[SpotOn Series] Scaling a Restaurant Brand With Eric Slaymaker, Founder and CEO of Wingers

Eric Slaymaker is the Founder and CEO of Wingers Restaurant & Alehouse, a family-friendly sports alehouse known for its robust craft beer selection and tasty wings. He has a rich history in the restaurant industry, following in the entrepreneurial footsteps of his father, who was a franchisee of several nationally recognized brands. Eric, along with his brother Scott, has also been a franchise owner of various restaurant brands and played a pivotal role in franchising the Wingers brand. In addition to his extensive experience in restaurateuring, Eric was a founding partner of alternative radio stations in the 1990s and often performs with the Irish rock band, The Young Dubliners.

Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:

[01:37] Creating the fun and energetic vibe of Wingers Restaurant & Alehouse
[02:19] Eric Slaymaker’s motivation behind starting Wingers, inspired by his father’s legacy in the restaurant industry
[07:00] How Wingers evolved from a diner to a gastropub-style alehouse over the last 30 years
[08:17] Wingers’ strategy for managing and supporting franchise locations
[14:44] Essential qualities Wingers looks for in potential franchisees and why local ownership is crucial
[17:25] How Wingers sets itself apart from other franchise opportunities by targeting smaller markets
[20:42] Key considerations for finding a successful restaurant location
[25:32] Eric’s vision for modern marketing strategies and creating messages that resonate
[29:19] Why Eric chose to open an alehouse instead of a steakhouse or a Mexican restaurant

In this episode…

The restaurant industry faces dynamic challenges and evolving consumer preferences, requiring constant adaptation for success. What strategies can entrepreneurs adopt to sustain their business during uncertain times?

According to restaurant industry veteran Eric Slaymaker, adaptability and operational efficiency are key to thriving in the restaurant business. Eric emphasizes the importance of building strong teams, focusing on customer experience, and maintaining a flexible approach to menu offerings. These strategies helped him navigate economic downturns and changing consumer preferences.

On this episode of the Top Business Leaders Show, Rise25’s Chad Franzen welcomes Eric Slaymaker, Founder and CEO of Wingers Restaurant & Alehouse to discuss his journey in the restaurant industry, lessons learned from his years of experience, and insights on how to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market. Eric shares why Wingers is a good franchise opportunity and describes the ideal franchisee. He also reveals which menu item has replaced wings as the brand’s most popular offering.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“I wanted to create something a little bit smaller package and be able to do it without a larger investment.”
“We really aimed to target smaller markets and be very successful where our national competitors can’t make sense of.”
“Your successful restaurant is never any more successful than the general manager.”
“We can teach them the Wingers way and through our training.”
“Create a great message that exhibits what the experience is like when you walk into a Wingers Alehouse.”

Action Steps:

Prioritize hiring and developing great general managers: A strong leader at the helm of each restaurant ensures efficient operations and customer satisfaction, which ultimately drives business success.
Target smaller markets for franchise expansion: This strategy allows for establishing a powerful local presence, with reduced competition and potential for strong community engagement.
Invest in an effective, resonant marketing message: Crafting a message that conveys your brand’s experience can capitalize on targeted advertising efforts and forge a strong connection with potential customers.
Overinvest in franchise support systems: Providing comprehensive training and ongoing support fosters franchisee success and ensures brand consistency across locations.
Embrace digital and social media marketing: Adopting modern marketing strategies allows for precise targeting and efficient use of resources, increasing visibility and attracting a broad customer base.

Sponsor for this episode

SpotOn:

Today’s episode is brought to you by SpotOn. SpotOn has transformed the merchant service industry by providing the tools and support your business deserves at a price that puts money back into your pocket!

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Whether you are a merchant or a consumer, SpotOn wants to be more than an average payment processor. SpotOn aims to exceed your expectations by valuing simplicity, maintaining flexibility, and celebrating innovative collaboration. Let SpotOn help you do business the right way.

Partner with SpotOn today! Visit spoton.com today to schedule your free demo or to view SpotOn’s products. You can also call SpotOn at 877.814.4102 at any time. Let SpotOn help you make the difference with your business!

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show. Powered by Rise25 Media, we feature top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world.

Chad Franzen 0:19

Hi. Chad Franzen here, co-host for this show, where we feature top restaurant tours, investors and business leaders. This is part of our SpotOn series. SpotOn has the best in class payment platform for retail, and they have a flagship solution called SpotOn Restaurant, where they combine marketing software and payments all in one. They’ve served everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and subway to small mom and pop restaurants to learn more. Go to spoton.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25 we help b2b businesses to get ROI clients, referrals and strategic partnerships through done for you podcasts. If you have a b2b business and want to build great relationships with clients, referral partners and thought leaders in your space, there’s no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more, go to rise25.com or email us at support@rise25.com My guest today is Eric Slaymaker. Eric is the CEO and founder of the Wingers Alehouse brand, a family friendly sports Ale House that has been around for 30 years in the Mountain West and is now expanding into the Midwest. Eric and his brother Scott have also been franchisees with a number of different Restaurant Brands, and Eric was the founding partner of an alternative radio station of our alternative radio stations in the 1990s. In his spare time, he is a special musical guest with a few music musical artists, and performs frequently with the internationally famous Irish rock band, The Young Dubliners all around the United States. Eric, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?

Eric Slaymaker 1:43

Good. Great to Great to be here with you. Chad,

Chad Franzen 1:46

Hey, uh, tell me, if I go to Wingers for the first time today, what kind of vibe would I experience?

Eric Slaymaker 1:53

Uh, hopefully you will get a high energy, fun experience. It is certainly a bit of a sports bar vibe, but we kind of stopped short of calling ourselves a full fledged sports bar. It would be a little more of a gastropub experience, but, but probably, you know, the number one thing is we, we would want you to to walk away and say that I had great food and I had a really fun time.

Chad Franzen 2:28

Okay, awesome. So you started it in 1993, what kind of inspired you to start Wingers back then?

Eric Slaymaker 2:35

Well, I was, I was my brother and I our father, was in the restaurant business, and he was a franchisee. He became, fact, if you go back to the 1980s he became, well, even in the 70s, he became the franchisee with Sizzler Restaurants, of all places where now I’m based out of Salt Lake City and our father was based in Salt Lake, says, growing up, he went and got the franchise rights to Sizzler Restaurants for Alaska. And how he did that, not living in Alaska, I have no damn idea at the time, I was pretty young, but he convinced them to give them the franchise rights to him, and he became a franchisee and had successful kind of back in the Sizzler Restaurant heydays, back when, when in the heyday of the salad bar, 70s and 80s, if you will. He had restaurants in Alaska and Wyoming, and then he became involved with a Mexican chain franchise group as a franchisee Chi-Chi’s and and I think he opened a Chi-Chi’s in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1983 that was for the time. Now, Utah has been relatively conservative, particularly conservative when it came to, you know, alcohol and liquor. And I remember I was, I was kind of young at the time, but I remember somebody saying, there, this was the first restaurant in Utah that actually had was a bar and cantina actually in restaurant combined, because in Utah, you were either a restaurant or a bar, and you kind of, you didn’t mix them, and it was quite unique. At that point, very successful. He sold those, and then he became involved with TGI Fridays and Tony Roma’s back in the day. So he was, he was very entrepreneurish, and was, you know, obviously quite a player in regional, player in the franchise world. And I, having grown up in that and and having been involved and actually working for my dad for a little bit, I really was incentivized. I wanted to be a I wanted to create my own brand. I wanted to be a franchisor. And so over time, taking. Notes. I, you know, scraped up my every little bit and found little investors. And then 1993 opened the first Wingers at that point. It was called Wingers diner. It was a small, little 2,900-square foot diner style building just outside of Salt Lake City. And what that first location that was opened, there are a few threads that some of the food items, some of the sauce so famous for still is alive and vibrant today. But as far as the experience the brand has evolved dramatically in those 30 years, and so the buildings and the environments that we are growing with and developing now are quite a bit different than that first small little store that we opened 30 years ago.

Chad Franzen 6:16

What kind of responsibilities did you have in your dad’s restaurants?

Eric Slaymaker 6:21

I was mainly involved, as in, in marketing. And I started getting involved when my brother was involved in restaurant operations at the time. And so I, you know, I kind of learned from that. And I came in from from, from the from the marketing side, as I had just gotten out of college, and so was, you know, kind of learned and SAP soaked up everything I could and and really kind of took that experience to develop what I thought would be a successful, smaller brand in in the Wingers diner brand at the time. And so, yeah, that’s, that’s really where, where it happened and where, you know, I kind of jumped off the ledge with Wingers. And 30 years later, we’re still here and and now we’re now, we’re ramping up growth. So…

Chad Franzen 7:16

Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. So had you already been a franchisee yourself prior to opening Wingers?

Eric Slaymaker 7:24

Not, not prior to opening Wingers. What interesting that happened is, just a couple years after that first location opened, my brother Scott and I, our father died, and so he died in 1995 and so our operation, Scott and I took over becoming franchisees. So technically, I became, I became franchisees as our operation took over, we still had Tony Romans and TGI Fridays at that time. So certainly understood and knew the franchisee business and then also Wingers was just a small, you know, at that point, just a couple of locations. And so we were just, we were just barely starting to grow on the winger side, but we were still quite involved. My brother Scott was more involved in operations with our franchise restaurants, and I was a little more focused on on our Wingers brand as that was developing and growing.

Chad Franzen 8:33

Let’s say, was the vibe maybe at the second location a lot different than the first one, which we said was kind of said was kind of more like an eatery, or did that change more? So?

Eric Slaymaker 8:42

No, no, that really, that the bigger change came later on, really, for the first 10 years of Wingers development, we opened stores in Utah and a couple stores in Idaho, and we really kept that small diner footprint, and it was successful. But we did find, we did learn. We opened a couple stores outside of Utah, and that diner model, we did not work as well. It only did 75% of the revenue that our Utah stores were doing, and with Wingers at the time, was a full service brand. Was not fast casual so it was not something that you would order at the counter and take out. But we did learn as we went outside of Utah, if you’re going to be full service, you really need we did not have a full offering of adult beverages, alcohol bar. We just didn’t have that. If you’re going to be full service and you go, you know, it was successful locally and regionally, but it didn’t travel. And I think, having been in so many of us have been in food service. We, you know, we find things that work in certain areas of the country, and they just and they don’t travel very well. And so we have evolved. We actually started opening our first locations that had full bar and then jumping forward in the conversation in 26 Steam. We actually did our first, what we call Wingers Alehouse test, where we took a store in Napa, Idaho, which is just outside of Boise, and it did have a full bar, but we really reimagined that location completely. We took it from 10 beer taps to 40 beer taps, and we remodeled the restaurant, and that store reopened. And the week it reopened, it was about 60% up in sales. And that location, Today, that same location, is doing almost two and a half to three times the volume it did before we changed it to the L house. So we are very, very at this point, pretty our prototype will do, typically, about 40 beers on draft. We do it is very craft beer forward with what we feel is, is a great culinary experience with with Kraft food and and sometimes I kind of joke that it only took us about 20 or 25 years to figure out that it’s Wow, it’s It’s fantastic wing fingers and beer and so, but now I flip that around, is, very interestingly, is, is our our brand now actually does better outside of our home base of Utah than it does. We have great stores in Utah, but we will still do anywhere from 25 to 35% higher volumes outside of the state, primarily because of the beverage component that we get when we go outside of Utah, just those additional cells.

Chad Franzen 12:10

And so is that model? Is that model that you described in Napa? Is that? Can that be found in other locations then as well?

Eric Slaymaker 12:17

Yeah, yep. And we’ve actually spent, you know, we’ve actually been retrofitting existing stores, and all of our new growth is now, you know, with our Wingers, what, what we brand, and as our Wingers, l house brand and, and we did, and particularly a couple of years ago, we said, hey, now it’s it’s really time that we expand beyond we strong and very prominent in the Intermountain, Rocky Mountain region, and knew that the brand was ripe and as time to be going and expanding. And we’re really focused on expanding into the Midwest right now. And so you know several states going in towards Wyoming, Colorado. We open in Oklahoma next month, several new franchisees developing in Texas. And so all through that corridor, the Midwest is where we are really targeting, and feel like our brand is ripe for growth right now.

Chad Franzen 13:21

So in that case, it’ll all be franchising in the Midwest.

Eric Slaymaker 13:25

We’re looking to franchise through there, and if the right opportunity comes along that it makes sense for company stores will. We’re certainly open to that. But you know, from having been a franchisee in the systems we talked about having been a franchisor, I’m still a real firm believer in the franchise system. I think number one is we’ve been a franchisor now for about 20 years, and it there’s a learning curve there. There’s a learning curve on how to be a good franchise, or how to be able to work with franchisees and get consistency among the stores. And at the same time, we’ve been on the other side of that equation, and we know what it takes to be a good franchisee, and that’s what that relationship looks like. And I’m still a firm believer that when you get great local franchisees, and you have local ownership, and there’s there’s still nothing like having that franchisee and owner who are regional, who were there and they they bring the right concept and brand to their to their area, and it’s a formula that I still think, you know, franchising has continued to grow and continue to build, and it’s not going away. And there’s a reason why.

Chad Franzen 15:00

What do you think makes a good franchisee? Like, what do you look for in a potential franchisee?

Eric Slaymaker 15:04

So the first one is, is really, it’s passion, it’s somebody who we are. You know. Who just brings that drive and passion, and it’s that entrepreneurial spirit and we certainly want somebody who’s had experience owning and running businesses. It’s not 100% necessary to us that the the franchise owner, the main franchise owner is has operated restaurants before, because a lot of times we’ve had a lot of great franchisees who’ve been real estate in the real estate business, for example, and they may not be running a store, but you know, we they brought in operating partners who really deal with the day to day operations and, and that’s been a real successful formula for us. And, and so at the same time, there’s probably three pieces to that puzzle. Number one is the geographic area ripe and it’s good for where do we like that for our brand? Number two is, do we want a franchise owner? Or a lot of times, it’s a franchise partnership group, you know, it might be a group of a couple owners, or two or three owners, are they capitalized well enough to be able to do that. It’s always, if you listen to franchisors a lot, one of the things is, is, you know, you don’t want to bring on franchisees who were who were not capitalized and can’t actually accomplish whatever their whatever their goals are, whatever their business plan is, and and we do like to have a one of the partners to have to be the operating partner, somebody who has the the full time job of operating that business, day to day, operating that business. And we usually like to have an operating partner who would have at least 20% equity or interest in the franchise partnership. And so we can certainly teach them the skills. We can teach them our way in the Wingers way and and through our training. But we do like to have that operating partner who is able to bring some type of restaurant experience.

Chad Franzen 17:33

What do you think with all of the you know, the franchise opportunities out there? What do you think Seth kind of sets away? Kind of sets Wingers apart as a franchise opportunity?

Eric Slaymaker 17:41

So the number one thing that Wingers does is we use one of our monitors. We like to call ourselves America’s small town Ale House. And what that means is we’ve built our brand with the thought is we, we love to be, to be able to target smaller markets and be very successful in in those markets, markets that a lot of our national competitors can’t make sense of, can’t look we have A really, we have a strong a UV or, you know, unit volume, but the same time, we’re able to make small markets, like places you probably maybe haven’t heard of, Elko, Nevada and Mountain Home, Idaho and Pocatello, Idaho, and Richfield, Utah, and Rock Springs Wyoming, and we’re kind of a big fish in a small pond. And for those franchisees, for those entrepreneurs, those developers, who you know, are looking for the right brand to be able to bring to a little smaller markets, that is really our bread and butter, and that’s our niche. Now, at the same time, sure, we are in some metropolitan areas and we do well there. But at the same time, you know, our typical AUV is about two and a half million to 2.9 million. And you know some of our larger national competitors. You take Texas Roadhouse or an olive garden or places like those you know they’re, they’re typically looking for four to 5 million in top line sales when they open a new unit, and they’re gonna have a hard time looking at smaller markets that we can make sense of. The other piece too is our typical size of our restaurants, about 4500 square feet. So it’s a little bit smaller than, you know, Buffalo Wild Wings is a big you know, you you’d have to call them a competitor too, because they’re in the they’re, they’re 800 pound gorilla sports bar and and so, but their typical units are, they’re going to be more 6,000-7,000 square feet. So ours are smaller. They’re actually scaled down a little bit for those smaller markets and that’s where we’ve tried. Keep ourselves and so that we can go into those smaller towns all across the Midwest and us and really make economic sense of those markets where and so, you know your question, and I bring that up, it really provides Wingers Alehouse for a unique positioning opportunity, and that is our bread and butter is really small town America.

Chad Franzen 20:42

What are some of the keys to a Well, you mentioned some of them to a successful, you know, location to one location. Is it the location itself? You know, is it near other restaurants? What are some other keys to a successful location, maybe even involved with marketing.

Eric Slaymaker 20:58

So the first one, the first one’s kind of a no brainer. Chad that you probably heard a successful restaurant is never any more successful than the general manager, and it always comes down with having a great GM and and a general manager can make or break a location. And so hiring and developing great GMs is absolutely critical. Now, getting beyond that, you know a formula that we love from a location. Formula is we love that smaller town sites that, for us would be a lot of times on a freeway exit in a smaller town that would have maybe three, maybe four, of hotel brands, some you know, particularly sometimes you know, some of the national brands that you’ll see next to us that’s that’s been a strategy that’s almost been a no Miss strategy for us in in a lot of ways, you think about it, we’re kind of employing the the Cracker Barrel strategy, but we’re bringing a little bit more of of a we’re not Quite that country theme. We’re a little more of a you would, you would look at a little more of a sports bar. L, how? You know, gastropub theme, but bringing it to smaller markets, but that has been a formula that is absolutely fantastic for us.

Chad Franzen 22:31

In what ways do you guys kind of support, maybe your franchisees and also ensure brain consistency.

Eric Slaymaker 22:39

Yeah, so great question. And again, I’ll, I’ll go back and refer to so we’ve been a franchisee, so we’ve been really lucky to be able to be involved in in a few different franchisor systems, and being able to see franchise support systems that were very effective and some that were maybe not as effective. And the one thing that I feel, I feel really proud about and really strong about, is I think that we have, we have really gone out of our way to build our franchise support team and our and in a way, quite frankly, we’ve really over invested the last few years in in our overall structure and GNA with, you know, we have, there’s, there’s really two pieces To our franchise support. The first one is when we have new franchisees. Is our manager training piece where new managers for a new store come out. We have, we have a 12 week training curriculum that we will bring franchisees out to or their management teams, excuse me out to training stores, and it’s a 12-week program that they go through and and so that’s the initial part, and then but the other part, and then, during opening, we have our full training teams we’ll send out To, you know, a training team of up to six people from our corporate training teams, and they’re there before opening. They stay after opening, and then we really have our team after that, who takes over for ongoing support, and that are in-market, in the stores working with that training team. You know, we, we almost provide what would be a divisional manager for every single store and that they’re working and working with that full team and ongoing, we try to, we look to provide ongoing training all the time, ongoing updates. And so I feel pretty proud, you know, like I said, as we’ve been able to base our franchise support and operations system off of some great franchisor experience. And so I feel really good about where we are as understanding that we’re we’re we’ve been doing this for a while. We’re not new to it. We feel like we know how to provide really good franchisor support, and we can continue to really support and build the brand and keep consistency among the brand as you, as you say, as we continue to grow.

Chad Franzen 25:39

Has your experience in advertising and media buying affected your approach to marketing Wingers?

Eric Slaymaker 25:48

Yeah, it has, although, you know, one of the things that’s that’s there, you know, everything’s changed. And there’s probably nothing that has changed more than marketing and advertising. I know I can think of when I was, you know, when I was back doing marketing, advertising, even media buying. I was doing media buying, and it was really at that point you kind of had, you kind of had so many options. You had the big you could do television if you had enough locations inside a market, or you could do radio and you do direct mail pieces back in the day. Now, with the onset of digital, over the last 10-15 years, things have so dramatically changed. And yeah, all of those, all of those other standard mediums are still out there, but you know the way now that you can target and just market and advertise around each individual location, you can target each location and just market within five miles of that location is, is such a change, and so dramatically different than than when I first started, and I was just a young kid back then, and now I’m an old guy. So, you know, the answer is yes, and yet the answer is, you know, there’s the mediums that change so dramatically. Now you go back at the end of the day, I think marketing always comes down. The message has to resonate, throw away, throw away the method you’re getting, you’re getting, you know, out there, whether it’s going out digitally, whether it’s going out through social media. The one thing is the message. People have to see that message, and it has to resonate in some form. And no matter you could, you could buy all of the digital or TV if you want. But if the message is not compelling, and it doesn’t, you know, it’s not resonating with people who are seeing it, it’s not going to be very effective. So you know, it has to start off with the message and the creative, and you have to be able to express, you know, and convey what that experience that the brand, that experience of the brand, you’ve got to be able to to message that quickly in marketing. And so that’s number one, if you’ve got a great message, and it really, it really exhibits what the experience is like when you would walk into a Wingers l house, I can almost guarantee that that you will have the will have an effective campaign, no matter what medium we put it on, so that you know it really is. Create a great message. Create one that resonates, create one that people are interested in. And you’re going to have a successful you’re going to be able to have a successful marketing campaign one way or the other.

Chad Franzen 29:01

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Very nice. So you mentioned your father was involved in Outback Steakhouses, Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurants, and you said TGI Fridays.

Eric Slaymaker 29:11

I said, Sizzler Steakhouses.

Chad Franzen 29:12

Oh, Sizzler Steakhouse. Sorry. Sorry,

Eric Slaymaker 29:14

Yeah, that’s okay. Yeah, Chi-Chi’s, back in the 80s, TGI Fridays and Tony Roma’s and —

Chad Franzen 29:25

Tony Roma ribs, yeah. And then you guys started Wingers. What? What led you to kind of go down that route, as opposed to maybe recreating a Mexican restaurant or something like that?

Eric Slaymaker 29:35

Well, I, you know, I tell you, the biggest, one of the biggest motivations for me is when I watched the opening of being a franchisee at TGI Fridays. And this is back when, you know, TGI Fridays was really in, in the heyday. Fact, back in the 90s, where they, you know, were growing and doing well. They struggled a little bit lately, but the one thing TGI Fridays at the time, it was extremely large, complicated. They’re like, they’re like, mega ships trying to get open. Very expensive to get open, expensive buildings. And part of my motivation was the same, hey, I think, I think we can create something a little bit smaller package, and be able to do it without, without the, you know, a little bit smaller investment. You don’t need as many workers and employees, and really, so that was probably the main motivation, is to be able to create something that just wasn’t so massive, and just that whole experience from Fridays. And so that really was that drove wanting to do the first Wingers and open up that first Wingers. And so I know our stores are a little bit larger than they were in that first 2,900 square foot location now, but I still feel like from an operation standpoint, from a building, from an investment standpoint, it’s, it’s a little, it’s a little simpler, it’s a little easier. It’s not, it’s not as big and massive as some of our other national competitors. And that’s kind of the spot, that’s kind of the spot we wanted to be and wanted to stay right.

Chad Franzen 31:33

I have one more question for you. But first, how can people find out more about Wingers as a restaurant or Wingers as a franchise opportunity.

Eric Slaymaker 31:40

So then go to to wingersalehouse.com, it could also be directed through wingerbros.com, that’s our management company. And they could also go to wingersfranchising.com and any of those websites will direct them to and they can learn about the brand. They can learn about franchising opportunities, if, if they would like to, and we’d always love to talk to people about that.

Chad Franzen 32:10

Sounds good. Last question for you. So when you go to Wingers as a customer, what? What is your go-to item or combination of items?

Eric Slaymaker 32:24

That, boy, that is a good question, because one of my rules is I always try to order something different every single time. But the better answer for you is, because my wife goes and I can’t keep her from ordering a sticky finger salad. And a sticky finger salad is, it’s, it’s our number one selling salad. It’s, it has our custom sticky fingers, which are our diced chicken fingers, hand breaded chicken fingers, but they’re coated in our Wingers original sauce, which we, you know, one of the things that’s been consistent from day one we we had our original Wingers, original Wingers sauce from day one. And anybody who’s been to Wingers, the number one thing is, we have 18 different sauces or rubs, but everybody craves our original winger sauce. We’re, we’re famous for, we ship it all over the world. And but, you know, I can, it’s like, I try to get my wife to order something different and, and she won’t. She just has to have that every single time. And sometimes it drives me wild, because I wanted to, I have to force her to order something different. But that is, that is just a staple. You know? It is kind of funny, because our name is Wingers. We opened up with wings being a real staple of the menu. And a quick little story is we used to have, for the first 10 years of our existence, we had a chicken finger dinner on the menu, and it was in the entree section, and it never sold very well, and it was probably in the bottom third of our of our menu items, as far as the, you know, in our menu item detail, as far as what, how much it was ordered. And I remember it was about, it was after we’d probably been around for 12 years, when we said, you know, what we really ought to do is take our chicken fingers and sauce them like we do our wings in our original sauce and and just, we call them sticky fingers, just for it was a fun name. It was kind of an afterthought at the time. And we put those on the menu. We put them on the appetizer section. We put a sticky finger dinner, which is basically, you know, it’s just a dinner made of that. Long story short is we watched every single year for the next 10 years, sticky fingers kept growing in popularity. Our name is Wingers Alehouse, we serve more sticky fingers these days. We do wings, even though we sell a ton of wings, but Sticky Fingers are. It’s really our version of boneless wings. And but it’s, it’s, it’s shocked it, well, it shocked me that they would become so popular. And it has been kind of fun to sit in and watch and see. Yeah, we, we still, we sell more sticky fingers than we do wings, believe it or not, and so and so, yeah, and on an item that we just kind of, it was, it was kind of a last second thought, Yeah, throw those on the menu and let’s see how they do and so, yeah.

Chad Franzen 35:53

Funny how things work out, huh? Hey, Eric, it’s been great to talk to you. Thanks so much for all your time and sharing your journey through the restaurant industry and the history of Wingers and everything you’ve got you guys have going on now. Really appreciate it.

Eric Slaymaker 36:05

Thanks, Chad.

Chad Franzen 36:08

So long everybody.

Outro 36:09

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