Hooters

If you don’t know what Hooters is, you are absolutely living under a boulder, or in this case – two boulders. This place is widely known for their wonderfully busty waitresses with their scantily clad outfits serving you food and beer during the big game. It is also widely known for having some of the best wings, but this is up to speculation.

Every time I get into a conversation about wings with a group of people, there is always someone who goes on and on about Hooters’ wings and how incredible they are. With the talk of boobs, wings, and beer, it didn’t take much arm twisting to get me to stop in and sample the goods 😉

My family and I (that’s right, this is a family joint) stopped in on a Sunday which happened to be $5 wing night – what a happy coincidence. We sat down, the kids got balloons of their own, and I looked over the menu. Wings, wings, wings were everywhere. Breaded or not, all kinds of sizes, and it’s even offered on the kid’s menu. I ordered 10 of the medium with sides of Hot and 911 to see if it is really so hot that I would need emergency help to put out the flames.

When the wings arrived, they looked a little light on the sauce so I ordered a backup, and ewwww, I wish I didn’t. When you get the sauce on the wings, they are usually tossed while hot and the sauce breaks down from its native paste form that these types of chains carry. But when you order it on the side, you get to see it in all of its glory which in this situation was nasty nasty nasty. So nasty, I just had to include a photo of this curdling milk/applesauce-looking vomit to better illustrate why I would not want this anywhere near my wings, or mouth for that matter. I put the container as far from view as possible and poured on some of the Hot sauce instead. This sauce was super buttery and was not enjoyable either. I was hoping that there was at least a 33.33333% chance that I would get something edible from these sauces, so I turned to the 911 to save the day. The 911 sauce was hot but totally bearable, and didn’t really offer anything great in terms of taste. I’m batting a thousand here and ready to throw in the towel. My last ditch effort was to order a side of what they call 3 Mile Island, and to my amazement, it was okay and probably the best Hooters has to offer. It was a little too hot for my taste, but at least this allowed me to complete my meal.

Other than my traumatic experiences in Hooters sauce land, their wings were just like any other average plate of wings that I’ve had… pretty straight forward, though they did keep the tips and wings together. The tenderness and size were all average, which is funny because the way people talk about this place, I was expecting these guys to be made of gold.

Ultimately Hooters wings were cooked well, but once you put any one of their sauces on top, you transform it into something that is not appetizing. I think that may be the reason for the scantily clad waitresses: to distract you from how horrible their Buffalo wings really are. And the fact that so many people pledge that these are the all time best wings just boggles my mind. So, if you find yourself in a “where to get great wings” conversation and the result comes back Hooters… smile politely and move on to the next wing eater’s opinion.

Hooters
9183 Roosevelt Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19114
(215) 698-9464