I didn’t vote because I’ve only been to Buffalo’s Wild Wings.
However, If you’re ever in the Atlanta area, I’d like throw a plug to my real favorite wings dive: Clay’s Sports Cafe
We don’t have Wingstop here that I know of so by default I would have to vote for BWW but beyond that I wanted to give BWW props for having spicy wings that are sauceless. I hate saucey wings. They can have the sauce baked on but I hate when wings are dripping with sauce.
Wow, so that’s what they’re called. Thanks! I’ve had them in Taiwan (鳳凰展翅 ‘Phoenix Wings’) where they were stuffed with ham and sticky rice, parcooked and then grilled to order. This youtube video shows a Cambodian variant that looks mighty tasty too.
However, the highest expression of fried chicken is arguably Korean Fried Chicken.
Oh, and about the poll; neither BW3 nor Wingstop are anything special. Any decent supermarket or Chinese take-out crushes them in terms of price, quality and freshness. I guess since BW3 has a slightly wider sauce selection it gets the nod.
Between the two, I prefer the chicken at WingZone but prefer the choice of sauces at BWW. Overall, I prefer a third chain over the other two: Buffalo Wings and Rings. They have 5 levels of mild-to-spicy on each flavor offered.
You should consider ordering wings with sauce on the side or get the BWW naked tenders with sauce on the side. I also dislike too much sauce especially when there’s a pool of sauce in the box making the chicken all soggy.
I luvvvv wings, but neither of the two chains mentioned do much for me. They are ok, but not even close to great.
In my former area, the Midwest, my favorite chain was Wings, Etc.
In my current area, Denver, my favorite place for wings is a stand alone spot called the Wing Hut that is conveniently located a few steps away from my favorite craft beer tap room, Dry Dock Brewing.
Coincidentally I first heard of Wingstop yesterday. Apparently they are opening a second location in New Jersey. I didn’t even know about the first one. Their locations are in Newark and Elizabeth so my chances of going there are pretty much zero. BWW wins by default. Their wings are very good but not great. Very good onion rings too.
There’s also a new one in Union City, not far from where I live.
Regarding the question, I’d give my vote to Wingstop. The chicken just tastes better, crispier. But it’s close – BWW has some very good sauces.
Well, I finally did it last night, and set myself up with an order of ten classic (none of this boneless crap) atomic wings. And I have to say, I did enjoy them. The were nice and crisp, reasonably sized wings. The atomic sauce (their hottest sauce) itself was a building heat, with a lot of peppercorn flavor on the back end. Like with the Anchor Bar’s suicide wings, the black pepper (and possibly pink pepper it tasted like to me) got a little bit overbearing after three or four wings. Now they really did bring the heat with this one. The first wing or two didn’t seem like much, but when I got down to the final two wings, my mouth was certainly aglow and getting to the point where it was getting painful. Good job on these and actually making the spiciest wings pretty damned spicy as well as flavorful.
The only complaint I had was that the sauce was a little bit on the thick/gloppy side. I tend to like my hot wing sauces to be more of a glaze-like consistency. It was almost like I was getting a bit too much sauce in each bite. But other than that, no real complaints. Next time I’ll try the normal Buffalo sauce. I’ll also now have to refresh my memory of BW3.