How do you do, fellow kids?
Wingstop (Upper Yellow Mall, Metrocentre, Gateshead, NE11 9XY) is one of a group of 1400+ casual dining restaurants worldwide, that focuses on in my view, one of the worst parts of a chicken 🤷🏻♂️.
I’d had a conversation today about where to get the best wings in Newcastle. And struggled to think of anywhere all that good. Maybe Stixs? It’s more fried chicken-focused. Good though. There’s surely a gap in the market. I imagine it’s hard as a small fish/indie when you’ve got Shark Club etc. doing 50p wings. Even Coop closed at the end of 2023 🥲.
A cursory search piqued my curiosity so I’m in here at 8 PM on a Wednesday evening in February to see what it’s all about. The premise at Wingstop is fairly simple. Since 1994, they’ve claimed to be ‘the wing experts’. But there are also tenders, boneless bits, and a solitary burger. Fries, slaw and sauces.
It’s intimidating. The venue, not the menu. Not least because the place is bright, like, turkey teeth bright white. I have to Shazam the ‘volume 11’ music being played, which informs me I’m listening to Kwengface. I don’t like it.
But mostly, because I’m comfortably twice as old as anyone in here. And it’s full, like, wait for a table full. I’m Steve Buscemi, personified.
It’s packed to the rafters. On the way in I counted six people in nearby (TGI) Fridays, and a presumably closed-down Doppio Malto. I’m all for a better quality of chain, if they’re a partly-necessary-evil.
Being so busy means there is shit, everywhere. The couple of staff doing table service can’t really cope with the sheer volume of mess that 50-odd teenagers shredding chicken wings leave in their wake. Makes me long for the COVID days when everything was sanitised, twice.
The chicken? Well, it’s OK. The wings, I’d prefer double-fried, or baked and fried (they get just one fry here), but they’re pretty moist. But it’s really all about sauces and dips. For any item there are a dozen glazes from mango habanero (pleasantly vinegary) to a spicy Korean (too sweet) via garlic parmesan butter (try this one) and Louisiana (don’t bother). Then dips, so you’re getting limited chicken flavour — as ever it’s just a texture medium for a shitload of sauce. If that’s all you’re looking for, you’ll probably like Wingstop.
Tenders are…OK. Nicely breaded and fried but they could be both plumper and juicier. Boneless pieces are chicken nuggets by any other name. If you’re gonna live or die by the chicken, it’s gotta be better. In my brief estimation here, Wingstop does it better than Popeyes which I thought was shite, but worse than Slim Chickens.
Chips are decidedly average. I can also feel the murderous contempt for the customers sizzling off the waiting staff. It doesn’t make the chicken taste any better.
So it’s all OK, nowt special. But I don’t think that’s the point. It’s somewhere to meet pals after you’ve lurked around the Metrocentre. It’s relatively inexpensive for the calorie count.
Wingstop feels at home in the Metrocentre, of course. A little bit soulless, does what you need in a reliable and copy/paste nature. You could be in Dubai, you could be in Dagenham, it’s all the same. Get your food, make your TikTok, and fuck off. For me, it’s more interesting than Bella Italia, or Frankie & Tony’s (just how are they still going?). At Wingstop, you could probably empathise with the parent’s eye rolls when their kid asks to go for the third time this week.
Drake comes on, for the second time in forty-five minutes. It’s my sign to eat up and get out.
Contact: wingstop.co.uk
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