We were excited when we got to go to Wingstock in Mesa this year. For one thing, it was an all day event centered around hot wings and they were serving beer. What’s not to love about that? Secondly, we got in free with some media passes because we were running this blog which was enough of a glimpse at legitimacy to feed our egos.
More importantly, we were introduced to quite a few new hot wing places all at once. A lot of them struggled to deliver quality wings given the circumstances (its hard to attempt to recreate anything resembling your restaurant’s kitchen under an awning at Mesa Amphitheatre), some places didn’t even really try (I’m looking at you Antar’s), but some of them really came out strong. Teakwoods and Long Wong’s were good as always. Jimbo’s was a good new place we discovered. NY Boyz was killing it like they always do. Cogburn’s was right in the middle of it with the best of them.
If I remember correctly Cogburn’s was the second place we tried at Wingstock (he first being Fat Willie’s, who had some pretty mediocre wings and had us thinking we might be in for a disappointment for the day). Cogburn’s dispelled that idea. We had never heard of Cogburn’s before Wingstock but they impressed us at their booth quickly. They were very friendly, they seemed like they gave a shit about what they were doing, and they seemed genuinely happy to be serving us some wings. They also gave us some free sunscreen which was a nice touch and much needed since we didn’t bring any of our own.