America’s Best Wings (Kalamazoo)
2727 W. Michigan AvenueLast week was a whopper. J and L were in Florida for a figure skating competition. Meanwhile, I stayed home and worked a little over 80’s between my regular job, overtime, and some side work.
Saturday I had a long day of side work. I was at Western Michigan from about noon until almost 11:00 PM.
I got fed in that time. The guys from South Bend I was working with love coming to Kalamazoo because they love Cottage Inn’s Cuban Pizza so we got pizzas for lunch.
I was still really hungry when I got off work right around 11:00. I was in the area of WMU so there are a few options for late night dinners that aren’t fast food.
I don’t know why but earlier in the week I drove down West Michigan Avenue on my way home. I was really surprised to see a new wing place. It was one I had never heard of but that didn’t really matter. There is now a late night wing place near Western.
America’s Best Wings is franchise but it’s hard to figure out just how many franchises there are. The franchising website only shows a few locations in the Dallas area but the phone number to call is an Atlanta number. Doing a quick Google search, the only one that comes up right away is one in Maryland. It looks like this could be an off shoot of Atlanta’s Best Wings but even that’s hard to figure out for sure.
Whatever the corporate structure is, there’s a location in Kalamazoo on West Michigan Avenue in the 2700 West Development just to the west of Howard Street. This particular spot is one that has had some changeover next to the Old Goat Tavern. Most recently, this spot was B-Side Social House. Before that, it was Nick’s Gyros.
There hasn’t been much of a change since this place was B-Side Social House. The layout of the restaurant is the same with an order counter right inside the door in front of the open kitchen. There has been some re-painting but that’s about it. The large menu is on TV monitors hanging above the order counter so you really have to strain your neck looking up. There were a couple of paper menus on the counter as well but I went in pretty prepared.
The rest of the place is seating and it’s kind of a weird layout but, again, that’s always been the case. There are two rails leading down a hallway with chairs if you’re looking for a place to eat solo.
There’s also a small dining room all the way in the back near the entrance from the back parking lot. The place is pretty plain. There’s not much décor the walls which is a bit of a change from the previous tenants. It is much brighter though as the previous restaurant liked to keep things dark and light with LED string lights.
I put in an order for the 10 piece Buffalo Wing combo which came with a 20 oz drink and fries. The unfortunate thing is you only get one sauce choice with ten wings so I had to make a decision. They have 35 options and there were at least a couple I would have liked to try. The cost for the 10 wing combo right around $15.
It took about 15 minute to get my food. They had a pretty big order they were putting together when I got there and there were some online orders too. I was really surprised at how heavy the to-go box was when he handed it over. When I got home and opened it up, there was a lot of food in there.
I started with the fries when I sat down at the table and got myself settled. The fries were the lightly battered frozen fries but they actually tasted really good after the long day of work. I knew the wings were going to destroy my taste buds so I got the fries out of the way first.
You got to have a lot of balls to name your store America’s Best Wings. That means you have to deliver.
I ordered the Hot Garlic wings. I only ordered ten but when I counted the bones when I was done, I think there was actually 12. The wings were much, much larger than you would get from…say….Buffalo Wild Wings and they were still really juicy and really crispy. The Hot garlic was H-O-T. I typically like hot foods and I love hot Buffalo but these were hotter than I was expecting. They were really delicious though. The garlic came through in the beginning but by the time I got to wing 7 or 8, all I was getting was the heat. I had to get up and grab a glass of milk but it was worth it. America’s Best? Probably not…but really dang good and really dang good for the price.
I, honestly, was shocked by not only the amount of food I got from America’s Best Wings but also shocked at just how dang tasty the wings were. I had very low expectations for this place but I’m looking forward to going back and trying more flavors. I love chicken wings and it’s getting more and more expensive to get them at restaurants. This place was affordable but didn’t skimp on the size or flavor.
SW Michigan Dining 