During university, going out for cheap wings with friends were a monthly, if not weekly meal. Now, it’s more of an indulgence and it’s harder to schedule with work and family commitments. I’m lucky to have a group of friends who all live in the North York area and enjoy eating. We met up at St. Louis on a Tuesday to take advantage of their half priced chicken wing special.

Atmosphere: The St. Louis location in North York is made up of two restaurants. There’s a normal St. Louis on the first floor, and the second floor is called The Lounge with more seating, a nice patio and louder music. The Lounge serves the same menu as downstairs and offers the same specials. There’s lot of TVs with sports and the tables are packed together. If you’re stopping by on a Tuesday, get there before 7pm. Our group was second in line and it was only a 10 minute wait for a table. As we were leaving at 9pm, the line snaked all the way down the stairs and out the door.

Service: Our service wasn’t terrible but it also wasn’t great. At first our group was split between two tables of 4 that were diagonal from each other. When a table cleared up next to one of them, we were able to move easily and the servers were helpful. It was a busy night and it was hard to flag someone down. I felt the service was a bit disorganized and not the most efficient.

Food: When the baskets of wings arrived, I took out my camera and all of my friends snickered. “Are you going to take the same picture of each basket of wings?” they asked. I had to oblige once the challenge was put forth (I’m only posting 6 though, the other two baskets were more fry than wing).

St. Louis runs specials every day of the week but the Tuesday offer is the best value for wings. With a drink order, 1lb and 2lb wings orders are half priced from 4pm to close, making the price/pound being $8 after tax and tip. I am also a big fan of St. Louis’ fries and their signature garlic dill sauce, going through a good package-2 per basket.

For wing flavours, we tried the plain, lemon pepper, cajun, medium dry, hot and honey, Caribbean jerk, chili lime and honey garlic. In general, I liked the dry spice wings better than the saucey ones. Of the dry flavours, my favourite was the lemon pepper. The acidity was crisp and the spice from the pepper was light. Between the three sweet flavours, I had a hard time telling them apart. All of them were fine and none stood out as amazing. I really liked the Cajun and the Caribbean jerk was my least favourite. Each chicken wing was small to medium sized and there was an even ratio of drumstick to wing. I was full after 6 or 7 wings while the boys at the table had a few more. Each basket came with ~8 wings.

At the end of the night, our bill came to $15/head which was a great deal.

After a morning of ice fishing on Lake Simcoe my friends and I were ready for a big lunch. Some quick Googling led us to Big Bone BBQ, a quick 5 minute drive away from the lake and BBQ seemed to fit the occasion. The restaurant was quiet with a few occupied tables and one server taking care of the entire dining area. We placed our drink orders, including a cup of warm tea, and started to study the menu. We went with a Party Pack of ribs and wings and a pulled pork combo to taste everything. There are so many wing options it was hard to narrow it down to just two. I prefer dry wings and we decided to try the dry cajun along with the original smoked.

All of the food arrived quickly, two platters with ribs and wings, two platters with pulled pork, corn bread, coleslaw and beans and a platter of fries. Of all the BBQ, my favourite were the dry cajun wings. The chicken was tender on the inside, fried crispy on the outside and I loved the seasoning. The original smoked wings were also great and had a nice tangy sauce. Next I liked the ribs, which were fall off the bone, charred and the sauce wasn’t too sweet. The pulled pork however was not the best, a bit dry and way too sweet. I would’ve happily traded the pound of pulled pork for more wings instead. As for the sides, none of them were outstanding and the cornbread was a little disappointing. I did devour their fries, which I believe were Costco fries, they were seasoned and crispy.

Big Bone BBQ has 6 other locations in Ontario in addition to the Barrie outpost, including one in Markham and Woodbridge. I’d definitely check out the Markham location to try a few more wing flavours.