The ever-popular chicken wing — also America’s favorite dish on Super Bowl Sunday — is apparently going through an identity crisis.
Classic finger food has long been a staple of restaurants, often featured as an appetizer on menus. But over the years it has increasingly transformed into a main dish. Think of the many wing-focused chains, like Buffalo Wild Wings and Wingstop WING,
which put the bird’s favorite front and center.
And think about the fact that many Americans simply devour chicken wings as an appetizer, regardless of how they are classified on the food list.
That was the case when the popular Chili’s chain added wings to its menu last year before football season — and the result was that customers spent less (or traded) preparing the wings as a meal instead of ordering them as an appetizer, according to recent comments by Kevin Hochman, CEO of Brinker International EAT,
the parent company of Chili’s. The chain continued to offer the wings, but no longer features the item prominently on its menu, in an effort to reverse the trend.
“We have corrected course,” a Brinker spokesperson told MarketWatch.
The issue continues to plague many other restaurants, according to analysts and industry professionals. The bottom line is that no one knows anymore what constitutes a plate of wings: appetizer, main course, or something entirely classified unto itself.
Ironically, if there’s one day on the calendar where such distinctions seem meaningless, it’s Super Bowl Sunday. That’s when an astonishing number of wings are devoured — 1.45 billion wings are expected to be eaten, according to a pre-game estimate from the National Chicken Council — and not much thought is given to where the item lies on the meal spectrum . It’s just, well, game day food.
But during the rest of the year confusion often reigns.
There are those who insist that wings are appetizer-worthy and cannot take a backseat to any other food when it comes to meal time.
“They’re the raison d’être,” said Arthur Bovino, a food writer and podcaster who knows wings from his considerable time spent in Buffalo, the city most associated with the dish.
““I am the reason for being”“
Others say some wings go a long way and they’re fine with keeping them in the starting category.
“I don’t like eating a whole thing of wings,” said Kristi Marquez, vice president of marketing for Das Beer Garden, a sports restaurant in Jupiter, Florida, which naturally features this dish.
Marquez added that his place has a grazing-style approach to dining — meaning there’s less distinction between appetizers and main courses and customers generally order few things — so the wing conundrum isn’t a big deal.
Other restaurateurs say that even if customers order the wing appetizer as a meal, they don’t want to get in anyone’s way.
“My goal is for people to eat what’s on their plates. If they’re craving an appetizer as an entree, I encourage that,” said Ron Silver, chef and owner of Bubby’s, a popular New York restaurant that offers a gourmet version of smoked-style wings.
Arlene Spiegel, a New York-based restaurant consultant, added that venues are also well aware that wings — often a fairly spicy element in that Buffalo-style preparation — set the stage for customers to order more drinks. And this is where you earn especially in the restaurant sector.
“The real margins are in alcohol,” he said.
The connection between wings and alcohol speaks to the beginnings of the wing craze in America decades ago. That is, the dish was neither a starter nor a second course, but simply low-cost bar food. Or what Clark Wolf, another industry consultant, called “20thpeanuts of the century,” a reference to a historic bar item offered free to make patrons thirsty.
A waiter at an Anchor Bar brings out some wings. The wings-focused facility started in Buffalo, but now has several franchise locations.
Anchor bar
Specifically, the creation of the version of Buffalo-style wings that became so popular is often credited to the Anchor Bar, a Buffalo, New York establishment that began serving the dish in the 1960s. While it’s debated whether others in Buffalo got there first, the point is that chicken wings and alcoholic beverages were inextricably linked together.
Eventually, wings moved beyond the bar and became featured in restaurants, especially as a shareable appetizer. To date, according to Datassential, a company that analyzes restaurant trends, they are the third most present appetizer on menus, behind salads and soups.
But how and why did wings cross the line into meal territory?
Some industry insiders and observers say it has a lot to do with the advent of these wing-centric restaurants: Buffalo Wild Wings, a leader in the category, has been around since 1982. In fact, once some dining establishments have focused on wings, they signaled that wings were no longer a mere sideshow to the dining experience and could stand alone in any restaurant or even when prepared at home.
“It’s changed the perception of how people eat wings,” said Chandler Steele, senior manager of innovation for Tyson Foods TSN,
a dominant poultry company that supplies wings to restaurants and also packages them as a supermarket product.
The Buffalo Wild Wings chain was born in 1982.
Getty Images
Other recent factors come into play when looking at how wings have moved into the realm of appetizers, experts say. Perhaps the most significant data point cited is the rising cost of dining out in this inflation-prone era, as evidenced by U.S. government data that restaurant (or “food away from home”) prices have risen by 7.1% in 2023.
Wings are inevitably a cheaper meal than many other menu options. At a Chili’s in suburban New York City, a plate of a dozen wings with fries costs $18.89, according to the chain’s website. By contrast, a full order of the chain’s famous ribs with fries and mac ‘n’ cheese costs $25.59.
And don’t forget a certain generational factor, as young diners don’t always follow the “rules” when it comes to what qualifies as an appetizer. Or so says Claire Conaghan, associate director of publications at Datassential.
“Whatever they want, they will build a meal around it,” he said.
As restaurants see higher check averages, what might happen to the state of wings over time? Industry professionals say to expect any number of possibilities.
“‘Do they have a high return? Not necessarily. Are they at high risk? Absolutely.’“
Restaurants could package wings with other lower-cost items — like the aforementioned example of combining chili with fries — to at least raise the price by a few dollars and boost margins. Or they might offer wings in smaller quantities, to fully signal their entree status.
Another scenario: They might just de-emphasize the wings altogether, especially given that this is an item subject to a lot of supplier price fluctuations – there’s inevitably a spike around Super Bowl time due to demand and offer, experts note – and therefore the margins are not always large.
“Do they have a high return? Not necessarily. Are they at high risk? Absolutely,” said Russ Spencer, senior director of Craftable, a technology company that provides services to restaurants.
Yet such is America’s hunger for chicken wings on Super Bowl day or any other day that no one really expects the menu item to disappear anytime soon. If anything, there are probably more diners out there ready to feast on a sizable portion of their own.
Certainly, that’s how David Thomas, a 48-year-old fan living in suburban Chicago, feels about the Birds’ favorite. He’s fine with eating a wing or two as a happy hour snack. But when it comes to actually eating the wings, he needs a plate to fit about 10 people.
“They constitute a 100% meal,” he said.