This restaurant began in Garland, Texas in 1994, and has grown very rapidly, bucking the trend of…read morefast food spots over the last few years, becoming a bit of a food media darling!
I've tried their Fried Chicken Sandwich ( small filet, middle of the pack overall), but not the wings. Today I ordered the classic wings, both the Original Hot and the Lemon Pepper dry rubbed - a 6 piece mix & match combo for $12.69, it comes with their famous, well seasoned FF and a large drink. I also got a side of Cajun Corn medallions. I got both the Blue Cheese and the Ranch sauces.
The FF are rather unique for a fast food spot - freshly hand cut, with a bit of skin left on, sprinkled with a seasoning mix that gives the fries sweet, salty, and savory aspects. While these fries are very popular, I'm not a fan of the seasoning, don't care for the sweet flavor on fries. Without that sweetness, these would be very, very good fries in both taste and texture - as it is, I would pass on a combo on any future visits, or swap out the fries for celery or such.
The corn medallions are sliced directly from the cob, deep fried, and then sprinkled with Cajun seasoning. The corn was tasty and in medallion form, easy to deal with, but a touch greasy. The medallion were easily handled with one hand, a convenient touch.
Now let's talk about the wings. The wings served here are touted as never frozen , and are cooked to order. The cooked to order claim is simply not always the case - at heavy traffic times, full baskets are cooked in anticipation of orders to be received - just how broad is the "cooked to order" window?
Since around 90% of Wingstop restaurants are franchised operations, I would guess there can be significant differences in the breadth of that window.
As to the never frozen, this approach brings up logistical issues for the individual restaurants - dependable suppliers capable of frequent deliveries, determining proper delivery sizes - would locations be tempted to freeze chicken to reduce loss? Would cooked wings be "carried over" to the next day? Like always, get to know your restaurant if you expect you will visit more than just occasionally!
As is my habit when visiting a restaurant, I arrived shortly after the posted opening time - here it is 10:30. As was the case at the other location ( and a good number of other restaurant spots), they weren't really ready to conduct, still prepping, organizing, turning on the fryers, checking their cell phone, getting ready for their day in the world of fast food service!
Took just under 25 minutes to get my order, not exactly fast food speed. The Original Hot wings were very nice with the sauce providing the right amount of heat to complement the plumb, well cooked chicken. The texture was also excellent with the tender meat pulling cleanly off the bone. The wings were nicely sauced with a bit of residue at the bottom for more dipping, but not so much as to make the wings soggy in any way!
The Lemon Pepper wings were much the same, though I found them as touch bland. The Blue Cheese was good, but not great. I thought the ranch was the stronger of the two!
Would I come back for these wing - only if a convenient drive by. There are a number of spots locally that topped these wings, with comparable pricing and better service - Starting with Ronni's, Waldo's, Sixty-Six, and even Longhorn, for dry rub. And other very good choices include Pizza Hut (Yes, Pizza Hut), Chili's, East Coast Wings, Buffalo Wild Wings, Applebees, and of course Zaxby's!
Long review, but for a reason - this chain is getting a lot of media attention - sometimes this works, sometimes it don't - we'll see, I think there are storms on the horizon, with the service aspect the most troubling!
