Aint no thang but a chicken wing

When I think about March Madness and sports my head immediately goes to food.  Grilling out with hot dogs, hamburgers, brats, huge piles of nachos.  And most importantly wings.  Now I’m the type of person who cleans the wings all the way to the bone.  And the messier the better with me.  So whenever I hear of a new wing place in town I’m eager to check it out.

Luckily I was able to have a chat with franchise owner Eddie Williams about his new store on Dixie Highway Wingstop.  Eddie is in the process of moving his family to Louisville from Central Illinois. Why Louisville? He fell in love with the city when he came to visit Churchill Downs for Hullabalou in 2009 and thought it would be a great place to raise his family and also a great place to share his love of wings!

Specializing in 9 wing flavors: atomic, Cajun, original hot, mild, hickory smoked BBQ, lemon pepper, garlic Parmesan, Hawaiian, and teriaki.

So what is Wingstop? It’s a Texas based franchise who has served over one billion wings since opening, taking home the first placed prize at the Buffalo Wing Festival three years in a row.  Being from the northeast I’ve never heard of a Wingstop before.  But says Eddie of his food, “Everything is cooked to order.  It takes us 9 minutes for boneless wings, 14 minutes bone-in, and everything is made in-house from the potato salad and baked beans to the coleslaw.  The potatoes are cut in-house for the fries.  The ranch and blue cheese are even made in-house.” Because we can all agree- heat lamp food sucks!

Some other interesting things I learned from Eddie:

• Rick Ross the rapper has a line in his song about Wingstop’s lemon pepper wings
• Eddie happens to favor the Cajun and garlic Parmesan wings
• Wingstop has only been open for 5 weeks but he may be looking at another location based on the success

All this wing talk is making me hungry. Check them out yourself at 4812 Dixie Highway.   Open 11a- 12m Monday through Sunday.