I really wish you Hanger lovers would give Porky\'s a shot.
It\'s a high quality wing.
I actually have been to Porky\'s. It is certainly a high quality wing, good place... but it doesn\'t give The Hangar competition. Nothing wrong with them, just not in the same division. Nothing wrong at all with a Beamer, but if you put it up against a Lamborghini, I mean, what can you do? To be fair, The Hanger can be taken down in bone-in wings. The bone-in dirt wings at J Timothy\'s of Plainville, CT are the single greatest wing I\'ve ever had, and I generally prefer boneless! I can\'t take J Timothy\'s over The Hangar because The Hanger does more flavors well and their specialty is boneless which is my preference. But my god, if you\'re living in CT and haven\'t done J Timothy\'s make the trip. You\'ll thank me later. (PS Sliders wings have all the hype and they\'re about as good as Buffalo Wild Wings.)
As for Wings Over (now with over 50 stores nationwide), these wings are VERY GOOD. In almost any town, especially small college towns, they will be the best wings in town, or at least the best ones you can get delivered. They are generally about 80% of The Hangar, which means they are quite good. They are never as good as The Hangar, but part of the problem is that Wings Over are exclusively delivery operations so the wings are never as fresh as getting them served to you at the restaurant. When they sit in a box for 30 minutes, the steam condensates on the ceiling of the box and then drips back onto the wings, reducing the key slightly crispy texture you get at the hangar. Yes, some Wings Over locations have 1 or 2 tables but they\'re not meant to be comfy places to eat, and this affects the experience. Hey, some Dominos have tables too, but you don\'t eat there. Not putting them down at all though...if you have a Wings Over in your town, you can definitely count on it for very very good wings. I ate WO West Hartford for a year, WO Somerville, MA for 2, and WO Brookline, MA for one. The quality is very consistent, and they are highly recommended, especially to any Hangar regulars who have left UMass and need a fix.
BWW...yeah, they are not very good. Their food isn\'t that good and their restaurant concept offers nothing new. Just a lot of TVs, the usual 16 beers on tap that you can get anywhere in America, and meh wings. That\'s like every bar in the USA. Really, they are doing with wings what Budweiser does with beer or McDonald\'s does with hamburgers; if you dumb down the concept enough and can scream that this is a good product loudly enough, you can convince a lot of people to believe it. That\'s just the way it works. BWW wings are some lowest-common-denominator BS. But hey, if you can convince hundreds of thousands of people to consume it and also make them believe it is a high quality product, then is it not a high quality product by definition? And I\'m not knocking them for doing it either...more power to you if you can pull it off. And more room for me to eat at The Hangar with a heady craft beer : )
