Restaurant Review-THE WINGSTOP

RESTAURANT REVIEW-THE WINGSTOP

Wings, Wings and Wings...my favorite part of the chicken and turkey.  A once trash-part of the chicken, in recent decades, wings have become increasingly popular.  You can't go to a restaurant, bar, or pub without having wings as part of the menu.  At a family function, a super bowl party, or a church event, wings will be present.  They are small, which makes them great finger food.  Because they are small, you can make a bunch of them, and they are relatively cheap.  Although due to their popularity, the price of a pack of wings at the grocery store have gone up.  That hasn't stopped Americans from eating bucket loads of wings.  According to the National Chicken Council (I'm not making that up), during the most recent Super Bowl, Americans consumed over 1.25 BILLION chicken wings.  300 Million Americans...1.25 Billion Wings...YOU DO THE MATH!!!

In the last few years, wing-centric restaurants have started to pop up all over the country.  In the Loudoun County, the two most popular wing-centric restaurants are Buffalo Wing Factory, a local chain.  The other is Buffalo Wild Wings, which is a popular national chain.  Most wing restaurants (And restaurants that serve wings) have the same cliche' variety of wings.  They have Buffalo Wings, they have an Asian-inspired wing, flavored with a typically gloppy teriyaki sauce.  And they always have gimmicky spicy wings that are so incredibly hot, that you have to sign a waiver explaining that you may get stomach and intestinal cancer if you eat the "NUCLEAR", "ATOMIC", or whatever crazy name they decide to give them.  All served with your choice of blue cheese sauce, ranch sauce, and perhaps their own trademarked sauce. You go to one wing joint, you have gone to them all.

There is a new wing joint in town called the Wingstop.  They are a national chain, headquartered in Texas, and they have locations in 34 states and Mexico.  Being that it is a national chain, again, I am hesitant (I tend to stay away from most chain restaurants).  But after a friend of mine highly recommended the place, I told him that I would give it a try.  Checked out the menu online, and again...it had the typical cliche' wing-joint menu.  Although it may be cliche', perhaps this place may be better than the others.  I stopped into the Sterling (Virginia) location, which is tucked into a small strip mall, during the lunch hour.  I ordered the "6 Wing Combo".  You get six wings, fries and a coke for a little over $8.00.  I ordered three Garlic-Parmesan flavored wings, and three "Louisiana Rub"-spiced wings to go.  I went to a nearby parking lot to eat my lunch (I wanted to listen to sports radio speculate about why Jameis Winston stole crab legs.  Hilarious story, but I digress).  I started in on the fries, which were quite good.  The seasoning was good, although I detected sugar in their spice blend, which threw me off a bit.  I don't want a sugary-spiced fry, but they tasty enough.  Most of the fries were fried properly, while a few weren't, but for the most I give their fries a good grade.  As for the wings, the Louisiana Rub wings were excellent.  The spice blend was balanced, and provided a warm heat as you ate them.  As for the Garlic-Parm wings, they could have been seasoned a little more.  The garlic flavor was faint for my taste.  When you put something on the menu that says "garlic", I want to taste garlic.  I want to vampires to flea in agony because there is so much garlic in the wings.  The addition of the parmesan on the wing, gave the wing an "off-putting" smell, which would indicate they used a low quality parmesan cheese.  The addition of fresh herbs to the wing, could have made these wings even better.

I wish wing joints would become more creative.  That being said, the Louisina Rub wings and the fries were good.  I won't get the Garlic-Parm wings again.  I plan on visiting again, and trying more flavors.  Although I wouldn't walk over broken glass to stop at the Wingstop, if you are hungry, and want something relatively cheap and tasty, check this place out and see how you like it.  The Wingstop gets TWO WINGS OUT OF FOUR.

Click on this LINK for more information about the Wingstop.

Meeting Ajourned...and that's the MARC-UP