Day Two Recap

Day Two Recap:

Day two of our Labor Day extravaganza has come to a close and the crazy ride that began what seems like long time ago (but really was just a day) just continued to get crazier.

Niagara Falls: Today started with a wonderful diversion from the wing subculture with a side-trip to Niagara Falls. Steve and I drove the short distance (about 20 miles) from downtown Buffalo and spent a good amount of time seeing the falls from the American side of the border. Then we headed over to Canada to check out the sights from their perspective – and wow was it quite a difference. Since we were pressed for time we pulled a Clark Griswold at the Grand Canyon stop at a nice vantage point so that Steve could get out and snap some quick pictures. Then it was back to Buffalo only to sit in 45 minutes of traffic trying to cross the bridge and pass back over into the good ole’ US of A. The detour forced us to miss the 0.5K Running of the Chickens, but nonetheless left us with plenty of time to enjoy the rest of the day.

National Buffalo Wing Festival: We arrived at the official first day of the National Buffalo Wing Festival at about 2:00PM to be greeted immediately by organizer Drew Cerza who said “we’ve already got a 5:00 crowd”. Never having been to the festival before we didn’t quite know what to expect but Drew was right, the place had filled up nicely and lines were starting to lengthen. First order of business, find some chicken…

Our First Wings: I have never been to WingStreet before and the line there was short so we decided to head there first. I realize it’s somewhat lame to show up at the one and only wing festival and start off by eating wings from a chain that’s owned by Pizza Hut, but nonetheless, that’s what we did. To my surprise the wings were actually pretty good. We had some medium (they didn’t have hot unfortunately) and some spicy BBQ and the only thing that was a bit off about them was that there was some interesting glaze type of coating on both of the wings – not sure what that was.

Traditional Buffalo Wing Sauce Competition: We then proceeded to hit up about three more wing joints as we waited for the first main stage event of the day to get ready to begin - the Traditional Buffalo Wing Sauce competition (not to be confused with the national buffalo wing sauce competition that we judged the night before). This event featured four wing sauce cooking teams (two of which were friends of the CluckBucket – Ric Kealoha and Matt Reynolds from the documentary and fellow national sauce judge/competitive eater/chef/all around good guy Joe LaRue). Not long after the contest had begun we were on stage with Ric and Matt providing some strategic guidance on the direction of their sauce. They were challenged with the time-limit imposed on them as they like to have a while to let their sauce condense and also were facing the odds as they purchased an inappropriate ingredient the night before. Steve stayed on stage taking pictures and assisting while I went booth to booth to find the missing ingredient. After a good bit of searching, a replacement was secured and the team was done with their sauce. The judging occurred and much to the wing hunter’s delight, Ric and Matt’s sauce was crowned the champion. Matt called the entire gang of hunters on to the stage to assist in the acceptance speech and after briefing the crowd on the documentary, plugging the CluckBucket, and allowing Al Caster to play a few chords, the entire crew began to lead the audience in their official chant of “wings (pause) wings (pause) wings wings wings (pause) wings (pause) wings (pause) wings wings wings.”

Competitive Eating: Then it was time for more wings, a stop at a nearby brewpub, a chat with competitive eater Eric Badlands Booker, and then back to the main stage for the competitive eating contest. The contest was an epic 12 minute battle that pitted 15 of the world’s top competitive eaters against each other and their common enemy – the wing. After all was said and done, Sonya Thomas ended up on top by consuming 5.17 lbs of wing meat which translates into approximately 173 wings = and really bad indigestion. Nonetheless, we were there to see a world record broken – and were glad that Sonya could use the ideal eating conditions (75 and sunny) to reclaim her crown.

It was time to cash out the rest of our wing tickets so we loaded up on some very tasty chicken from the Wing Zone before filming some video commentary to wrap-up the day and heading for the exits.

The Anchor Bar: Back to the hotel to grab our car and then we finally headed out to the wing mecca, the birthplace of the wing, the Anchor Bar. Since arriving in Buffalo we had been given so many different perspectives on the Anchor Bar we truly didn’t know what to expect when we arrived. What we did find immediately was an 8:30 crowd that was bursting at the seams but fortunately we were able to snag a couple of seats at a bar table and quickly order up two Bud Lights and a plate of chicken. Now for what was somewhat a surprise to us (based on what others had commented earlier on), Steve and I both found that the Anchor Bar wings were hands down the best wings that we had on the entire trip. The sauce was truly a pure authentic buffalo wing sauce of Franks Red Hot and butter and the chicken was perfectly prepared, perfectly sized, and quickly delivered while it was still hot. Outside of the wings, the experience at the bar was great, it has a good down-home type of atmosphere and the people there were very friendly. Obviously things have changed dramatically for them over the years because of their notoriety, but they still manage to have a really good environment for wing lovers to visit.

A quick stop at the shady Wendy’s next door for some Frosties to cleanse the pallet and then we were off to meet up with the wing hunt team for what we thought was to be their final discussion and crowning of the “best buffalo wing in the world”.

Great Chicken Wing Hunt Deliberations: We found the team at the home of their gracious hosts in somewhat tattered spirits. Al and Ron really wanted the pizza that had been ordered a while before, Thor just wanted to call it quits for the night, and Ric needed red meat (apparently this was a recurring theme for Ric throughout the trip). The scientists/statisticians took a while to show up with the results and Matt finally was able to rally the troops around 11:00. Filming began and the statisticians revealed the findings of the wing ranking data that had been compiled along the hunt. Much like the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) process, the statisticians had devised a way to dwindle the 62 restaurants where wings were consumed down to a list of the top ten. To the credit of Matt and the statisticians, they did a lot of work with the wing ballots to capture questions about the hunter’s mood, general health, etc along the way so that their own personal issues would not influence their rating of the wing. After the top ten adjusted and non-adjusted were announced, the team deliberated and gave their opinions about the seemingly clear number one wing. That is – until I posed the following question – “Are you completely sure that the wing you are about to crown as the best buffalo wing in the world is truly a buffalo wing?” And from there the night seemed to unravel a bit. A pretty heated debate began that forced the wing team to think through what they were about to do and to also revisit the initial intentions and definitions that they had set forward at the beginning of the hunt…

Unfortunately, and this is the part that sucks for you, due to the sensitive nature of the film, I can’t talk in any more details about the deliberations of that evening at this point in time. What I can tell you was that Steve and I left the house at roughly 1:00 in the morning and no conclusions had been made by the team. They decided to sleep on things and gather their thoughts, and to reconvene at roughly 3:00 PM the next day back in Matt’s hometown of Lyons, NY.

What I can tell you is this, Steve and I left that evening very tired, but also very happy that we were there to witness all of the events of the day. It was a great day with lots of activity and again way too many wings, but it was very much worth it from both of our perspectives.

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott “The CluckBucket” Roth
www.cluckbucket.com

Deliberations to Continue

After a scientific listing of the hunters top rated wings by a pair of statisticians and a lengthy debate by the hunters and the brothers Roth, no decision has been made on the best buffalo wing in the world. Deliberations to continue tomorrow morning.

Matt Reynolds engaged

Day one ends with a proposal and Lucie sying yes. Congrats Matt and Lucie.

And the winner is...

After a gruelling 12 minutes of gurgitation, the winner has been crowned. Sonya Thomas has sent a new world record by consuming 173 wings in 12 minutes. Here is how the top four ended up.

Sonya Thomas 5.17 lbs
Chip Simpson 4.33 lbs
Brad Shulo 4.1 lbs
Humble Bob 3.4 lbs

Competitors mentally preparing to eat.

The Mighty Thor plowing through his first tray.

Sonya Thomas walks away with the crown.

> See the rest of our pictures from the United States Buffalo Wing Eating Championships.

> See our behind the scenes video from the United States Buffalo Wing Eating Championships.

Peace, love, and way too much grease!

Scott "The CluckBucket" Roth

Wing eating competition begininng

My money is on Sonya Thomas, just got a pregame picture with her and wished her "good luck". She seemed very poised and focused, but loose and happy.

Sonya Thomas and the CluckBucket

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The CluckBucket" Roth

Dental Floss

Just met Mike and Lynn from Buffalo, they bring their own dental floss to the show. Brilliant.

Badlands is Rapping

As the opening act for the wing eating competition. Video and pictures will come soon.

Booker getting ready to rap.

Booker and the CluckBucket.

See the rest of our pictures of Eric Badlands Booker.

See the video we took of Eric Badlands Booker rapping. (coming soon)

Hear Badlands rap about competitive eating on his MySpace page.

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The CluckBucket" Roth

Scott McLintock takes blue cheese crown

He bobbed for wings in a swimming pool of bleu cheese and pulled out 14. He's the winner. Steve was on stage taking pictures.

Scott McLintock poses with his trophy

See the rest of our blue cheese bobbing contest pictures.

Channel 7 Interview

Just had a great interview, should air tonight

The Smell of Grease

The smell of bubbling grease outside the fest is intense. They have 20 deep fryers going nonstop with 6 baskets each that hold 35 wings at a time - that means they can cook over 4,000 wings every 15 minutes or over 16,000 wings per hour.

20 deep industrial deep fryers in a row.

Local cooks preparing the wings.

See the rest of our pictures of the deep fryers in action.

Peace, love, and grease (really!)!

Scott "The CluckBucket" Roth

Pearl Street Brewery

Randomly found friends of the Cluckbucket and people that read about us in the paper this morning. Good break to have a nice IPA and watch the Illinois Mizzou football game. Now back to the fest for the wing eating contest.

Side view of Pearl Street Grill and Brewery

Back view of Pearl Street Grill and Brewery, they had 3 very cool outdoor decks.

Festival Crowd Chants

After Ric and Matt won the sauce crown Al Caster played the wing hunt theme song and the crowd chanted "wings (pause) wings (pause) wings wings wings (pause) wings (pause) wings (pause) wings wings wings"

Hunters lead the crowd in the "wings" chant.

Al Caster plays guitar during acceptance speech.

Hunters win the traditional buffalo wing sauce competition

Hunters Ric Kealoha and Matt Reynolds just stole the show at the traditional buffalo wing sauce competition (and all four of the competitors sauces were much better than the 30+ sauces we judged last night). Their winning sauce kept pretty true to the original buffalo sauce. Steve consulted with Matt on the sauce flavor while I went booth to both to find missing ingredients, took pictures, and mingled with Eric Badlands Booker. Cluckbucket is being well represented. Pictures to come.

Matt begins to sample the goods.

Matt consults with Steve for his "expert" opinion.

The award winning sauce.

See the rest of our pictures from the traditional sauce competition.

Recipe soon to come on CluckBucket.com.

PLG
Scott

Cluckbucket Featured in Buffalo Newspaper

See the article about the wing judging last night:

The Buffalo News: City & Region: No ‘wingin’ it’ on sauces for old pals

Oh Canada

Now over on the Canadian side of Niagra Falls, man we really got screwed on this border. Will post pictures tonight so you can see what I mean.

American Falls (Horseshoe in the far background) from the American side of Niagra.

Steve and Scott on the American side.

Horseshoe Falls from the Canadian side of Niagra.

See the rest of our pictures from Niagra Falls.

See the video that we took at Niagra Falls.

Now driving back to Buffalo on the Canadian side. Hopefully we can make it back in time for the running of the chickens, going to be really close.

PLG

Scott

Good Morning Wing Lovers

Another beautiful day has begun here in Buffalo. We are off to Niagra Falls for some sightseeing. Wings for breakfast, will post pictures later.

PLG

Scott

Day One Recap

I unfortunately need to keep this short because I'm dead tired and about ready to fall asleep. Today started at 5:45 AM Chicago time and it's now 1:00 am Buffalo time the next day and I'm still going, but not for much longer...

First things first, my highest compliments go out to Matt Reynolds and the entire wing hunt crew. If you haven't looked at Matt's site to see the cast of characters that he's pulled together, click here to go there now and take a look - they are a very interesting bunch of folks and all very very cool people. Their stamina over the past weeks is absolutely amazing as each individual has consumed on average 850 wings over the stretch and even hit 11 wing restaurants in one single day. Their collective devotion to the wing is deeper than any that I've ever seen before.

Steve and I had an absolute blast meeting up with the crew for the very end of their tour and I think we were able to give them a breath of fresh air as they came down the home strech. Our time at the first joint was amazing because we got to demonstrate wing eating techniques, catch (or attempt to catch in my case) wings in our mouth in the parking lot, and at one point I was able to have about a 20 minute chat about my love of the wing. It felt like a deep fireside chat about life at a camp or something.

You can see all of our pictures from Day One by clicking here.

Overall, I think Steve and I safely put away over 120 wings during the day today and this is just the beginning. Here's what our agenda looks like for Day 2:

• 9:00: Drive to Niagra Falls to see the sights
• 12:00(noon)-10:00PM: At the National Buffalo Wing Fest
• 1:00: 0.5K Running of the Chickens - gotta see this
• 2:00: Hot Sauce Recipe Contest
• 5:30: Bleu Cheese Bowl Competition
• 6:00: USA Chicken Wing Eating Championship

We'll be posting all during the day tomorrow so stay tuned.

Peace, love, and grease!

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth

PS: My favorite picture of Day One, Hunter Al Castor outside of Duffs having a smoke.

Wing Judging

In the midst of the wing judging as we speak, some good, some not so good. But overall a great time! Will post pictures later tonight.

Scott and Steve before judging

During Judging

Scott Judging

Scott Lowery inducted into Hall of Flame

At a private ceremony Drew Cerza and the Mayor of Buffalo has just crowned Scott Lowery and his late partner Jim Disbrow as the newest members of the Hall of Flame.

Done with Duffs

Just leaving the last official stop on the tour, Duffs at the corner of Sheridan and Millersport. Great experience overall, I liked the wings more than Steve did. This was the final stop on the tour and it seemed like a bitter sweet ending. Speaking of endings, The Mighty Thor decided to order up 15 death wings at the very end. They were exceptionally painful for most of us except for Ron who calmly put away 4 wings. To give some perspective the hot were classified as 35000 scoville heat units and the 150000 scu.

Outside of Duffs (they started making wings at about the same time as the Anchor Bar)

The "death" wings from Duffs.

Ron calmly putting away 4 death wings

See all of the great pictures that we were able to get from Duffs

Will post more later, we're off to the baseball stadium for an invite only event put on by the wing king.

Wings wings wings

Stop number one (Buffalo Brewpub is finished, and wow was it amazing. I really don't know what to say right now it is so surreal. The wing hunters are dragging to the finish line but it seemed like we boosted their spirits a bit. We started off by sampling four different wings. We walked them through several wing eating techniques, had a twenty minute "fireside" chat about the state off the wing industry, and capped things off with some wing toss out in the parking lot. After several failed attempts, Steve actually caught one. Now we are on our way to the next place, Duffs.

Outside the Buffalo Brewpub

Scott with the owner of the Buffalo Brewpub

Scott demonstrating a wing eating technique

Steve catching a wing in his mouth in the parking lot.

See the rest of the pictures from the Buffalo Brewpub.

PLG

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth

Best Wings in Buffalo?

Saw a sign with that claim already at the airport. Will post picture tonight.

First New Experience

Decided to rent a car at the airport. 60 bucks per day at the counter, jumped on Priceline and got it for 30 a day. Nice ride, in and out in less than 30 minutes. I love the internet and buffalo.

Our new ride!

Steve and Scott in the ride.

Arrived in Buffalo

Things have gone well so far. Met Steve at O'Hare at about 730 and boarded the flight to Buffalo. Now we're on our way to the hotel to pick up our new Cluckbucket gear and to meet up with Matt and the Chicken Wing Hunt crew at Bar Bill Taven. Will post again from there.

Here's the rest of today's agenda:

• 1:00: Meet up with the wing hunt team at Buffalo Brewpub
• 3:00: Journey with the wing hunt team to Duff's
• 5:00: Private pre-show reception at the National Buffalo Wing Festival
• 7:00: Judging in the "America's Greatest Wing Sauce Competition"

Peace, love, and grease (plg)

Scott "The Cluckbucket" Roth

The Wing Tour Begins

Its official. I'm off to Buffalo for the weekend events. I just arrived in Chicago for an evening layover. I'm craving wings! Must hold out till tomorrow.

CluckBucket.com announces u-Cluck-2: an educational resource for wing lovers worldwide

Greetings fellow lovers of the wing. Labor Day 2007 is almost upon us and this year that marks two very significant events for the world of the wing - the exciting conclusion of the Great Chicken Wing Hunt (Matt Reynolds' two-week documentary tour through the wing promiseland) and the 6th annual National Buffalo Wing Festival (Drew Cerza's popular two-day tribute to the wing). Sharing with the excitement and momentum of these amazing events, we at CluckBucket.com are proud to release a new online resource for wing lovers worldwide: u-Cluck-2.

u-Cluck-2 (which stands for University of Cluck 2.0) is a gift to wing lovers worldwide from the Original Brothers of Wing, Scott "The CluckBucket" and Steve "The Vanilla Cluckilla" Roth. In the initial release of u-Cluck-2 you will find seven video demostrations of wing eating techniques that have been paramount to the our enjoyment of wings over our 40+ combined years of wing consumption. In the compilation of videos, classic techniques such as The Smash, The Small Bone Twist, and the Badlands Booker Spin Move are paired up with newbies like The Finger, The Plunger, The Scooby Doo, and last but definitely not least, Scott "The CluckBucket" Roth's own creation and personal/crowd favorite - The Grenade.

In addition to the wing eating technique videos, the initial release of u-Cluck-2 also contains an updated Chicken Wing Dictionary. Back in 2001, the we published the initial Chicken Wing Dictionary which has been used by millions (if not thousands or hundreds) to brush up on their wing lingo and assure that they are constantly up-to-date with the latest wing nomenclature. The current release provides new and old wing lovers alike a chance to standardize their wing commentary on a generally accepted set of terms.

The current u-Cluck-2 site is only the beginning as many more exciting features will be added over the coming weeks and months.

Visit u-Cluck-2

PS: As a side note, you may be wondering to yourself - if this is University of Cluck 2.0, where was University of Cluck 1.0? Well, stop wondering, it simply didn't exist, we just thought that the name "u-Cluck-2" was pretty catchy so we had to make something up...

Peace, love, and grease!

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

Democrat & Chronicle: Audio Slideshow

Here's a great audio/picture slideshow from the Great Chicken Wing Hunt's stop in Rochester, NY.

Enjoy the show!

Democrat & Chronicle: Audio Slideshow

Capital News 9 | 24 Hour Local News | HEADLINES | "Great Chicken Wing Hunt" rolls through Albany

Coverage of the Wing Hunt's stop in Albany, NY.

Capital News 9 24 Hour Local News HEADLINES "Great Chicken Wing Hunt" rolls through Albany

Wing Hunt | WTVH-TV CBS 5 Syracuse, NY | Local News

Coverage of the rolling documentary on wheels from Auburn, NY. We'll be there with the crew in just four short days!!! Can't wait, I've already begun fasting...

Wing Hunt WTVH-TV CBS 5 Syracuse, NY Local News

The Great Chicken Wing Hunt: Roth brothers join the hunt

Blog post by documentarian Matt Reynolds about the Roth Brother's participation in The Great Chicken Wing Hunt.

The Great Chicken Wing Hunt: Roth brothers join the hunt

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