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:
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http://www.chickenwinghunt.com
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http://www.cluckbucket.com/events/greatbuffalochickenwinghunt.htm

Peace, love, and grease!

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

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/

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

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

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/