St. Paul Pioneer Press | 06/18/2005 | Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. comes out Blazin' in suit

In a move to preserve the sanctity of it's Blazin' wing sauce offering, Buffalo Wild Wings has filed a federal suit against long-time chicken provider, KFC. Good for BW3 says this analyst, don't let the big boys take away from a good thing that you've got going!

On a side note, I read somewhere that KFC (once known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) is actually going back to referring to themselves as Kentucky Fried Chicken. They went to KFC a few years ago to downplay the unhealthy "fried" component of their identity. Now, on the growing success of competitor Popeyes, it appears they are going back to the retro Kentucky Fried Chicken name to promote the down-home, feel-good appeal. I dig it, long live fried chicken!!!

Peace, love, and grease!
Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Buffalo Wild Wings grows again. This week they signed a deal for approximately 50 new locations adding to their current flock of 320 restaurant locations. Can someone please bring them to Portland, OR??? Buffalo Wild Wings Comes to the Northeast

Results of the 9th annual Wing Ding in Jefferson City, MO. 17 local restaurants participated for the wing crown.

News Tribune

This is the first I've ever heard of Buffalo Philly's, anybody out there got any scoop on this place?

Buffalo Philly's - a HOT, fast, casual restaurant serving family and friends - Buffalo Wings and Philly Cheesesteaks

Check out the blurb on wings at the bottom of this article:

Buffalo News - Off Main Street

While I definitely can sympathize with the Buffalo region's sense of pride and desire to set the records straight, I'm getting somewhat tired of their lack of sensativity to the rest of the wing world and anything that strays from the original. Okay, so hands down Buffalo is the undisputed home and continued mecca for the wing, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the world doesn't exist. The midwest, Ohio (not sure if Ohio should be considered midewest or not), and the south have definitely been able to take the original wing and run with it and one glance at the Internet Hot Wing Database will prove that people in other areas are more than happy with their local wings. People of Buffalo, be proud of your past and current product, but ease up a bit...

Peace, love, and grease!
Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Wingnuts

Wings meet So-Cal, what will they think of next? So, I've been hearing about this Orange County joint lately, apparently they make some pretty good wings. I haven't been there yet, but if you have, please give me a shout or post a review on the Cluckbucket!

http://www.cluckbucket.com/ihwdb.htm

Cluckbucket: Cluckbucket.com Premier Advertising

Personal plug, if you are a company that is serious about serving wings at your restaurant, please consider advertising on Cluckbucket.com. It's a great way to reach a targeted crowd of wing lovers!

The Sun News | 03/12/2005 | Hooters will fly direct to Las Vegas

Does anyone else find it amazing that Hooters Air is doing well enough to keep expanding into different markets? I personally never thought it would last, but then again what do I know. The big bummer however, is that apparently they still don't serve wings on the flight...

Also, Hooters casino in Vegas is still set to open in 2006, do wings and gambling mix?

Willamette Week Online Food & Drink AN EDIBLE BLITZKRIEG OF NEW BINGE HALLS! The Battle of the BULGE

Fire On the Mountain Buffalo Wings in Portland again gets some positive local pub. My co-workers and I made our monthly trek to Fire on the Mountain on Wednesday and this place absolutely rocks! They pay a great amount of attention to their food so while it might not be speedy, it is most definitely worth the wait! They have a good lunch special with 6 wings, fries, and a pop for $6/7 bucks. We each got one of those and then split another order of wings so we got about all we could handle for $10 a pop. Keep on cranking out the great wings guys!!!

The Sun Herald 03/24/2005 Frozen Hooters wings: Good, not the real thing

It looks like Hooter's forray into the frozen food aisle needs a bit more work. I love the concept of bringing wings into the mainstream with a Hooters branded version, but why bother really? Anyone who knows anything about wings knows that no frozen store-bought version could ever perform all that well. Wings are meant to be cooked fresh and eaten right away. If you aren't going to your favorite wing joint or making them on your own from scratch, don't bother!

Peace, love and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Wings make it to Portland!

Cheap Eats

Here's a quick little review from the Portland, OR newspaper about the first true wing joint that opened up earlier this year. The place is a nice little spot, the owners are huge wing lovers and big fans of the Cluckbucket. They really know their stuff when it comes to wings and make up some mean chicken! They have a great range of sauces and have really good side-dishes. Their french fries are money! They even have deep fried twinkies.

Make sure you check out their offical review in the Internet Hot Wing Database.

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Buffalo Wings and Rings plans expansion

Greetings wing lovers, solid news coming out of the Cincinnati area today. Apparently a few franchisees gathered together to purchase the company and are looking to boost up their expansion plans. This is a breath of fresh air because apparently their growth had been pretty slow of late. I love the idea of franchisees taking over the mother ship because they have the hands on knowledge of what it takes to run the restaurant. It's interesting also that 40% of their revenues come from carry-out. This is promising as that is a high margin area and there is a lot of room for taking money from pizza companies in the carry-out/delivery category.

Let's just hope they continue to focus on cranking out good wings!

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Hi folks, I'm still out here, I'll post more later this week.

Looks like Papa Johns is now serving wings. BBQ Chipotle and Buffalo style. There's no mention of them on their website though so I'm not sure what the deal is...

Greetings wing lovers! I've decided it's time for me to get serious about my love of the chicken wing (oh crap that's a scary thing). I love the fact that the popularity of chicken wings has really taken-off across the entire US, but I also sense that we still need someone to be the world's biggest wing activist and why not me?

I've been eating wings since a pretty early age and feel as if I've got a lot of worthless knowledge to instill in the lives of others. Some people are passionate about politics, some religion, some sports, well, I'm pretty passionate about the wing.

Not only have wings grown to be a major player in the appetizer category, but they are also competing with other center of the plate proteins. Wing focused restaurants like Hooters, the Wing Zone, the Wing Stop, BW3, etc are popping up everywhere. This is indeed a great time for the wing but I truly believe that this is just the beginning. Long live the almighty chicken wing! ;-)

Check out the new Cluckbucket.com Wing Sauce review page: Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Sauces and BBQ Sauces too!

Post a comment and let me know what you think.

New home page design for the Cluckbucket. Check it out!

I know it's still ugly, but at least now it's clean...

Cluckbucket: Chicken Wings, Buffalo Wings; It's not just chicken, it's a way of life!

Here's a great new article about Sonya Thomas and her competitive eating abilities.

She's Small, But She Eats Big | theledger.com

The IFOCE has finally given its nod to the Wing Bowl. Here's a quick read... :|: IFOCE :|:

Excellent article recently posted in an attempt to demystify competitive eating. This article was as a result of a 20/20 special on the sport that aired last Friday. ABCNEWS.com : Competitive Speed Eating

Sorry to see the Rams lose, but hopefully that will help the fine people of St. Louis focus on chicken wings for the rest of the winter!

Greetings Cluckbucket fans! So, I for some reason found myself at an Applebee's late last night and had a pleasant surprise. In addition to their new boneless buffalo wings, Applebee's now has tiered wing pricing for the wings on their appetizer menu. I couldn't believe my eyes, what a wonderful treat. I forget the exact price (and I'm told it varies slightly by location) but they offered wings in quantities of 10, 20, or 30. Rock on!!! Here's a link to their appetizer menu, it doesn't show the tiered wing pricing, but trust me, it exists. And, here's the biggest kicker, their wings actually aren't all that bad. They are naked with a nice Red Hot/butter type sauce...

Final bonus, from 3-6 and 9-close the wings, and all other appetizer are 1/2 price. Score!

Applebee's Menu

Greetings friends of the Cluckbucket! Long time no speak. First let me clear some things up. Yes, contrary to popular belief I am alive. I'm currently trying to work my way through about a foot of snow and an inch of ice in downtown Portland (worst storm in 10 years and first time I've seen snow in the city since I've been here), but yes I have alive.

Sorry there hasn't been much activity on the Cluckbucket lately, I've been pretty busy with work and I think that the lack of an active "wing scene" in Portland has stolen a little bit of my mojo. Nonetheless, I have good news to report in that category. Portland is set to get its first Hooters sometime by the end of this month. Now, I know that a lot of people have issues with Hooters wings and their non-traditional style (breaded), but I still love a good batch of Hoots, although I fully admit that at times they have some quality control issues. Hopefully I can get in good with the cooks early at this Hooters and assure that they are making fresh wings, not partially pre-cooking and then re-frying. A mistake I've seen done at some other Hooters in an effort to save time.

Well, I'm starting to work on some re-design stuff for the site and hope to have some changes out to the world by the end of the month. Stay tuned, and keep on clucking!!!

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth

I haven't read the News Rocket in a while, man this is a great periodical!!!

The only news source you need!

Here's a great new article that rates some of the world's best wings in the world's best and original buffalo wing city, Buffalo, NY. Enjoy!

Buffalo News - Buffalo'a best: