You might think that chicken wings were always an American obsession.
But during the early days of fast food chains in America, it was burgers, burgers, and more burgers—singles, doubles, with cheese or without. Maybe some fries and a shake, and you’re good to go. Not a chicken in sight.
Although the original McDonald’s opened in the late ’40s, a fish sandwich didn’t appear on their menu until 1964, and a chicken sandwich didn’t make its debut for another 16 years, in 1980. Chicken was not on anyone’s mind—at least not when it came to franchised fast food.
Today, it seems like you can’t drive a mile through any busy city in this country without passing a chicken franchise—more specifically, a chicken wing franchise. Wingstop, Chicken Snobs, Buffalo Wild Wings, and all the other nationally recognized “full bird” shops such as Kentucky Fried, Church’s, and Popeyes are saturating the fast food and casual fast-food landscape while satisfying our appetites for everything chicken.
But there’s one part of the bird that everyone seems to be craving nowadays: chicken wings. Ironically, chicken wings never started out as the “headliner.” It took a kind of “happy accident” in Buffalo, New York, to turn this once-ignored chicken part into a national obsession.
Proud home of the “original” Buffalo wings, the Anchor Bar, in Buffalo, New York, tells the story of the spicy hot chicken wings that started out as something thrown together to feed some hungry teens, and then became a staple at every self-respecting sports bar and local tavern in America.
It didn’t take long for the “big boys” with the “big money” in the food industry to take notice.
The rest, is chicken history.
What makes Cattleman’s such a big player in the “wings” game?
General Manager Jeff Halicki, who you’ll often see patrolling the vast meat locker at the Centerline store, attributes Cattleman’s wing success to 3 important factors.
- We know our customers and what they want in their wings. What size, how meaty and in what size packages, which by the way, is quite large!
- We always keep a LARGE inventory of wings. Cattleman’s customers often are buying for large get-togethers and they want to be sure they can count on our inventory to handle any size party or group.
- We buy smart so you can buy smart. We closely monitor national distributers to buy smart and then pass on our savings, to you. Our competitive pricing, often means we can run specials with additional savings. Cattleman’s literally buys hundreds of THOUSANDS of pounds of chicken wings every year! That kind of buying gets EVERYONE’S attention.
And whenever you’re in the mood to enjoy a plate of delicious wings right on the spot, Executive Chef Michael Keys, who oversees the kitchen and prepared foods at the Centerline store’s Smoke House Café, always has a variety of hot, chicken wing flavors ready to pick up and go, or to just sit down and enjoy right on the spot!
You can prepare and enjoy one of Cattleman’s delicious recipes for Chicken Wings right at home with our Nashville Hot Chicken Wings recipe.
If you love chicken wings, you can be sure that Cattleman’s is your “Wing Man”. We’ve got you covered.
