Lord of the Wings: East Coast Wings & Grill âEUR˜BlazesâEUR Past the Competition at National Buffalo Wing Festival
The North Carolina-based chain took home top prizes in two of the annual eventâEUR s more popular competitions.
WINSTON-SALEM, NC, September 22, 2010
It took nine years for East Coast Wings & Grill to finally attend the National Buffalo Wing Festival, but the wait paid off as the North Carolina-based chain took home top prizes in two of the annual eventâEUR s more popular competitions.Held over Labor Day Weekend in the namesakeâEUR s birthplace, Buffalo, NY, the 9th annual festival attracted an estimated 71,000 visitors and featured a potpourri of local and national restaurants competing in various categories, including the highly touted âEURœbest wingâEUR category, which rates sauces ranging from traditional hot, traditional X-hot, creative spicy, creative barbeque and traditional medium.
East Coast Wings & Grill submitted recipes in the creative spicy, traditional and sweet sauce categories, taking first place for its traditional hot sauce and second prize in the creative spicy category with its Santa Fe Inferno wing. Contestants were judged solely based on taste by 12 blindfolded judges.
âEURœBeing a first time contestant, we specifically wanted to place entries in categories that would allow us to compete with some of the other brand giants in the industry,âEUR said Sam Ballas, CEO of East Coast Wings & Grill. âEURœWe couldnâEUR t be more pleased about our showing at the festival and truly establishing ourselves as one of the premier concepts in the industry.âEUR
Today, East Coast Wings & Grill continues to outperform others in the casual dining segment with 26 consecutive quarters of positive, double-digit same-store sales. Serving 75 flavors and 675 combinations of buffalo style wings to chicken wing lovers at its 15 restaurants throughout North Carolina, the burgeoning brand further differentiates itself from other wing concepts by offering a six-page menu that also includes such casual dining fare as BuffalajitaâEUR s  (East Coast Wings & GrillâEUR s version of fajitas), burgers, salads and Southwestern-style appetizers.
For more information on East Coast Wings & Grill and to find a restaurant location near you, visit http://www.eastcoastwings.com.
ABOUT EAST COAST WINGS
East Coast Wings & Grill, a fast growing casual dining chicken wing franchise, has 17 locations in North Carolina and expected to have 36-40 opened by year end 2011 throughout the country. The franchise concept not only caters to the chicken wing lover, which hit previously unseen levels of popularity in 2009 including the sale of more than 13 billion whole chicken wings, by offering 75 different flavors of chicken wings, but also salads, wraps, sandwiches, burgers and more, all using fresh not frozen ingredients. To learn more about the franchise concept or about exciting franchise opportunities please visit http://www.eastcoastwings.com for more information.