Look, let me be clear, I am a wing snob. I love them all, I bathe in wing sauce, I dream of them, I have a wing tattoo on my wrist. No jk, I don't, but I think I might get one I WOULD DON'T TALK ME OUT OF IT MOM. I knew a Fire Wings was opening on Howe because I've got the insider tips on wing places (I saw the big sign while driving by). A friend told me "it's like a better WingStop" so I was on board. As a self proclaimed "wing snob" I will say, without regret, that I like WingStop wings. I do. I'm sorry, but I do and if you DON'T like WingStop, that means you don't like butter and you're probably a Nazi sympathizer.
I worked a really long Saturday baking and delivering items for an event. After a 12 hour day and no time to eat I decided I DESERVED Fire Wings. I procured a dining partner, I didn't shower, threw on a sweater and WE WERE OFF TO THE RACES. The WING races hahahaha. Oh man, none of this garbage makes sense.
Fire Wings looks way cooler on the inside than you would think. Two levels with a center bar, modern furniture with clean lines and murals on the wall that remind me of a hip over priced store in the mall. Ya know like a 50 year old white man executive who has worked in marketing for 30 years was like "yeah, this is what people consider cool, paint that whole wall abstractly- lots of Burgundy."
It's counter service, which normally I would bitch about but this is the kind of place it is I GET IT. Upon inspecting the menu I realize they also do Poke bowls. What? It's a wing place BUT ALSO POKE BOWLS. Interesting. I'll come back to try that but tonight was about WINGS. There is also a "crab grilled cheese" on the menu which my dining partner decides to order, but to me sounds absolutely disgusting. When we order, we're informed that they don't do the crab grilled cheese anymore and I applaud them for that. What kind of gross shit is that? I, of course, get the hottest wings they have along with the mango habanero. We also get garlic parm and the Thai chili ones. We don't do the combos, just two orders of ten, four different kinds. After we place our order we head to the bar, I'm hoping they have wine because the carbs in beer fill my ass with lard and fat and loneliness. They do, a chardonnay. I order it, the bartender is cool and nice. What kind of monster combines chicken wings and Chardonnay? Oh, me. I do that.
We go upstairs and grab a spot with a nice view of the whole place, it's kinda cool. We wait a long time for our food, I'm not complaining about this as it was a super busy Saturday night, they actually seemed pretty slammed. There were several large parties around us. I never mind waiting for my food, I like drinking wine and hanging out. My glass of wine is empty before I know it and when our food arrives I decide to go down to the bar and order another glass to drink with my meal.
THIS IS WHEN THE STORY GETS INSANE. TOTAL INSANITY.
Not really, but look there's no bartender anymore. I wait, along with several others at the bar for, I'm gonna say, 15 minutes. I realize that people ALWAYS exaggerate wait times on Yelp I am not doing that. It was a long ass time. Finally I give up and go back upstairs to reconvene with my dining partner. "Your food is gonna get cold." "I DON'T CARE I WANT ANOTHER GLASS OF WINE." I watch the bar for a while to see if he returns, he doesn't. I go back and wait at the bar again, hoping someone will notice. No one cares. Finally, I decide to go talk to the counter girl. I say, "is there a bartender or do I just order here?" She is genuinely concerned, not flippant or annoyed at all. She checks in the back, "oh he's on break" she says. I say, "okay soo..." She's a little frazzled, and then just honestly says, "you see the problem is that there's only two people who work here who can actually serve alcohol." This explains a lot, and I appreciate her honesty about it. Just as she says this the bartender returns, he seems irritated as I imagine someone probably interrupted his break because an uppity white woman needs her Chardonnay. She points that he has returned and I go back to the bar to the order, he's a little less friendly now, I guess understandably so.
I'm not giving only 3 stars because of that experience. They were busy, they only had the one guy, he needs a break, I get it. Even after I talked to the counter girl, after I had returned to the bar to order my drink, she came back over to me and apologized again to which I responded as I always, always do in situations like this "it's fine, not a big deal, don't worry about it." She seemed like she actually cared about her job, and honestly the 3 stars is MORE for the service than the food.
I just. Look. I just didn't like the wings that much. The hottest ones were not at all spicy. Like, at all. The sauce was thin and mostly greasy. They were small, dinky, not hearty for what you pay. The dine-in experience was mediocre, and so was the food. read more